Original subtitles

WWE superstars are part gypsy, part circus, part actor,

part writer, part athlete.

Wrestling is all of that thrown into one pot, mixed up, and you burp out a

wrestler.

Colorful outfits.

High flying.

Explosions. It's theater on the round. It's live.

You have no net.

You got a live microphone and a camera. You have no idea the pain that I've gone

through. Those are your tools to tell your story.

This is hell on earth. In God's name, can a human being even move after this?

No, no, it's unbelievable.

That, to me, is just so fascinating.

It's the best gig in the world.

I mean, when he was a kid, he wanted to be a wrestler. He lived his whole life

wanting to be a wrestler.

The way that it happened and all the adversity that he's had to go through.

There was still the knock on edge that he wasn't top.

He was never the biggest, never the strongest, never the fastest.

He forced himself and pushed himself and willed himself.

He was someone that was willing to risk it all to entertain the people who paid

money to see him wrestle.

Whatever he wants to get, he's going to manifest.

When it comes to do or die situations, I thrive.

I was shocked that he had to end his career before it's time.

There's going to be uneasiness that is never going to go away.

Ant had shocked the world.

The impossible, he did the impossible.

The ultimate opportunist, the regular superstar.

Growing up in Orangeville, I was a shy kid, which seems counterintuitive to

I ended up doing for a living, but I was a pretty quiet kid and pretty well

behaved. It was just me and my mom, and she worked multiple jobs to make sure

that I had enough food because I ate a lot.

She was a single parent. She was raising Adam and had several jobs at once, and

she would do whatever it took to...

Raise Adam the right way, I guess.

Orangeville's a pretty... It's not the funnest town, but it's a safe place.

probably what you'd call a good place to raise family.

Not a whole lot going on, usually.

Here's another place where Adam and Judy lived.

Adam and Judy, they moved around probably, boy, about half a dozen times

least over the year.

They lived once downtown, and they lived in the place I just showed you. There

are a couple more places all around Erie.

There was this back alley to the back of our apartment, and it was these rickety

old stairs.

I would try and sneak down this back alley so no one would see where I lived

because I thought, oh, if there's anybody driving by, they'll go, what's

doing there? Does he live up there?

You go through those times and those periods where you're self -conscious,

you're shy.

And some of that can be because of finances or you're the poor kid or

kid that's got to wear the same shoes for a while.

I'm sure my mom probably sensed that, which probably was not an easy thing for

her, but she did everything that she possibly could.

Judy worked two jobs sometimes, you know, making ends meet. She was an

mother. She did a wonderful, wonderful job just to keep a roof over Adam's

We kind of lived paycheck to paycheck, and I remember there was this thing

called the baby bonus. I think it was like $35 a month.

I'd go down the stairs and always look in that mailbox to see if that envelope

was there because I knew that $35 was really going to help.

That was the difference between that final week being pretty lean or we're

to have a casserole.

Definitely some stress, but you're a kid, right? So it kind of bounces off of

you. And maybe on deeper layers, deeper levels, it is helping to form the person

you're going to become, but you don't realize that at the time.

She was everything to Adam, and vice versa.

Adam was her life, period.

It kind of felt like her and I against the world.

She just put her nose to the grindstone, and what she taught me was work ethic.

Nothing will come easy.

If it's something that you want, if it's something that you truly want to

attain, there's going to be work involved, and the reward will be worth

I can look back now, and I think her reward was my success.

You got a lot of love, and when you're a little kid and you don't have much,

that means everything.

He definitely had a lot of male presence in his life to kind of make up for the

fact that his father wasn't around, but I'm sure he had doubts and thoughts and

ran the gamut of emotions as to why his father wasn't in his life.

My grandparents were there, all my uncles were there, my aunts were there.

There was always someone, and they all pitched in, and they all lent their

to making sure that...

You know, if my mom had to work, there was going to be somebody there.

Him and Gary were really close.

He was the baby of the family. He was the closest to me in age.

And because of that, he was my uncle, but it was more of a big brother feel,

know, because we could relate to a lot of the same things.

He was into hockey, big time.

While I may have annoyed my older uncles, I didn't annoy Gary because we

into similar things still.

We would draw together and we'd sit there and compare our drawings of

and things like that.

When he wasn't playing hockey with his friends, he was always without them.

Always.

And then all of a sudden that was taken away from him.

I was out west in western Canada working, and all I got was a phone call

you better get home and you better get home now.

Gary's been in an accident.

My Uncle Gary and a bunch of friends were driving home from a lacrosse game

lost control around a wet corner.

And, yeah,

he was in the back seat and didn't make it.

It turned the entire family upside down.

He was the baby.

This is my best buddy.

At that age, old people passed away.

It didn't dawn on me that you could be 17.

You know, Gary was kind of like the anchor.

When that anchor was taken away, it kind of just drifted, right?

You can never replace that, ever.

You say time heals all, but it doesn't. You just learn to live with the scars,

you know?

It's a big, big void.

I know my grandparents never recovered.

And I truly don't think any of the brothers and sisters did either.

And for me, I was young enough that I started looking, and I found wrestling.

It was all of those things that I gravitated to as a kid.

But now it was tangible.

