EDGE TALKS ABOUT WORKING WITH WWE AGAIN

 Edge spoke with IGN this week to promote SyFy’s Haven. Here are some highlights:

IGN: Now you have a movie still coming out with the WWE {Bending the Rules with Jamie Kennedy] sometime this year. Can we expect you back on WWE TV to promote it?

Edge: Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them about coming back. I haven’t talked to them at all, aside from some appearances here and there. At SummerSlam I have an autograph session but I think everyone understands that I need time away from it and I need to kind of remove myself from it now. Will it be necessary to go back to promote the movie? Possibly. It’s weird too because we shot the movie last August. So now it’s like “oh yeah, I did a movie!” [laughs] Once again though, it was my training too that helped because when you’re one of the stars of a movie and you see how the machine works, in that respect, you pick up on the differences. And there are a lot of differences, but there are also a lot of similarities to the WWE. And then I had a bit of a better understanding going into Haven. At least I knew some of the terms. When they said “turning around” I thought “okay, that means I’ve got half an hour while they set everything up.” The first time I just stood there waiting, thinking “okay, they’re turning around. So what do I do?” I had no idea. [laughs] The movie was a whole new experience, but it trained me for walking into Haven.

IGN: Being someone who’s travelled so much, do you think that even in retirement it will be hard to stay homebound?

Edge: Well, I’ve hated traveling for a while. [laughs] That was one of the things that was pushing me toward retirement anyways. Because that was really, honestly, when my neck would flare up the most. When I sat on planes for long periods of time. And I’m trying to put off the surgery if I can and I find that when I don’t travel around a whole lot, now that I’m not getting thrown around it feels a lot better.

IGN: Does it put you at ease when someone like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin says, after being away from the ring for so many years, that he’s 100% pain-free?

Edge: Yes. It definitely does. And Steve and I have always had an awesome relationship. He’s always really looked after me. He was one of the first ones to call me. And he said, “What’s going on, kid?” So I told him the deal. And it was exactly the same deal he had to go through. I mean, down to the same disc. To the same bulged spinal stenosis. So it was us both going through the same exact thing and he got through it. We just had a really good conversation because he said, “Man, when I found out I just went off the grid for three years and I wish I hadn’t of.” And I know initially that was my reaction. I thought, “I just need to get away from everyone and everything and just be up in the woods, or in the mountains, and I’ll see everyone in three or four years with a massive beard.” But I knew that wasn’t the way to go. It was just my gut reaction initially. Haven really helped me with the gradual retirement process. Because instead of 120 to reverse, it’s like 120 to 60 or 70. Just easing into it. And taking Steve’s advice by still doing something and still being out there a little bit. But on my own terms. Instead of travelling 250 days out of the year now I can say things like, “You know I don’t think I really want to go to Comic-Con in the middle of shooting Haven.”

We had wrapped on a Friday night. They had me booked on a 6am flight Saturday morning and then I was going to land and go straight to a party. The party was going to end at 1am and then I was going to fly right back on Sunday and then go back to work on Monday and I felt “I’m done with that.” My boundaries are set now. I’d rather relax and go sea-kayaking in Nova Scotia this weekend and enjoy not having to do that schedule anymore.

IGN: What do you think of Christian’s program? He’s won the World Heavyweight Title twice now.

Edge: Yeah, and that makes me really happy. He deserves it. And that will probably help shut up the naysayers and the critics who said he could do it or said he didn’t deserve it or whatever. And with him and Randy I knew the matches would just be awesome. Because you’ve got two guys who know their craft so well. So I knew from a performance standpoint it would be ridiculous. I knew that one thing that Jay and I really prided ourselves on was that no matter the story or no matter what the matches always had to be good. That was what people were going to take away from it. And then you’ve got a guy like Randy[Orton] who’s the same way. His matches always have to be good. So you get to guys like that, you know it’s going to be good. I’m really happy for him. I always knew he deserved it. I always knew that if he got the opportunity, he’d kick the door open. We were going down the route of him and I, so I think it would have happened whether I was still there or not. But I think me having to retire sped the process up and took the story a different way. Which I think actually played to his strength because he is such a great heel. But because he was doing such a great job as a babyface people might have forgotten that – How much fun he is to hate.