Edge (Wrestler) / YMMV

Awesome Music: Edge's iconic entrance theme "Metalingus" by Alter Bridge (with the added "You think you know me..." sting at the start) is hailed by many wrestling fans as the single greatest theme any wrestler in history has ever had, so perfectly does it fit him.
Crazy Is Cool: How much of his character is "crazy" and how much is "cool" varies from time to time, but Edge falls firmly into this category.
Cry for the Devil: It was hard not to feel bad for Edge in the summer of 2008, really. His (kayfabe) romantic relationship with then-SmackDown! General Manager Vickie Guerrero, which at first appeared to be nothing more than a shrewd career move, was later shown to be real and heartfelt. On the day of their wedding, when Triple H revealed that Edge had been cheating on his fiancee with wedding planner Alicia Fox, the heartbreak was truly something to behold. Edge went overnight from being his usual Jerkass self to begging Vickie for forgiveness: "I can't live without your love!" But Vickie was so vindictive that she booked her would-be husband in a Hell in a Cell Match against The Undertaker. Edge was terrified, and desperately asked Mick Foley for advice on how to win the match. When Foley refused to help him, Edge snapped and smashed Foley through a table (after delivering the monumental, two-word speech described below). He had passed the Despair Event Horizon by this point and even lashed out at his own (adopted) family, vowing to Vickie that "I'm gonna drag you down to Hell with me!" And at the conclusion of the HIAC match, Edge actually was sent to Hell (or Chokeslammed through the ring mat and set on fire, to be precise). But of course, he proved three months later to be Not Quite Dead.
Draco in Leather Pants: Similar to Randy Orton, he turned face in late 2010, despite doing nothing good to warrant his massive pop.
Ensemble Dark Horse: He's arguably among the greatest heels in WWE history to the point where fans were DEMANDING its creatives to give Roman Reigns the "Edge push" (or in other words, a solid heel run) before it happened in 2020.
Fountain of Expies: Edge codified the sneaky, opportunistic heel for the modern era, especially after his Money In The Bank wins. Subsequent younger Money In The Bank winners have often taken on elements of his "Ultimate Opportunist" personality during their runs with the briefcase, with CM Punk doing it twice (both as a face and as a heel, and ironically the first time to Edge himself). Also, curiously enough, each of the three members of The Shield is somewhat a snapshot of Edge at various points in his career.
- Dean Ambrose is Edge during his late-career Face runs - a Determinator who is more than a bit off his rocker, somewhat a Lovable Rogue whose willingness to throw caution to the wind is beloved by fans.
- Seth Rollins is a combination of Edge during his tag team days - young, hungry, and willing to take insane bumps - and Edge right at the time of his first main event title run - conniving, opportunistic heel with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. He's also got the requisite massive ego and Miles Gloriosus traits.
- Roman Reigns has the size, the Mr. Fanservice looks, and spears anything that walks. He also continued entering through the crowd for nearly two years post-split much like Edge and Christian did in their first year and a half whenever they weren't aligned with Gangrel.
Fridge Brilliance: Edge & Christian were first introduced to the WWE as brothers. From a certain point of view, they are.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Go watch any of the matches early in his career, like the TLC or Ladder matches - More than likely, you'll hear Jim Ross remarking about how they were shortening their careers.
- Really, considering the damage that put him out of action was due to his neck, watching him charge head-first at anybody for a Spear during a match can make you cringe (yes, a spear is more a shoulder tackle, but it still looks bad. In fact, some of the last footage of Edge's in-ring career shows him connecting with a spear then visibly favoring his neck in legit pain)
- His debut match ended when he accidentally injured his opponent's neck. Jim Ross even commented after the match that there is no worse injury in Professional Wrestling than a neck injury. Before his 2020 comeback, this meant that his career began and ended around a neck injury.
He Really Can Act: Unlike most wrestlers that go into filming, Edge's role in the American supernatural series Haven proves that he has acting talent.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: His final year long run before retirement in 2011 up into the first year-plus of his return.
- Edge returned from injury to win the 2010 Royal Rumble as a face, before failing to win the World Heavyweight Championship WrestleMania and being turned heel again after a few months via Christian in a call-out segment as the "He's Back!" spike in fan support started to peter out. However, his heel persona had transcended getting heat, and there were other villains on the shows committing more despicable acts than anything he had room to do at the time, so fans still cheered for him, resulting in him being turned face again by the fall, winning the World Title anyway, then being stripped of it only to win it back the same night in the middle of his reign. As such, Edge won his last two World Championships as a face, and spent the final year of his career being cheered by the WWE Universe, allowing him to retire as the fans' hero, with Christian watching his back and the World Heavyweight Title surrendered as his. It was as close to perfect as a premature final act could be.
