WWE Hall of Famer Edge was a recent guest on Busted Open Radio to reflect on his return at this year’s Royal Rumble, and how the moment is that much more significant due to the circumstances with COVID-19. He also reveals the lessons he learned from several wrestling greats, including current AEW star Luther. Highlights are below.
On his return at the Royal Rumble and how the moment is more meaningful due to the current circumstances:
I think it might go down as one of the greatest, but I’ll try and change that coming back. But there was ground swell of this thing happening at that point, but I don’t think anybody knew it was going to be what it became,” Edge said. “So, we didn’t know how special that night was going to be, or how special it was to have an audience that size, that magnitude, and how long it will be until we possibly have that again. You can’t know that stuff, right? So, I knew it was special that night, but if anything, it’s gained even more of a special spot for me just because of everything that the world is going through right now. It’s kind of insane, and that being said, I don’t know if I can watch it because it makes me miss the audiences so much. As a performer, man, we feed off of those guys. We feed off the audience, and for them not to be there, man, it’s hard. Randy and I were the guinea pig, but he tried to s–t all over it. But now, nobody even mentions it.
What he learned from the wrestling greats, including AEW’s Luther:
What I got from all of them, from Ric [Flair], to Shawn [Michaels], to Taker, to Jerry [Lawler], to Terry [Funk], to Hogan, to all of them, was never panic,” Edge stated. “There’s no reason to panic – we’re in control. We tell the story, we don’t let anyone else dictate the story. We tell the story, and when you have that in mind, you can do anything. You’re the one telling the story, and I think that was the thing that I gleaned from all of them. And one lesson that I learned so early on was with a guy – Dr. Luther. He’s now down in AEW, and he was the like the first experienced guy that I worked. He’s been in Japan, he’s been in FMW, and all of those places. We were working and I was probably on my 50th match or something, and we’re having a Street Fight. So, he calls this spot, and I immediately went to do it. And he went, ‘Whoa! Hold on! Pump the breaks! You got it?’ I was like, ‘Oh! I don’t have to go right away! I can actually stop and register what he says instead of just instantly go.’ I never forgot that lesson.He doesn’t even know it was a lesson for me, I’m sure, but that — the light bulb went off! There was a lot more light bulbs that needed to go off, but that was the first one that I distinctly remember going, ‘Oh my God! He just crack opened my brain. This is different than I thought.’
Full interview can be found here. (H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.
)