Edge Interview - Wrestler turned author talks about his new book, mullets, and Survivor Series
Credit to: IGN.com
November 11, 2004 - In the most enjoyable wrestling autobiography since Mick Foley's "Have a Nice Day", Adam Copeland, AKA Edge, details his life from Kiss and Spider-Man to suplexes and Sexton Hardcastle (his original wrestling name), while at the same time, writing with a humor that is more of the "reeking of awesomeness" Edge than the bad-ass heel seen on Raw every Monday night. There might not be any pictures of him, pen in hand, striking a five-second pose, but you could almost see the smirk on his face as he recounts stories from the road and his past.
There's the time Kurt Angle answered the door buck naked and dripping blood needing Edge's help. The time Rhyno thought they were going to die while crossing an icy lake. The time he was given a gimmick to play and had no idea who this character, this Edge guy, was even supposed to be. From his neck injury to the night Bradshaw soaped his ass in the shower (you'll need to read the book for that one), there isn't much left out of "Adam Copeland on Edge".
IGN Sports had the chance recently to sit down with Edge to talk about his book, his dreams of a championship, and the upcoming Survivor Series. Here's what he had to say.
IGN Sports: What I enjoyed about your book most was the personality that you wrote with. It reminded me of Mick Foley's writing in that it's not just a wrestling book, but a book about your life, and I think it was written in a fun voice that really makes it stand out.
Edge: I think the main difference is that Mick and I are the only two to write the books ourselves. That was one of the things that I was really adamant about. I told everyone, if you want me to do this, then I'm writing it myself. If they wanted me to use a ghost writer, I would've said no. That was one of the regrets that some of the guys have had about their books. They had some guy follow them around for a week and interview them, then things that were important to them, the writer just brushed by. I want people who read my book to hear my voice because it's me telling the story. When I read Mick's, I had Mick's voice in my mind, and as I read it, it was like Mick was telling me the story. So I think that's why you see the comparison, but his books were awesome and I don't expect mine to compare to those books. I just want people getting the sense that this really is Edge, this really is Adam Copeland, and I'm telling you the story of my life.
IGN Sports: Did you really write the whole book in longhand?
Edge: I did, I wrote it longhand. [laughs] I did it while I was off with the neck injury. I had a year with nothing to do and physically at first, I really couldn't do anything at all. I was sleeping sitting up on my couch with the neck collar on, and my mind was going 120 miles per hour, but my body couldn't do anything. So I had always kept a journal of everything that has happened throughout my career, and I just took them all, there are about six or seven journals, and I started going through them. I started calling all of my childhood buddies and my mom and my family and getting them to remind me of things that we did. I started writing it all down in this one big journal, thinking I was just going to keep it for one day when I have kids and grandkids so they could see what I went through. From there, I started doing a column on the WWE Web site and some of the people from the office read it and thought it was pretty entertaining, pretty funny. They asked me if I would like to do a book and I told them I would love to as long as I got to write it. So I sent in like 20 chapters to them right away because the book was pretty much already written. All I had to do was add on the end about how I came back from my injury.
IGN Sports: I remember one of the first times I went backstage at a WWE event. I didn't know you yet, but you were the first guy I saw and you were sitting in the arena reading a book. Now, I didn't expect you to be drinking blood with Gangrel in some dark room, but I also didn't expect to walk back there and see anybody reading. Do you see your book and Mick's books as breaking some of these stereotypes people may have about not only the characters they see on TV, but the men who portray them?
Edge: I love to read, so it's a natural for me to try to write. I think it does help break those stereotypes, or at least I hope so. I think if Mick hadn't written his books, there wouldn't have been an opportunity for me to write mine, so I think Mick definitely opened some doors in that respect. I just hope that when people read it, they get a chuckle and realize that we aren't all growling Neanderthals. We can actually speak, put sentences together, and have some intelligent stuff going on in there. I just hope people have a fun time reading it. If I can give the readers a few laughs, then I accomplished my goal. And to see my name on the spine of a book, to see Adam Copeland on that spine, I always thought it would be cool, I just never thought it would actually happen. To see my real name on there is really important to me.
IGN Sports: In the book you say how you loved heavy metal and comic books. Is being a wrestler the perfect blend between Gene Simmons and Spider-Man?
Edge: I think it was pretty obvious from the get-go that with those as my main interests I was going to fall into something like this. [laughs] Yeah, it was Kiss and comic books. I loved Spidey, Incredible Hulk, and Thor…those were my guys. I think it was a natural progression to when I first saw Hulk Hogan and went "Wow!" Kiss and those guys looked cool, but they didn't look big like real-life super heroes. Hulk Hogan looked like the Incredible Hulk, but he was real. That is what hooked me. Here is this big, blonde, blue-eyed, huge, massive, larger-than-life character, but he was real and I could go to Maple Leaf Gardens and see him every month. You never know what's going to hook you, but once I saw Hogan, I was sold. This is what I was going to do.
IGN Sports: You exposed so much about yourself and your life in the book. Was there anything out of bounds as far as you were concerned that you didn't want to write about?
Edge: I think one thing that I didn't talk about too much was my divorce. I decided to take the high road in that one. I wasn't sure if people wanted or needed to know about it, really. I didn't want to try and drag anybody through the mud, I just wanted to go the route I did, and if people didn't think I gave enough dirt about it, then too bad. I think that's the only thing I really didn't fully go into. I said that it happened, then moved on. A lot of people keep coming up to me and saying how Ric Flair's book is really controversial and my book isn't controversial enough. The thing is, I really haven't had any problems with anybody, so I'm not going to make up problems just to have controversy. I'm not going to sit here and complain because I enjoy what I do. I read one review and it talked about how I didn't gripe about anything. What do I have to gripe about? If I don't have anything to gripe about, I'm not just going to gripe for griping sake. All I wanted it to be was a fun read and maybe open up some people's eyes about what I did before I got to the WWE. A lot of people just think I started wrestling in 1998 and that's it, not knowing any of the stories prior to it. I just wanted to throw in some weird one-liners and the things that were going through my mind as we were falling through lakes and stupid things like that. It was one of those things, you're only 30 years old, is it too early? But Rock was only in the business four years when he wrote his. I'm almost 14 years in. I've broken my neck, won a few titles, and lived out a few dreams, so why not?