On the topic of having to walk away from active competition, Edge claimed that he was probably more prepared for early retirement than others, like Daniel Bryan, who felt they had more to accomplish in the professional wrestling business.
“I was already mentally and emotionally preparing myself for [retirement], so it didn’t hit me as hard as I think maybe it does some. And, at that point, I had close to a 20-year career and there was nothing left to do except put younger guys over, which is what I was going to do, which would have been great and fun [to] teach and all of those things. But that was really the final thing to do, whereas, I think, it’s harder for Bryan that he had a lot more [to accomplish]. Yeah, he still wanted it and so that makes it more difficult. And I’m sure he’ll go through a mourning process because, even though I was ready, I still went through that, ‘okay, now what? Is it just sit around? Is it? I don’t know.’ So that’s the interesting, kind of, path you walk after.”
As noted on Sunday, Christian claimed that he still has not spoken to WWE officials about retirement.
“Honestly, we haven’t even sat down and had that conversation yet. So in my mind, it’s probably the last time. But when I look back on it, it’s one of those things. I think if it had been taken away kind of abruptly when I was like 29 or 30, and I still had so much left to accomplish, like, honestly, I probably accomplished more than I ever dreamed that I would. And, so, to look back, I’m like, ‘man, that’s a pretty good career. Not many people can say that they’ve had the career that I did,’ so in that respect, I can’t really be too mad about that or think in those terms. But, you have to put your health and your family first and I think that helps.”
Edge and Christian indicated that the impetus behind having TLC matches was that it was difficult for them to stand out during the Attitude Era with transcendent stars such as The Rock and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin on WWE’s roster.
“It was the land of the dinosaurs then. It was like all these huge, now, especially, looking back, iconic stars.” Edge continued, “and [we were] not getting an opportunity to be on the mic, so we’re like, ‘okay, if we’re not going to get mic opportunity, what do we do? Let’s pitch ideas where our strength is that we will do some crazy stuff and try and get noticed.'”
Edge expressed some regret, as many of the risks they took were not worth the reward of ascending to the top of WWE.
“Not the wisest choices, yeah.” Edge added, “in hindsight, we did stuff that once I realized what it takes to get to the tippy top, especially as a singles guy, that I wouldn’t have done half the stuff that we did then, but we felt like we had to and I think we did to get noticed”.