- The final thought Edge left the audience after announcing his retirement: that he’d do it all again “in a heartbeat.” Fast forward to 2020, he returned at the Royal Rumble, receiving a thunderous pop that was never even close to surpassed by anything that followed before the COVID-19 Pandemic forced the crowds to leave. The love fans had for him made his ensuing feud with Randy Orton red hot within a single strike, and though that feud ended with Orton taking Edge out with a punt and becoming the hottest heel in the company before Roman Reigns took over the industry as Tribal Chief, this allowed Edge to make yet another Royal Rumble return in 2021. Not only did he win the Rumble match again just like in 2010, with a chance to finally reclaim the grand prize he never lost... he also got to reunite with his best friend in the ring as Christian finally returned to action after seven years down.
- His entrance theme, "Metalingus". Though the song itself has been popular with fans since its debut, it also received criticism due to its uplifting message about second chances and overcoming the odds, which was seen as an ill-fit choice for the villainous Rated-R Superstar/Ultimate Opportunist gimmick. Fast forward to January 27, 2020, and people have begun associating the song not with Edge the character, but Adam Copeland himself.
- His final run in 2020 has him dip back to his Brood roots, reflecting something that Gangrel once told him — that Gangrel's blood flows through Edge's veins. No matter what happened, Gangrel's influence is a part of Edge's character and without the Brood, Edge wouldn't be who he is today.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- During his feud with Kurt Angle, Edge jokingly suggested that fans should chant "You Suck" to Kurt Angle.
- WrestleMania 17 had the second TLC, and in one of many such moments during that era, Edge speared Lita. Fast forward to 2005, and it turned out that Edge had been…spearing Lita.
  Jim Ross: Lita's here! Jerking Edge off... the ladder!
- Edge and his one-time protégé Curt Hawkins have one thing in common aside from blonde hair and love of wrestling: they share the real life middle name of Joseph.
Jerkass Woobie: How Edge pulled off his final Heel–Face Turn. And technically, the one before that, as said Heel–Face Turn came about due to the fan sympathy over his Achilles Tendon injury rather than any change to the character.
Love to Hate: The fans preferred Edge as a heel so much that his 2004 and early 2010 face runs both petered out after a few months. Of course, comebacks after long injury breaks tend to pop the fans, but he's never had much of a natural progression from heel to face when he's active. Until the autumn of 2010, when issues with the anonymous Raw General Manager caused him to become a Jerkass to more traditional heels - leading to a fitting final run for his Hall of Fame career.
Magnificent Bastard:
- He IS called "The Ultimate Opportunist" for a reason, after all.
  - Case in point; out-Mind Screwing Kane of all people. And then you remember who that guy's in-ring brother is.
- Lampshaded in a 2008 interview on a news program in Orlando, where they actually speculated half-jokginly that his next Red Baron should be "Magnificent Bastard".
Memetic Molester: Edge will steal your girlfriend.
Paul Heyman: Hey, hide your girlfriends, it's Edge! You know, Edge, I've got the guts they don't, so I'm going to say the two words that no one else will dare to say. Matt Freakin' Hardy!
Edge: *spits out his beer* That's three words, Paul!
Memetic Mutation:
- Be careful; next you have a hard fought victory over something you've worked long and hard, Edge might just pop up with a briefcase and take it fr- You think you know me. *guitar*
- "SPEAR! SPEAR! SPEAR! SPEAR! SPEAR! SPEAR..."
- "WROOOONNG!! WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG...."
- Tony Chimel's bombastic announcement of him: "The Rated-R...SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPERSTAR!"
- Edge - spear - doesn't care - spear spear - about your accomplishments because Spear.
Moral Event Horizon: Prior to about December 2006, Edge seemed more annoying than evil. It is true that he'd already done plenty of low things - betraying Chris Benoit; stealing Lita from both Kane (in Kayfabe) and Matt Hardy (in Real Life); shoving Mick Foley through a flaming table; pinning Beulah McGillicutty in a simulated rape pose at WWE's second annual One Night Stand pay-per-view; and breaking into John Cena's house and slapping Cena's father - but it was still hard to see him as much more than just a cheap bully. He really made clear just how bad he was when he and Randy Orton delivered a Con-chair-to to Ric Flair - thus savagely bloodying a near-60-year-old man - just to piss off Triple H. A year later, when he began his ongoing feud with the Undertaker, he proved just how diabolical a foe he had become - and when he screamed at Vickie Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero (his wife and nephew-in-law at the time) that if he was going to Hell, he was taking them with him...by God, he made you believe he would do it.
Most Wonderful Sound: "You think you know me..."