Now, wait, these guys and girls are going to be down at Maple Leaf Gardens?

Or they may come to the Orangeville Arena?

It became the friend that my uncle was. And now that friend wasn't there.

Wrestling became that thing for me.

Proud here in Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens for this fantastic event.

Introducing first, the number one Frenchman, Rene Dulé.

My Uncle Randy, my mom, my Aunt Sandy and I, we all went down to Maple Leaf

Gardens. This was my first trip to Maple Leaf Gardens.

I just remember the ring.

and this single light above it, and this giant wooden ramp that came up from

out of the dressing rooms. Maple Leaf Gardens was the only one that had this

ramp.

I just remember thinking, these people are humongous, bigger than life,

than life.

It was mind -melting.

I don't know what part of my brain

fired that said, this is what you're going to do. And I don't know why, but

did.

This is Orangeville District Secondary School.

There's a lobby in there.

And that's where Adam and Jay used to practice their wrestling.

There's a set of stairs that comes down.

They used to pretend they were jumping off the top rope.

I was 11 years old when I moved to Orangeville.

I was a really shy kid. When my mom pulled up to the school, I refused to

out of the car.

He was nervous. And the teacher sent me out as one of the kids to try and ease

him into this thing, you know, talk him into the school to tell him it's going

to be okay.

We started talking about wrestling.

And he was as avid about it as I was.

We kind of had our own, like, federations going on, so we'd always

update each other who's the champion with our action figures and all those

of things.

My family took him in, and he was with us a lot for dinners. He went on family

trips with us. Him kind of becoming a part of my family, we just started

about it. It wasn't like, if we do this, if we become wrestlers. It was like,

when we do this, when we become a tag team, when we become tag team champions.

We kind of manifested it at an early age that this was something we were going

to do.

And that was it.

Like, all bets were off at that point.

I took this very seriously.

And this was...

It. There was no plan B.

Failure was not an option.

So WrestleMania 6 was coming to the

Sky Dome.

It was everywhere.

I thought there's no way that I'm going to end up going.

In the meantime, my mom and my grandparents were doing what they could

down there. We didn't have a credit card, so my mom used my grandparents'

card and then paid them back in order to get me down there. And then we took the

bus down, and it was a voyage.

When you step in the Sky Dome, when you feel the energy that's going to run wild

throughout the arena, those are my people. That's my energy, brother.

It was going to be Hulk Hogan against the Ultimate Warrior.

Now, as a fan in that time, you had a clear side.

You were Hogan or you were Warrior. I was Hogan.

I'll never forget, like, it still burned into my memory.

Like how far we were and the angle we were at and how cool it all was

to me.

Sure enough, there I am in my Hulk rules tank top, already about a head taller

than everybody else in the audience.

My mom down at my shoulder, the mullet, stupid smile on my face.

Like I just won the Super Bowl.

Toronto was maybe the hottest market in the world for wrestling.

Just growing up in that environment had a big say in Adam's whole development as

a wrestler.

In Toronto, wrestling becomes so popular.

Sports editors at those favors, they say, you know what? When we run anything

about wrestling,

Our paid number for that day goes up.

What about a weekly wrestling column?

One weekend, in the column at the very tail end of it, want to be a wrestler?

Right in, there's going to be an essay contest. The winner of this essay

will receive free wrestling training from Sweet Daddy Siki and Ron Hutchison.

Okay, I know these names. I know these guys.

This is legit.

I'm writing in.

I wrote it longhand, sent it. That was the only copy.

I've never seen it to this day.

And this is the letter. This is the original letter.

Let's open it up here.

Part of me is dreading what I might have written.

But whatever I wrote worked because we're sitting here now.

And a lot of it starts with that essay.

Dear Mr. Sullivan, I am writing in response to Norm DaCosta's column.

I feel I could possibly be a good choice.

I've been a wrestling fanatic since I was about eight years old.

I stand six foot four, 224 pounds, and I'm 18 years old.

Sincerely, Adam Copeland.

It changed everything for me.

But I also knew because they were taking this chance on me that I wanted to do

right by that chance. If I didn't see it to as far as I could see it and work as

hard as I could toward it, The chance they gave me, I'm just going to go on

And I'm not going to do that.

He didn't have a car at the time. So I actually borrowed my mom's car and drove

him to his first wrestling class.

And I would do that quite often on weekends until he got a car.

I loved every inch of that place.

Finally, after about six or seven months of falling on the floor, I was given

the nod to get the ring.

And finally getting in there.

And being in there and landing in there for the first time was a real eye

-opener. I don't know why I thought that might be easy.

And I was really, really wrong.

Luckily, my brain was okay with that.

I don't know why.

I don't have the answer as to why.

All right.

What we're about to watch here is my very first experience

wrestling in front of an audience.

Look at that young fella over there in the corner in the Oakland Raiders Zubaz.

Lightning bolts all over the place.

Fantabulous mullet on full display.

Monarch Park, Toronto, July 1st, Canada Day. Ron Hutchinson, Sweet Daddy CKR

trainers ran a wrestling show for free in the park to get us some reps in front

of an audience.

