Adam Joseph Copeland is a professional wrestler and actor from Canada. He is presently signed to WWE and works under the ring name Edge on the SmackDown brand.
Early life
Adam Joseph Copeland was born on October 30, 1973, in Orangeville, Ontario, 50 miles northwest of Toronto, to Judy Lynn Copeland (January 2, 1953 – November 27, 2018), a single parent who worked two jobs to support Adam. Copeland has maintained that he has never met his father and has never seen a photograph of him.
At an early age, he became interested in professional wrestling, and his favourite wrestlers included Mr Perfect, Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan, Ricky Steamboat, Shawn Michaels, and Bret Hart.
He met fellow future wrestler Jason “Christian” Reso in Orangeville when he was 10 years old, and they would make the trip down to Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto to watch their favourite wrestlers, and Copeland attended WrestleMania VI at the Toronto SkyDome in 1990 as a 16-year-old boy, sitting in the eleventh row at ringside.
Adam was rooting on WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan’s match against The Ultimate Warrior, and he attributes this match with convincing him that he wanted to be a wrestler. He won an essay contest with his local gym when he was 17, and the reward was free wrestling training with Sweet Daddy Siki and Ron Hutchison in Toronto.
Professional wrestling career
Copeland trained one weekday and all weekend during his training. The practice ring at the school was a 12-by-14-foot boxing ring with a harder mat than a standard wrestling ring. The ceiling above was low, with exposed pipes, making top-rope moves impossible. Copeland later attributed his ability to train and enhance his technical mat-based wrestling to this setting. Johnny Swinger, Joe E. Legend, and Rob Etcheverria were among his students.
On Canada Day 1992, Copeland made his professional wrestling debut at Monarch Park Stadium in Toronto. Copeland wrestled in the independent circuit in Ontario and the Great Lakes region of the United States as Sexton Hardcastle throughout the 1990s. He formed the tag team Sex and Violence with Joe E. Legend. He competed as Adam Impact for Tony Condello’s Winnipeg promotion in the mid-1990s. Sex and Violence joined Christian Cage, Zakk Wyld, Bill Skullion, and Rhino Richards in a larger stable named Thug Life in 1997.
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment/WWE
On May 10, 1996, Copeland stepped in for Bob Holly’s opponent in the opening bout of a WWF house show in Hamilton, Ontario.
Copeland began working with the WWF without an official contract in 1996, earning $210 per week. His outstanding student debt, estimated to be over $40,000, was also paid for by the corporation. Following a Grand Prix Wrestling tour in the summer of 1997, De Marco persuaded Copeland to travel to Calgary, where Hart was teaching wrestlers on the side while recovering from knee surgery. He used his tour proceeds to buy a plane ticket and arrived without money or a place to stay.
He contacted Johnny Smith, whom he had met twice before, and Smith agreed to provide him with food and lodging. Smith also drove Copeland to and from the gym to Hart’s home, where he worked out with Ken Shamrock, Test, Mark Henry, and Kurrgan. Copeland returned to the Maritimes for another Grand Prix tour before returning to Hart’s house with Christian. Hart was impressed enough by this camp to put in a good word for both men at the WWF.
WWE Champion (2005–2006)
Edge won the first-ever Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania 21, earning him a contract that guaranteed him a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship within a year. According to a podcast conversation with Chris Jericho, Copeland did not like the idea of the ladder match at first and even requested WWE management not to put him on the WrestleMania 21 programme at all. However, he was persuaded to compete by other competitors such as Chris Jericho and Glenn Jacobs, who stated that the match had the potential to be a huge success.
Edge ended the feud by defeating Chris Benoit in a Last Man Standing match at Backlash. On the May 16 episode of Raw, Edge was paired with Lita, his real-life girlfriend at the time, in an angle in which she betrayed her storyline husband Kane by losing him the Gold Rush tournament finals match to decide the number-one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship.
Edge delivered an emotional monologue about his career and the realities of wrestling on the April 11, 2011 episode of Raw. He recalled his previous neck injury and cervical vertebral fusion and indicated that he had experienced arm numbness. Before WrestleMania, he passed basic-strength tests, but WWE pushed for additional testing, and an MRI result forced him to quit.
Acting career
Copeland made a brief appearance as a road bandit in the fantasy film Highlander: Endgame in 2000. In March 2002, he appeared on the quiz programme Weakest Link among other wrestlers. Kane was the eventual winner after he was voted out in the first round.
He featured as Edge as a commentator for “The Royal Religious Rumble” on the August 6, 2006 edition of Mind of Mencia. To prevent Scientology from dominating the world, he punched out an actor portraying L. Ron Hubbard and speared another actor portraying Tom Cruise.
Records
Copeland performed in numerous indie firms after making his professional wrestling debut in 1992, both in singles and tag team contests, the latter alongside long-time friend Christian Cage. Copeland received a developmental contract with the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) in 1997 and made his televised debut as Edge in 1998.
Edge formed a tag team with Christian after capturing his first WWF Championship, the WWF Intercontinental Championship, in July 1999, and the two went on to win the World Tag Team Championship seven times. During this period, they rose to prominence in the tag team division, thanks in part to their involvement in Tables, Ladders, and Chairs matches.
Edge holds the World Heavyweight Championship a record seven times, the WWE Championship four times, the Intercontinental Championship five times, the United States Championship once, the World Tag Team Championship a record twelve times, and the WWE Tag Team Championship twice, giving him the second most championships in WWE history (after R-Truth).
He is the 14th Triple Crown Champion and the 7th Grand Slam Champion in WWE history. Edge was the first wrestler in history to win the King of the Ring tournament in 2001, the first Money in the Bank ladder match in 2005, and the 2010 Royal Rumble match.
Personal life
Copeland is a native of Asheville, North Carolina. Copeland used to play hockey alongside Aaron Downey, who is now retired from the National Hockey League (NHL). He follows the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League.
Copeland is also close pals with fellow professional wrestler Jason Reso, a.k.a. Christian Cage. They grew up together in Ontario and attended the same high school and wrestling training programme.
Copeland has several tattoos, including a red and black sun on his left upper biceps, which covers a tattoo of a muscular shark resembling the Street Sharks; a star on his right upper biceps with several smaller stars and two skulls wearing bandanas adorned with flowers and hearts beneath said star tattoo; a cross on his left forearm; and another tattoo of a scroll-like piece of paper adorning his right forearm. Each of Copeland’s tattoos represents a different period of his career.
Copeland began dating Alannah Morley, the sister of Sean Morley (aka Val Venis), in 1998, and they married on November 8, 2001. They divorced on March 10, 2004, a few years later. On October 21, 2004, he married Lisa Ortiz for the second time. Copeland began an affair with fellow wrestler Amy “Lita” Dumas, who was the girlfriend of Copeland’s real-life friend Matt Hardy at the time, shortly after marrying his second wife. Copeland and Dumas’ relationship became public in February 2005, resulting in Copeland’s divorce from Ortiz on November 17, 2005.
Lyric Rose Copeland was born on December 12, 2013, to Copeland and former WWE wrestler Beth Phoenix. Ruby Ever Copeland, their second daughter, was born on May 31, 2016. Copeland and Phoenix married on Copeland’s 43rd birthday, October 30, 2016.
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