TLC II: The Bodies Hit the Floor.


For someone whose World Wrestling Federation career is not yet five years old, Edge has a very long list of classic matches from which to select one as his favorite. Singles matches, tag-team battles and every
furniture-related stipulation match imaginable populate Edge's resume, making it hard to single out just one.

"The first ladder match against the Hardy Boyz at No Mercy kind of showed the world what Christian and I could do," Edge says. "We were in a situation where people weren't sitting up and taking notice yet, but that match made them. The Triple Threat Ladder Match at WrestleMania XVI, where we won the Tag Team titles for the first time, was great. So were TLC I, TLC II and TLC III."Feelings-wise and emotionally, my first Intercontinental Championship win (over Jeff Jarrett in Toronto) might be the most special, but I'd have to say my favorite was TLC II at WrestleMania X-Seven. It was at the Reliant Astrodome in Houston, and it was the largest crowd I'd wrestled in front of. The atmosphere was just awesome. It was a great show top to bottom."

In many ways, WrestleMania is the most difficult venue in which to have a classic bout people will talk about for years to come, simply because there are so many hot matches at that show every year. At X-Seven, for example, there was the brutal WWF Championship match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, and the No-Holds-Barred Match with Undertaker and Triple H heading up the card.
But when the 60,000-plus fans streamed out of the Astrodome on April 1, 2001, the match most of them were talking about with awe in their voices was TLC II. Edge & Christian, the Hardy Boyz and the Dudley Boyz sacrificed their bodies and put on a spellbinding display of athleticism, savagery and wanton disregard for their well-being that will stand tall in the annals of the Federation for decades.

Going into the match, the stakes were incredibly high. Not only was this taking place at the greatest show in all of sports-entertainment, but the six combatants were trying to pull off the unenviable task of topping their original TLC Match - a true barnburner which elevated all three teams into the upper echelons of the Federation."There was pressure going in, definitely," Edge remembers. "I wasn't nervous, though, because I knew what all six of us can do. We put pressure on ourselves to live up to TLC I and to live up to WrestleMania, but you can't go out there and do exactly the same thing. We came up with
intricate new ways to kill ourselves."

It was an absolute train wreck of a match - in the very best sense of the phrase. Minute after minute of controlled chaos and gasp-inducing bumps thrilled the record-setting Astrodome crowd and the millions watching at home on pay-per-view. Run-ins by Lita, Rhyno and Spike brought the number of bodies flying in and around the ring to nine. There were tables pulverized by falling bodies and near-grabs of the title belts which were suspended above the ring.

Towards the end of the match, a ridiculously large 20-foot ladder joined the three normal-sized ones in the ring. Jeff Hardy was the first to scale it, as he Swanton-Bombed Rhyno and Spike through a table on the outside of the ring. The giant ladder was then pulled into the ring, setting the stage for one of the most unforgettable moments of Edge's stellar career. "Edge scaled the massive superladder and nailed a picture-perfect spear on Jeff Hardy as he dangled from the cable holding the title belts, eliciting a
deafening pop from the huge crowd and a hearty "For the love of God!" from Jim Ross at ringside. Almost a year later, Edge is still fond of recounting the moment.

"That spot is in the Desire video, and I watched it recently," he says. "They have that moment in slow-motion, and I don't think I realized until then that when we land, you can see the crowd bounce. They just
bounced with it. To be able to elicit such a response and emotion from the crowd is just incredible to look back on. "I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Jeff because we did that together. We made a little bit of wrestling history there - all six of us did. But that's a moment he and I share."

Moments later, before the crowd had a chance to collect its collective breath, Bubba Ray Dudley and Matt Hardy scaled the giant ladder and were pushed off by Rhyno, falling from the 20-foot ladder, over the ropes and through a stack of four tables on the outside of the ring. Soon after, Christian scaled the massive ladder with an assist from Rhyno, and snared the belts, ending one of the all-time WrestleMania classics.The secret of the match's greatness, Edge says, was continuous action."The great part of a match like that is that there are six guys," he continues. "Two guys can take a horrendous bump, then the next two guys can do their thing, then the next two. So it's conceivable that the first two guys can crawl up from the ashes while the other ones are doing their thing. "I think we told a better story in TLC II. We had a little more time on our hands, as opposed to the first one, where it was like boom-boom-boom, and we
were done. This time, we were able to build to this huge climactic finish. I think we did a pretty damn good job of it, and I'm proud of it."


*credit RAW March 2002*