Never Live It Down: Ever since a certain infamous affair and termination, Edge and Lita became known as the ones that "screwed" Matt Hardy, and he in turn became known for "never getting over it". However, unlike the other two Edge was able to channel it to where it did nothing to hurt his career in the long run; on the contrary he went on to much greater heights than anybody at the time would've thought possible, going from perennial midcarder to one of the company's top heels. It eventually culminated in him getting immortalized in the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012.
Replacement Scrappy: When Edge was drafted to Raw and started "playing Goldberg" in Goldberg's absence, randomly spearing people and then returning to the back, he was pretty over. After his first feud with Kane was over though, fans started to turn on him, feeling him to be an inferior replacement in the feud with Evolution. This was eventually solved by just turning him heel, to reflect the audience opinion but then Edge got even more hate for a different reason (see Never Live It Down)
Shocking Moments:
- Spearing Elias at the Summerslam 2019 pre-show, with it being the first time since his retirement he got physically involved in wrestling and then his subsequent return at the Royal Rumble 2020.
- Debuting for All Elite Wrestling at the end of WrestleDream to rescue Sting and Darby Allin and confront his longtime partner Christian Cage. While Edge is not the first true WWE "lifer"^note to have jumped to AEW, being preceded by Mark Henry, he's both a much bigger star and still an active wrestler^note making him one of the biggest WWE-to-AEW defections ever.
Spiritual Successor: The Judgment Day is one to the Ministry of Darkness. Edge even mocked those who said he was ripping off the Undertaker.
Strawman Has a Point:
- His "Real Emotion" promo from the episode of Raw that aired August 8, 2005. Edge points out that the only reason Matt Hardy was now a main event star was because his girlfriend fell in love with someone who had earnt his main event spot. Whilst the promo is definitely Vindicated by History, these were still valid points in 2005. But the absolute kicker? Edge's remark that despite Matt saying he wanted to marry Lita, they were together for 6 years & he never proposed.
- This promo, also with Matt Hardy from around the time Jeff Hardy was starting his mysterious attacker storyline. Edge pointing out that people didn't care about Matt, and Matt was getting involved simply to take Jeff's spotlight. While Edge didn't realize it in storyline, those were the exact reasons Matt attacked Jeff.
- Crossing over with Unintentionally Sympathetic, Edge's promo on why he turned heel, attacked AJ Styles and formed the Judgement Day- fans had been clamoring for him to return to the ring for years, and after he finally beat the odds and did so, now they're complaining that he's either back too much or not enough.
Tear Jerker:
- His farewell shoot announcing his retirement on the 4/11/11 edition of RAW.
- As was his shoot on the 4/15/11 edition of SmackDown, when he left the belt in the middle of the ring.
- The finale of his speech on the 4/11/11 RAW makes one feel downright awful: He states that if one would ask him to go through the whole thing all over again—the matches, the training, surgery, injuries, planes, etc. etc.—he'd do it...in a heart beat. (cries)
Vindicated by History:
- Edge and Lita, the actual infidelity aside. While Edge became a modern-day legend and an inspiration to other wrestlers, including (especially) Ryder and Hawkins, and Lita was missed more and more as the Diva division deteriorated following hers and Trish's retirements, Matt Hardy's personal and professional life spiraled into what became an increasing train wreck for several years largely of his own doing, proving many of the things the Rated-R Couple had said about him during the Worked Shoot storyline.
- Three months into his miracle return in 2020, the unanimous gratitude partially gave way to pockets of cynicism due to the length and pacing of his matches with Randy Orton, especially the Falls Count Anywhere match at WrestleMania 36 which lasted over 37 minutes, with many claiming it was slow towards the end and took too much time. Edge, in retort to this, has been outspoken about bringing back psychology and selling rather than trying to keep up with the mile-a-minute pace favored by many modern wrestlers and fans in The New '20s, especially those who established the foundation of their brand and routines on the independent circuit. ^{In addendum...} Fast-forward to July 2022, and former AEW World Champion Kenny Omega, heralded by many as the greatest wrestler of his generation due to his Meltzer-rated five-plus star "best bouts" with varying talents from Kazuchika Okada to Cody Rhodes, would suffer a major setback while attempting to recover from various injuries which had forced him out of action... and go on to express his own lament that storytelling had yielded in favor of balls-to-the-wall athleticism in the way matches are worked and praised, specifically stating that even if he is able to return, he cannot wrestle that style anymore.
X-Pac Heat: As a result of the real life affair with Lita & betrayal of Matt Hardy. Whilst Edge was already a heel by the point that news of the affair broke out, you can see the point that the crowd reaction moves from mere heel heat to full on hatred.
- Win Back the Crowd: After spending months being legitimately hated by the WWE audience due to backstage events, crowd reactions eventually softened after Edge & Matt Hardy feuded.

YMMV / Edge (Wrestler)

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