I just remember getting chopped a lot, which is kind of a rite of passage for

the newbie. So I'm like, I don't care if I'm a rookie, I'm going to chop you

back. Yeah, that's right, Frankie, that.

Now I'm just chopping everybody.

I had a bit of an attitude, I guess.

I just remember thinking, yep, this is exactly where I need to be. This

is the right spot.

So this went a long way to making me realize that, okay, I'm on the right

at least.

There was no safety net. There was no fail -safe. It was this and nothing

You kind of bet on yourself, and you've got to believe you can do it.

I'd been training for about a year, year and a half. The Deanie Petty Show in

Canada. It was a talk show, and it was really big in Canada.

Brett was going to be a guest.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Canada's own Brett, the Hitman Hart.

So I said, I got to get there.

I got to get in that audience. I'm going to ask him a question.

We got two guys here who look to me like they might be wrestlers in training

here, huh? By the sheer size of you two. You want to be a wrestler? We're just

wondering, like, how we should go about it. And we work out at Tiki's gym, so if

you ever want to stop by, there's a little plug there.

In those days, it was hard to get someone to help open a door for you. And

I was. I was world champion at the time. I was like, how can I open a door for a

guy?

At his age where he is and at his level.

After the show, I'm coming out of the bathroom and Brett sees me and comes

walking down the hall.

And he said, listen, man, I wish I had more to tell you. I wish I had better

advice. Just stick with it.

Brett Hart just told me to stick with it.

Damn right I'm sticking with it.

I had already been going to Humber College for a year, and Adam decided to

radio broadcasting course to kind of have something to fall back on if, you

know, wrestling doesn't pan out.

I wanted to take something in college while I was just getting sporadic

bookings. I decided maybe radio broadcasting would help to have to kind

perform verbally.

Tune in to CBC this Sunday at 8. I'm Adam Jericho with your Char News Update.

I had a great couple of years, and I was still wrestling.

And it wasn't making any money, but it was making enough to get by.

I just had a discussion. He's like, hey, man, you keep saying you're going to do

this. Are you going to do it or what? And I was like, yeah, I am.

And so I was broke, flat broke, but I had a student loan from college.

So he took part of his student loan and put it toward training.

So now we're training at the same school.

slowly but surely starting to break into these different pockets of the

independent scene.

I

had

done a tiny show in Ajax, Ontario, and no matter what, we always tried to put

the best match we possibly could, which meant...

I'm going to be out there for half an hour because I'm going to use every

of this time to either get somebody to notice or just improve.

There's probably 100 people there. Do a tag team match.

They seem to be playing a good mind game.

This guy, Carl DeMarco, who at that point is Bret Hart's manager, says, hey,

guys got something.

Get me a tape.

I wanted to build him similar to what we did with Bret.

And I talked to Adam, and I said, I see you going down the right lane for

success. Red Heart gets the victory.

Adam,

you've got to trust me.

You're not there yet, but you're close.

I want you to do some more independent shows to hone your craft.

We're going to keep in touch.

So they came to Winnipeg, and from there we went through the Norton Tours.

There's a lot of tours where, man, you drive across these lakes and they

wouldn't be all the way frozen.

Some of the guys on those type of trips, they break out. They start crying

because they figure they're going to die.

You know, they've never been crossing lakes driving, right? And sometimes the

water breaks, and they figure they're dead.

It's a video camera. It's the IWA on water tour.

The on water tour.

The Heller high water tour.

See if we're on a lake somewhere.

That was why they started being called death tours.

You find yourself in these conditions. Like we got up to Oxford House and they

said it's minus 72 out.

You got to run inside because you don't want to be exposed for this long or it's

frostbite.

And I just remember getting out of that van and my nostrils freezing together.

We would get wherever we could to try and wrestle new people.

Jay and I took this trip, and I still blame him for this. It's all his fault.

He had gotten contact with this promoter from Tennessee, and this promoter

promised us 30 shows in 30 days.

So we get to Tennessee, and we realize there's no shows.

And we've used all of our money to get this far.

We just try to walk on to shows, and we ended up walking on to all these

different shows.

We did a couple shows in a barn in front of, like, eight people.

Fans sitting on pay bales.

That was one of the instances where I had to call home and say, can you wire

enough money for a bus ticket home?

I knew she didn't have it because at this point we're living in a one -room

apartment. You know, my mattress is on the floor in this corner. Her mattress

over there.

I don't know if she asked my grandparents or scraped it together, but

there. And that's what got me home.

yeah, you're not making any money, and yeah, maybe 75 bucks a show, hopefully.

But you're still out there doing it.

My mom never questioned that. She never said to me, what do you think, is it

time to call it a day, maybe move on to something else?

She never said it once, and I never said it.

You know, I'd be working in the car seat factory, and I'd go, okay, I'm doing

this so that I can afford tights, so I can afford those boots, so I can afford

the first payment of car insurance.

Because I thought if I keep putting into this thing, eventually, eventually

it'll pay off.

We had tunnel vision. We were going to make it regardless.

And he had the same mindset and I had the same mindset and we pushed each

Carl calls me.

Said you should get out to Brett.

Brett Hart, who's the WWE champion at that point.

Every now and then I finally would step in the ring and I'd go, okay, I'm going

to wrestle Adam.

