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IGN Sports Interviews Edge-September 12, 2003

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By: Jon Robinson
September 12, 2003

He hasn't been cleared to wrestle, but there's always wrestling video games.

One of the most electrifying performers in the WWE, Edge was on a one-way road to the World title before stepping away from the sport due to a severe neck injury. He's won the tag titles nine times, the Intercontinental championship four, and when he returns to the squared circle next year, has his sights set on a return to the main event.

IGN Sports caught up with the man who once hung with vampires to see what he's been up to, his thoughts on wrestling video games, and going bald.

IGN Sports: First thing everyone want to know is how you're recovering from your surgery.

Edge: I'm getting better. I'm five months in, but still have seven months to go before getting clearance from the doctor to get back in the ring. I'm not even half way there yet, but I feel good physically, so that's a plus. That first day after surgery I had to sleep sitting up on my couch with the neck collar and everything and it was scary, but now it's off and I'm back in the gym and I just feel like me again.

IGN Sports: That's great to hear. What happened? Was it one move or just the culmination of taking so many big bumps?

Edge: It was just over time. So many things that I've done to my body over the last eleven years that it finally took its toll. It wasn't just something where I landed and heard my neck crack. It was something that happened over time, where I would land and all of a sudden I'd feel like I was going to throw up. Then my hands started going numb, and what really signaled something that I needed to go get checked out was when I lost all of the strength in my left arm. Up until that point, you brush it off as being this or that, but when a wrestle loses his strength, I mean, that's your bread and butter, so I went to get it checked out. The doctor told me that if I kept going, I'd probably end up in a wheel chair, and well, that's not really an option so I went and had the neck surgery.

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IGN Sports: I guess that pretty much sums up why it's better to be a wrestler in a video game than in real life.

Edge: [laughs] Yeah, I have to start taking up this wrestling in video games more that actually doing it. I be it will help with my therapy, too, since my left hand is the one that died on me. Maybe a game controller or joystick would be good for my hand.

IGN Sports: You've been a character in so many games now, and there are three new games on the way, WWE Raw 2, Wrestlemania, and Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain. Do you think they've done a good job portraying your character?

Edge: I always find that the faces look pretty cool, since they do face scans with all of the wrestlers and are able to use countless photographs to really get down every detail. I think in some of the games, though, it looks like we need bras, or in our case, manziers. I more of an old school gamer, so I really liked Wrestlemania 2000 because that to me seemed more like a video game than trying to capture all of the realism. I come from the days of Pacman and Frogger, so I'm dated. I feel weird playing as myself, to be honest. My cousins always want me to play, so I try, but they usually end up beating the hell out of me. They really enjoy beating up Edge. The game I'm interested in seeing, though, is Raw 2 for the Xbox. I hear the graphics on that can't be beat. I hear stuff about all of the match modes being added and how in the future you might be able to play a Royal Rumble online and I just feel so out of the loop. I have e-mail. That's about the extent of what I can do. My cousins buy all the games, and they try to keep me up to date on everything that's young and hip, because I'm old and not hip.

IGN Sports: Since you don't like playing the games as yourself, who are some of the other wrestlers you'd like to wrestle as?

Edge: Angle, Jericho, Benoit. I usually like to play as Edge and wrestle Christian, then beat the hell out of Christian. That's always fun. There are so many new guys in the new games as well that will be fun to use like John Cena and Rey Mysterio. Mysterio looks like a video game when he's in action for real. Some of the things he does, a human just shouldn't be able to do. I know first hand since I was able to watch from ringside when we were partners. It's hard to go in and throw a dropkick after he's been in the ring doing his thing. He's just so amazing to watch.

IGN Sports: You mentioned Frogger and Pacman, what were some of the other games you were into as a kid?

Edge: I used to love to go to the arcade to play the wrestling video games. They used to have TWA and TWF with the Insane Warrior and the Piranha, and Christian and I used to just sit there and play it for hours. You just kept going until lost, but we had this move where we'd whip the guy in, hit him with a double tackle and then a pile driver, and you could do it constantly, so one time we made it through over 150 matches. We were there for over four hours on one token. From there it was cool to see the evolution of the WWE, or back then the WWF games. There was the one with Demolition and Earthquake and a bunch of guys who hadn't been in games before, so I was all over that one. I remember recently walking into a Dave and Busters with Jericho and Christian out in L.A. and there was this WWF game there, and these kids were actually playing as us as we walked up to check it out. That was mind boggling. I'm sure it freaked the kids out as well when they turned around and saw the guys they were playing as standing behind them in real life.

IGN Sports: How do your video game skills stack up against the other wrestlers?

Edge: Kane and Stevie Richards can probably beat anybody, as those two guys play games constantly. They're just crazy gamers. Then there's Test and Christian who have these legendary Madden tournaments every day. I think all they do is play Madden, eat, and go to the gym. I'm out of the loop, man. I'm sitting here listening to music and these guys are battling in Madden. They're probably playing right now.

