Adam Joseph Copeland(born October 30, 1973)is a retired Canadian professional wrestler and actor, better known by his ring name Edge. He is best known for his time with WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).
Copeland was trained by former professional wrestlers Sweet Daddy Siki and Ron Hutchinson. Throughout 1990s, he wrestled in North American independent promotions early in his career. During his time in these promotions, he competed in singles and tag team competition, the latter with Christian, his storyline brother. In 1997, Copeland signed a developmental deal with the WWF and began competing for the company the following year. After signing with the WWF, he began competing under the ring name Edge. In June 1999, he won the WWF Intercontinental Championship, making it his first title reign with the company. He and Christian went on to win the WWF Tag Team Championship on seven different occasions. During this time, they gained notoriety in the tag team division, partly due to their participation in Tables, Ladders, and Chairs matches.
Overall, Edge won 31 championships in WWE, including eleven world championships (the WWE Championship four times and the World Heavyweight Championship a record seven times), five Intercontinental Championships, one United States Championship, 14 tag team championships (a record 12 World Tag Team Titles and two WWE Tag Team Championships), and is one of only two wrestlers (Kurt Angle being the other) who has held every currently active male Championship in WWE. In addition to his championship accolades, Copeland won the 2001 King of the Ring tournament, the inaugural Money in the Bank ladder match in 2005, and the Royal Rumble match in 2010 making him the only wrestler in history to achieve all three of those accomplishments.
Aside from professional wrestling, Copeland has appeared in the 2000 fantasy film Highlander: Endgame and made guest appearances on television shows, including The Weakest Link, Mind of Mencia, Deal or No Deal, and MADtv.
In 1998, Copeland made his WWF television debut on the June 22 episode of Raw is War as Edge, a loner character who entered the arena through the crowd for his matches.His character's persona included him aimlessly walking around the city streets and assaulting innocent pedestrians.His first televised match was against Jose Estrada, Jr., which ended prematurely by countout when Edge performed a somersault senton from the ring to the outside, legitimately injuring Estrada's neck.In his first pay-per-view match at SummerSlam in August, he served as Sable's mystery tag team partner against Jacqueline and Marc Mero, and bodyslammed Sable onto Mero in a pinning position to pick up the win.
At the Royal Rumble event on January 31, 2010, Edge returned from injury by entering the Royal Rumble match as the twenty ninth surprise entrant. He quickly eliminated Jericho who had been the 28th. Ultimately, he won the match for the first time in his career after last eliminating John Cena. After Jericho won the Heavyweight Championship from the Undertaker during Elimination Chamber (2010), Edge turned face, for the first time since October 2004, by challenging Chris Jericho for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXVI after a surprise attack on Jericho.However, Edge lost to Jericho in the match.The following month, Edge beat Jericho in a Steel cage match at Extreme Rules.
On the April 11 episode of Raw, Edge gave a speech about his career and the realities of wrestling. He also mentioned he took more tests after passing his basic strength tests at the behest of WWE, and the MRI forced him to retire.Leading up to this announcement, he had reflected upon his previous neck injury where his cervical vertebrae had been fused, and mentioned feeling numbness in his arms and losing feeling in them. This was diagnosed as cervical spinal stenosis, and because of such, the doctors cannot medically clear him to compete without him risking neck-down parlysis, or even death.Later that same week on the April 15 edition of SmackDown, Edge officially relinquished the World Heavyweight Championship.
On the April 11 episode of Raw, Edge gave a speech about his career and the realities of wrestling. He also mentioned he took more tests after passing his basic strength tests at the behest of WWE, and the MRI forced him to retire.Leading up to this announcement, he had reflected upon his previous neck injury where his cervical vertebrae had been fused, and mentioned feeling numbness in his arms and losing feeling in them. This was diagnosed as cervical spinal stenosis, and because of such, the doctors cannot medically clear him to compete without him risking neck-down parlysis, or even death.Later that same week on the April 15 edition of SmackDown, Edge officially relinquished the World Heavyweight Championship.
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