Trying to teach him everything I could in as short a way and quick a way as

possible and basically give him the experience of working with the best

in the world right now.

So I just get in and do my thing. At the end of that, Brett goes, we've got to

get you going.

You know, I think you're ready. You've gone as far as you can go to this point.

Come off the top.

Can't believe this.

It's not very often that I give a big send -up to a guy like Adam, but it was

easy for me to do.

That's huge.

I don't know what else to say to that, but my stomach's doing every flop and

flip you can imagine.

But I got a tour in Manitoba for Tony Candelo, and it's not a northern death

tour this time because it's during the summer.

So I go to Winnipeg. We're landing pontoon planes on the lakes to get to

shows, and we're in Cat Lake.

I remember Tony coming to find me.

And there's one phone on the rest.

And he said, listen, we got to go to the cop shop.

And it's a double wide.

So I walk in there, pick up the phone.

It's called DeMarco.

Hey, Carl, what's going on?

And he goes, you got a contract.

And it's waiting for you.

And it's waiting for you down in Stanford, Connecticut.

It almost feels like the second half of my life started there.

The first half was to get to that phone call.

Then that phone call happened and it all changed.

I can look back at it now and realize how pivotal it was. And I knew it was at

the time, but looking in that rear view, you realize, wow.

That single phone call changed the entire path.

It was the path I wanted. It was the path I expected.

But that phone call is what actually did it.

You think you know me, but you will never know me.

You are lost and scared.

I don't, I don't. I think WWE had an idea what to do with Adam Copeland.

The only trait that Edge and Adam shared was confusion.

Adam had no idea what Edge was, and therefore Edge was very confused.

So I didn't understand that there was going to be departments.

You'd have people whose job it was to try and come up with this stuff.

That's great, but...

I just, I want to do that myself.

You know, it's my kid's light board.

It's Lyric Crayola light board.

And so I'll just put something on there and go, okay, there's an idea.

That's a good size. And then I'll just go, okay, well, I can trace it now that

have the original drawing.

So that's kind of my process is I get a pencil and some Sharpies and I start

doodling.

I don't know why it's always been this process.

I really enjoy it. I think that's also part of the reason, because of that,

because it does take me back to when I was a kid and then a teenager and then

adult.

And now being a 40 -something middle -aged man, still doing it.

What could have happened to this man that made him do these things?

A lot of guys have really shot themselves in the foot right out of the

Because they don't like their character and that doesn't sit well sometimes with

the higher up.

I got some of these creative drawings and I looked like a BG taking rave

What is that?

Nothing was really fleshed out. Nothing was told to me.

Didn't know what Edge was. Didn't know the story of Edge. Didn't have a

backstory. None of that.

I was really floundering.

Saying no to that stuff might not have been the best idea, but I did.

There was a period where people had been in the business for a while and looked

at anybody new. Hey, you haven't paid your dues yet.

There's a really fine line there of standing up for yourself and what your

vision is and doing what it is that they want. Now you've kind of got this

stigma. Like, okay, this guy's hard to work with.

That could be career suicide.

So then I'd design my stuff, and I would draw it.

I got to have my hands in it in making this thing work, but that's just not

really the way it always works.

He couldn't wrap his brain around it because I don't think he understood it,

he would portray this character.

To Adam's credit, he's always stood up for what he believed in.

That is some of the things you have to deal with politically, both with the

office and also in the dressing room. Any time that a new talent comes in that

doesn't have the pedigree, if you will, to come in and go right

into a spot, I think there's a lot of jealousy.

He wasn't a seasoned talent, per se.

Guy's been in the business for a cup of coffee and comes in and he's...

being hyped in a big way.

Anybody that's on top, and trust me on this, is always looking over their

shoulder to see who's going to take their place.

I won't mention names. Certain other talents who had long hair, they were

him as a threat.

There was a lot of political behind the scenes pushing, I think you should get a

haircut. Do anything you can to sabotage his look and image, etc.

There was talk that I would be deaf with an inability to speak.

At one point, which is the kiss of death, because as a wrestler, microphone

one of your tools.

And I thought, man, that's being floated around for me.

I got nothing if they take that away.

I'm like, what?

Like, that was the dumbest idea I've ever heard.

And I knew there'll be a career killer before he started.

I mean, he really would have been dead in the water if he had to try to get

without being able to talk.

I didn't know. They just said he's a tortured soul.

What does that mean?

When in doubt, I just scream.

I just scream and look up the ceiling and scream.

Well, that's what I've heard the same as you, Jared. This guy's supposed to be

tormented. I mean, every time I've seen him, he seems to be in some sort of a

rage.

We are about to see the debut of Edge. And Edge on his way to the ring.

I just remember thinking, okay, how do I try and make an impression?

How do I try and get noticed?

The match was going fine until it wasn't.

I...

Decided to try this move called the helo, which is a front flip over the top

rope to the floor.

I knocked Jose out.

Out.

In my debut match.

I roll in the ring.

Tim White is the referee.

He goes, he's out, kid.

And I just felt the world drop out from underneath me.

I'd never injured someone.

I'd never hurt someone.

So not only am I...

Smashing that glass.