IGN Sports: There are so many match modes in the game, from Hell in a Cell to the Royal Rumble. I was wondering what your favorite match is to perform in real life?

Edge: I have to be honest, the TLC matches are fun because of the crowd. The crowd is always a little more amped up and ready to react, and you can do some really stupid things to your body, which is good for crowd reaction, but not too good for longevity. It's kind of a little bit of both. I enjoy doing them, I don't enjoy doing them, and it's probably one of the reasons why I'm sitting here recovering from a broken neck. I'm a big fan of cage matches, although I've got a lot of stitches and torn ligaments from those as well. I think if it boiled down to it, all of those gimmicks are cool, but give me a straight up, old fashion wrestling match against Benoit or Kurt Angle, give us an hour, and let us do our thing.

IGN Sports: Some of the games even have the Hair vs. Hair matches like the one you had against Angle.

Edge: Actually, I saw the back of the old Smackdown box where I was shaving Angle's head, and I thought that was pretty cool.

IGN Sports: Did you ever worry during that match that Angle might try to trip you up and win the match, forcing you to go bald?

Edge: Yeah, really, then I would have been in trouble. [laughs] Maybe we should hook that up in the game. Make Angle shave my head, that way I can see how I'd look in case I do end up going bald some day.

IGN Sports: One of the most popular features in the game is the Create-A-Wrestler. If you could create your own wrestler from scratch, what attributes would you give him?

Edge: I'd probably go with Mysterio's agility, Rob Van Dam's flexibility, Brock Lesnar's size, Big Show's strength, and maybe my teeth. [laughs]

IGN Sports: In Raw 2, you can then burn songs onto your hard drive and use them for your wrestler's entrance music. I was wondering what song you'd like your created wrestler to come out to?

Edge: "The Thing that Should Not Be" from Metallica, that would fit.

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IGN Sports: Your created wrestler has a pretty easy road to the WWE. You create him, and there you are against the superstars, almost like Tough Enough. What a lot of fans really don't realize is the long road it takes most of you guys to get to that point in real life.

Edge: People tell me all the time, "That Tough Enough is pretty tough." I'm like, no it's not. They bust their butt for thirteen weeks. We've got some guys who busted their butts for thirteen years. In my case, it took me five years to make it to the WWE, and that was short. Tough Enough opened up people's eyes to show that, yes, this really does hurt quite a bit. For actually paying their dues, they would be better off following an Indy guy who has a buck a day to be able to spend, so he buys a can of Tuna and sleeps in his car because he loves what he's doing so much.

IGN Sports: When you first started out, what was the strangest place you ever had to wrestle?

Edge: I wrestled in a barn in Tennessee in front of six people that sat on bails of hay. That was probably my lowest point, where I was like "What the hell am I doing?" We even set up the ring that night, so we set up the ring, wrestled, didn't get paid, and at that point, I was with Christian, and we decided to head down to North Carolina and see what type of work we could get. We had enough money per day to get a burger and a coffee. So we tried to ration it out, wait until we were at our hungriest, then go down and get our meal. That's paying your dues, and there are a lot of guys who have done that. I think we might be the last guys of that era to have to do that. There are some still some guys out there like that, but not that many anymore. It puts everything in perspective and really makes you appreciate the success you have when you get it, that's for sure.

IGN Sports: The new Smackdown game features a bunch of the WWE legends like the Million Dollar Man. I was wondering who some of your favorite wrestlers were growing up.

Edge: Hogan was the guy who attracted me to the whole spectacle of wrestling from the get go, then from there I became a fan of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. Randy Savage, Bob Orton, Ricky Steamboat, and Jake "The Snake" were also big ones to me. The list could go on and on.

IGN Sports: So if you could wrestle against any one legend in a main event, who would you want to wrestle?

Edge: I teamed with Hogan, so I feel like I've been involved with him, so as much fun as it would be to beat the Hulk up, I feel like I've been in there already, so I'd have to go with Bret Hart. Shawn Michaels is a close second, then Hogan would be third. I just love Bret's style, it's hard-hitting, it's physical, and I can just imagine us both in our prime doing an Iron Man match. That would be fun.

IGN Sports: You've won so many belts already, do you look forward to making a World title run when you come back?

Edge: That's all I have left to do, since I already won the U.S. title and retired that before they brought it back. There's only so many tag titles you can win. I've won the tag titles nine times and the IC title four times, so I have one thing left to do and that's the big one.

IGN Sports: Since you came up with Christian, would you like to eventually main event against him for the title?

Edge: Whew, that would be amazing. Just from knowing where we came from to fighting for the title, that would be pretty special.

IGN Sports: Iron Man match, Edge vs. Christian, who would win?

Edge: Me. It's only a question of how many times I'm going to pin him. [laughs] His peeps can't help him in that one.

Credit: Ign.com

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