But I'm doing it my first match on television for the company I've always

to work for.

And I know how the locker room works.

I know people see that and the whispers start.

The kid's not safe.

The kid's not safe. The kid's not safe. Now you've got people that don't want to

work you.

That's all going through my mind while I'm on TV in my debut match.

And that call of an edge will win his first match.

I'm sure not the way he wanted, but he's a winner needless to say.

He's over the edge.

Yeah, look at it two ways.

Nowhere to go but up.

Or I just go to bed.

And this could be it.

I've often said this is kind of my field of dreams.

Some people have football fields.

Some people have ice rinks.

Now, if you had told 16 -year -old Adam that one day there'd be one of these at

his beck and call, he would not have believed that.

This is kind of a collection of stuff that was never going to see the light of

day, but we got a wrestling ring. That's ridiculous enough.

This is when I did a series of Slim Jim commercials.

They had Edge skateboarding like the Grand Canyon is a half pipe, ascending

Everest, and attacking a school teacher, it seems, with a Slim Jim.

Once you eat a Slim Jim, anything is possible.

Easy, Chief.

One step at a time. Now eat it and beat it.

This poster over here.

This was the first wrestling show I ever went to.

For whatever reason, I still had it all these years later.

So it felt like that needed to live here.

We set up the chairs for the show, Jay and myself, and they promised

that if we papered the town, if we posted the town with these posters and

chairs, they'd give us two minutes in the ring.

And that was our, we didn't get paid, that was our pay, was just let it in the

ring. That was our calling.

Even still boggles my mind that two kids from a small town like Orangeville both

had the same dream, met each other, and both chased the dream to the furthest

that you could chase it and did it.

That still doesn't really register or make complete sense to me.

I started on TV June of 98.

I want to say it was like six months after that Jay started up, and I was

he was going to be brought in as my brother. And then they brought in

Dave Heath, and they put us together as a group called The Brood.

That was the first instance where I was like, ooh, there's an element of

character here.

There's one word to describe this trio, and that's unique. And Gangrel in the

middle, he appears to be the leader.

It's on his right.

We're supposed to be like, are we vampires?

Are we goth? What is this thing? But it was something.

The power lies within us.

I remember the first time he spoke, which was in New Haven, and said the

only come out at night. Because the freaks come out at night.

And the girls screamed.

I don't know.

He said, I want to get out of here. He's going to get there.

I just pictured this group of, like, really cool vampires, whether they had

fangs or not, just really cool guys. It didn't matter if you got your butt

kicked. Every night, as long as you look cool doing it.

Whoa! The brood not up just too well. Let this thing go!

Look out now!

Anything he did was going to work.

They told me that that's the guy that they were going to strap a rocket to.

They knew he was their future superstar.

That combined weight of 455 pounds.

Christian and Edge.

When we teamed up, it's like, well, we've been doing this since the sixth

We know what we do. Now we get to show everybody what we can do.

I think there was a realization that Adam and Jay need to be injected into

It can't just be Edge and Christian because what is that? We don't know.

But if we can inject some of our humor and some of our idiocy into this, maybe.

Just maybe they'll start giving us some microphone time. Hey, listen to this.

I'm going to play our music.

You think you know me. You think you know me. All right, get out.

We'd added the last element that we needed to go from just kind of being

wrestlers to being entertainers and understanding that there is a difference

between the two. What I really like are those five second poses.

For the next five seconds, we will very generously pose.

For all of you with the benefit of flash photography.

Christian and I have been rehearsing some new poses.

This one we just simply call, uh -oh.

You have to be an entertainer if you really want this thing to work and you

really want to get to the upper echelons of what this thing is.

I'll turn this light on over here.

There's always going to be a ladder present when I'm around, it seems.

I try to avoid them at all costs.

Yeah, so you have to, like, practice with, I mean, do you practice with the

ladder? You don't practice with ladders. You just don't touch a ladder until

it's match time.

That's just for changing light bulbs.

I truly, I don't go anywhere near that thing unless I absolutely have to.

When most people see ladders, I think the reaction is, oh, there's a ladder.

The pit of my stomach starts to feel a little queasy when I see a ladder.

Because I know what happens if you fall off of them. Because it was my job.

There's a saying that every single day of your career is one day less of your

career. I think that in some of these matches, there's not just one day less.

There's probably, you take about 20, 30, 40 days off of your career in every

high -risk match that you have.

Matt and Jeff Hardy against Edge and Christian.

This is the first.

tag team ladder match in history. The match only can end when one team has

secured the $100 ,000 that's hanging high above the ring.

For Edge and Christian, it was that first ladder match in Cleveland.

They changed the whole landscape on a ladder match in one match.

We caught lightning in a bottle that night, and that took us from being WWE

wrestlers to WWE superstars overnight.

We all realized being as young and dumb and hungry as we were, that if we got an

opportunity, we ought to swing for the fences.

Our goal was to tear that arena down.

So we started to look at how can we build things with these ladders.

That we can then fall on. Or that we can use as a teeter -totter and slam up

into somebody's face.

Just trying to think of violent,

creative ways to create things people hadn't seen before.

And we did.

And then to get to the back and get the congratulations from your peers, from

people who were already at the top of the show, went out of their way to tell

us, like, damn, guys, I don't know what you just did, but you did it.

I made sure that I was the first guy they saw when they walked through the

curtain. I looked at all four of them, and I said, you guys just became stars.

Oh, no.

That was their big stamp of approval, like, these guys are for real, these

are here, and you really have to appreciate that.

They all had chemistry, and they worked beautifully together.

In any combination, they defined what those matches would be for the future of

our business.

The reaction was unlike anything I'd ever experienced up until that point in

time. I never experienced.

Standing ovations or anything like that. And the next night on Raw, it happened

again. It was like just goosebumps when I was out there, like just taking it all

in because I just couldn't believe or even comprehend or understand at that

point what that meant.

Every single night, you go in front of a live audience.

You want to improve.

You want to do better. And the audience now has an expectation.

As a performer, you can meet that expectation or you can exceed it.

And you always want to exceed it.

It just, we kept having to top ourselves.

And that's a kind of fun place to be, if I'm being perfectly honest.

Well, there you see it, ladies and gentlemen, the tag team title belts

about 20 feet above the ring.

It's starting.

Engine pushing out. Here we go.

Uh -oh.

Oh, no. Three, four, three. Game on.

Oh, my God. Again.

I'm standing on top of this table, wobbling like crazy.

I've just pushed Matt Hardy off of the thing. He's flipped and landed directly

on his tailbone through a table.

Looks so ugly, so I'm double -checking to make sure, okay, he's moving.

That's a good sign.

Now I have to figure out how to stand up on this wobbly table that's about to

pitch over.

I just remember the reaction when we were reaching for the titles, and I said

Adam, I was like, I'm going to fall.

He's like, I'll get them. So he grabbed both of them, and if I had stood up,

that celebration would have looked a lot different.

If you look at it on paper, the

chances of it happening,

Stupid.

Two kids from a small town in southern Ontario with no inroads to the wrestling

industry whatsoever are going to find themselves standing on a table on top of

two ladders in the pond in Anaheim after doing a match that has never, ever

happened before in the history of wrestling that they've helped create.

If everything ended after this in terms of our team and all of those things,

man, we did it.

We did what we said we were going to do.

Winning the tag team titles is great, an amazing feeling. We're the kings and

the top of the heap in the tag team world.

I definitely think tag team titles is a stepping stone to get to that next step.

You're almost there.

You've grabbed that range, now it's time to go for the next one.

Please welcome my man.

Reeking of awesomeness the way we do and being so totally cool, I'm here at MTV

on TRL to show them just exactly what Edge, movie star, is all about.

She knows what she's talking about.

Being one half of Edge and Christian, the most photogenic tag team ever, and

being on the real pulse of what the teens want to see, you know, you can

understand why MTV would come to us.

Edge was a big -time player star, and if he'd have stayed with the tag team, you

know, his career probably would not have lasted.

I mean, that's just the way it is.

Hey, wait a minute. Here comes Edge's brother Christian with a steel chair of

his own. You can only do the same thing for so long before it gets repetitive,

and I think we both wanted to break up before people were like, okay, I've seen

the act.

Once we split...

I don't know if either one of us understood how hard it was going to be.

You want to know if you can make it on that stage as a single.

When your time comes, when they're ready to push you as a big single, you have

to do it.

Because if you don't strive to be the best, you're really spinning your

Because we'd been with the company, we'd found success with the company, and

assumed it would be an easy enough transition into this next stage of our

career, and it was anything but.

The challenges that Edge found out was the place was popping, and you had so

many great talents that knew the business, knew their game, and I think

could feel pressure.

from those that were above them that didn't want them to supersede the top

As crazy as it sounds, given the danger involved in the ladders matches and

later the tables, ladders, and chairs matches, there was still the knock on

that he wasn't tough.

Well, look at him. Does he look tough?

You know, come on. Adam's in there. He's a young kid, all tan and pretty.

Adam was pretty.

He looked like a surfer. He did not look like your stereotypical tough guy. He

didn't look the part, but he was the part.

Because he's a handsome man with a great physique and he's a young man with the

long hair, there are going to be those who don't think he has what we refer to

as intestinal fortitude.

Those that would say that Adam didn't have the intestinal fortitude had never

gotten in the ring with him.

Edge, as the performer, was willing to do anything that he had to do.

I thought there was a good chance he could be held back and not climb to the

height that he would be able to.

I was treading water and just kind of keeping my nose above that water line.

And then Paul Heyman called me and he said, we want to team you and Hulk

What do you think?

And I... I went, I think that is a stupendous idea.

We will have a blast.

You know,

I'm not a tag team guy, so I don't have that psychology.

It was just totally out of my wheelhouse, you know?

So I said, just whatever you want to do, brother.

And you tell me that, well, it'll be a lot then.

It was just such a... crazy night because I'd never been the tag team

before and all of a sudden here I'm in the ring with some guy that's watched

Hulkamania ever since he was a kid and I was like his wrestling hero growing up

and to be in the ring with him and know how cool this was it was almost like I

had my son with me or something

What's the next step?

Next step for Edge?

Probably not tag teaming. Probably go back off and continue what I was doing

before with the singles thing.

Did you hear that?

Edge is out, man.

I started experiencing just headache, just pain.

And my left arm started to atrophy, and I noticed it in my hands. The meat here

was disappearing.

When you're young and hungry like that, you're going to do whatever you can to

make it. He was sucking it up, just kind of gritting his teeth and fighting

through it until he just couldn't do it anymore.

I was starting to see little divots in my forearm.

I was like, oh, that's weird. And then my rear delt just left one day.

It was gone.

It looked like someone had golfed off of it.

And that's when I finally gave in and said, I think something's going on.

I went to Steve Austin's spine doctor because he had had a spinal fusion at

point. He goes, you got to come down to San Antonio. I said, Dr. Youngblood.

This is disc material and bone spurs right here. And it should be a nice

symmetrical oval.

So I went down and ended up getting a double fusion from C5 to C7.

And basically what they did is they took a chunk from my hip and they put it in

my neck.

replaced the ruptured discs.

And I put a plate and six screws into the back.

And I just remember having to sleep sitting up in that neck collar for about

three months.

You'd get a couple hours here and there, and if I woke up, I'd just turn on the

TV and just kind of mindlessly watch something and try not to...

fall down the well of depression that every injury has and every athlete has

encountered.

I had to calibrate my brain to the aspect of psychological toll that takes.

When you're used to going 120 with no hint of putting your foot on the brakes

you're in reverse and you're going in reverse fast, that takes some...

Some mental gymnastics.

I had always hoped one day it'll be my choice to walk away, and this

wasn't my choice. I think that's the hardest part.

Four days after I had the surgery, I thought it'd be a good idea to go in and

just go, right, I'm going to the gym. And I got in there, and I sat down, and

tried to lift a weight, and it was seven pounds, and my arms were just shaking

like that.

And I put the weight down. I feel like crying is what I felt like doing. I got

up and I walked out of the gym.

You have this thought and you can't help it.

Am I going to get another opportunity when I get healthy to come back and do

this? Am I going to be healthy enough to come back and do it at the level?

So yeah, your mind plays horrible, horrible tricks on you.

You know, I talked to Michael Hayes, and he said, you know, worst case scenario,

if you can't come back, you've lived your dream. And I thought, well, I've

it, but I haven't fulfilled my final dream.

That's to win either the WWE or the World Heavyweight Championship.

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been my trip of just... Oh, my God!

Who's that?

Is that Triple H? Wait a minute.

I hope you didn't pay tax.

I had gone down to see him at his place in Florida when he was recovering.

It was funny because he looked relieved to sort of be on a break.

I think the first couple of years were a whirlwind.

Maybe a blessing in disguise to sort of take a deep breath and be back at home.

You're interrupting my morning coffee.

Thank you very much. This is my humble abode. Where should we head to? Books.

I read all the time. That's pretty much one thing I do on my own, which I wrote,

by the way.

Apple mango tango.

Aha! See that right there?

That right there is an ass crack that is implanted in my couch from when I had

my neck surgery. I just sleep there, sitting up, just like this. So my ass

is permanently embedded in this spot.

I think it's the motivation.

Setback, yes.

But I know where I can go, and I know what the company feels about me. So I'm

going to work harder to prove that they were right in spite of having this

happen.

And Megan Winters, she is the Intercontinental Champion at

Toronto's own age!

I thought, man, I've been off.

I've been back in Toronto, I think it was two years at that point. I'm coming

back. I'm the Intercontinental Champion.

I've had spinal fusion surgery.

This has got to be a hero's welcome, right?

I came out and they booed me.

You can see it on Edge's face.

Like, why don't you love me?

I'm Edge.

You're my hometown audience.

Don't you love me?

What our vision is, you know, Edge is this heroic character and fighting

the odds and yada, yada, yada.

They're not buying it. It's the same thing I was doing before I left. They

buying it then, but for whatever reason, this break has caused them to not buy

it anymore.

Instead of asking, why do you hate me?

Make them hate you more.

And turn it around to take all of the things that you do, being a nice guy,

and just put a twist on it. And just put a little bit of an attitude on it.

And that will help the audience confirm their belief.

You're an ass.

I don't like you.

Now they want something different. They're telling us.

So let's give them something different.

When you're kind of pegged to be a future superstar, you're going to maybe

get some more opportunities that others wouldn't get. And I felt like maybe he

thought his chances were running out. The following contest is the Money in

Bank leatherbacks!

The first individual to climb the ladder and retrieve the briefcase will win a

contract for a world heavyweight championship match. It can

be extremely difficult

for a guy to go from being a babyface to a heel.

And normally it is a recipe for disaster. But man, as a heel.

I think he is just so much better.

That then became this character who was just maniacally obsessed with being the

world champion because that was the last thing that needed to be done on my

checklist of things.

And that's Adam sitting back and going, right, what else? Yeah, that.

Did that. Cool. Did that. Did that. Did that. Gotta do that, though. I mean.

It can't end until that happens. With that neck injury, it made me realize,

like, I'm going to have to make it happen sooner than later.

Nobody goes anywhere.

This night is not over.

First of all, I'd like to congratulate John Cena in retaining the WWE

Championship. There's one more match to happen here tonight.

This individual is cashing in his money and the bank privilege that he earned at

WrestleMania. The WWE Championship match will take place right here, right

now. John Cena defends against Edge.

I'd like to think because Adam is so focused on all things WWE that that

is the pinnacle achievement. He's definitely proving himself.

With new performers, that's a tough amount in the client. Everybody wants to

the champion.

Edge has

shocked the world.

This was indeed a historical night. Edge is the new WWE champion.

They told me the plan.

You're going to have this thing for three weeks, then you're going to drop

back to John, and then John's going to wrestle Triple H at WrestleMania.

That

one

put a big chip on my shoulder.

I found out after the fact that there was a lot of very vocal, I wasn't ready

for it. Don't know if I'll ever be ready for it.

It was locker room where that was the feeling.

All of that was ammunition for me.

There's always somebody in the dressing room that's like, him?

I don't get it. But they don't appreciate what he was doing.

I think from my perspective, he got to win the championship.

And it's all about what is my perception going forward and how can I take what's

happened and continue a compelling narrative.

The ratings go up. The hits on the website go up. Okay, merchandise is

This is a good thing. We're going to go with this. No, we're not.

That pissed me off.

So I got Mick, right?

Now we can show everybody.

Nick Foley from my career

was absolutely what Edge needed.

to finally kind of cement where I, Adam, thought Edge belonged.

He was a guy, and still is to this day, a guy who likes to prove people wrong.

There's only so much a human body can take.

One of the things I never really thought about was how barbed wire would feel

when it's wrapped around a baseball bat and it's hitting you in the stomach.

Those thoughts crossed my mind as they were about to happen, like a nanosecond

before.

Huh. Ow.

Oh.

That sucks.

One of the bat... Ah, that really... Wow.

Okay. Mm -hmm.

That's barbed wire. That doesn't do good. Your skin's not meant for that.

The thumb tacks. I mean, the look on my face pretty much sums it up.

It's kind of like being on the high diving board and just back flopping into

pool.

But, like, I'm talking one of the high diving boards from the Olympics.

That kind of, like, smack where it might knock you out. Like, take your breath

away.

In the midst of this violent theater of the absurd, you're getting a real

emotion in the eyes there.

We

had

an idea in our head. I was borrowing from a couple of scenes I had witnessed,

but I just felt like doing it on the grandest stage of them all makes it.

Our moment.

And

I'm crawling

over, I roll him over, I said, I love you, Mick.

The last thing that you

think someone would say in that instance.

And he said the same thing.

As stupid as it sounds, you've survived something like that together, and you

create this story together, and that feels really, really good.

You feel horrible, but you feel elated.

And after that, I started to see respect in the ring.

He is the rated -R superstar and the WWE champion,

Edge!

Man, is he a really great deal. He's just got that climb, and

he enjoys it.

It's funny because the people that are really genuinely true, nice guys

oftentimes are better at being a heel and being that nasty, despicable

character. I thought there could be money to be made if you're that guy.

A lot of those characters are big, large, large men.

Undertaker, John Cena, Batista, Kane, Big Show.

A lot of their character involves throwing that bad guy around.

Look at him!

How did that bad guy?

Look at the strength! The power!

I want you all to know that I'll be a champion that you can be proud of.

A champion that will take on any and all comers.

Batista Bob!

Oh my God!

Body's a lot of... I didn't fully grasp how bad I felt.

I just thought it was, well, yeah, I got a double fusion in my neck, of course.

That's how I feel.

I was one of the few people that knew how much pain he was in, what he was

dealing with. He was trying to keep it as quiet as he could until after

WrestleMania. Obviously, it wasn't a good situation.

Finally, in the lead -up to WrestleMania 27, I got hit in the back with a chair.

Why?

And I think this was the first time that

cameras caught the extent of what my body did when

stuff like this would happen.

Alberto was grabbing me by the shirt and just flailing me around, and I couldn't

do anything.

Like, I was just... like a limp noodle.

The trainers came running out once we were dark, once the show went off the

and they went, what's going on? I went, no, no, no, no, good, good.

You know, what?

What exactly is going on?

I just lost my arse for a bit, that's all.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rant.

I do a bunch of strength tests the day of WrestleMania, passing everything.

We make the decision, let's get through WrestleMania.

Spear! Spear!

Del Rio's down!

And Edge retains his championship!

After WrestleMania, they wanted me to go get the MRIs. I got the MRIs.

I drove up to Charlotte.

Did a spear on this guy.

Kind of lost my arms again.

He injured the disc above the level of his previous fusion. It was literally

impinging on the spinal cord and also the nerves to his arms at the time.

There's no way he could have continued to wrestle with the injury that he had.

The risks would have simply...

then unjustifiable so i then get a call like two days later from vince

those calls are pretty rare he said

uh you know the toughest call i've ever ever had to make but uh you gotta retire

I think I might have been the first person that he called.

He was choked up, and I think even though he knew he was closer to the end

he was to the start, not being able to close the book on his own terms was hard

to swallow.

It was a big shock.

He was rolling. He had no other choice than to walk away if he wanted to be

healthy. It was tough. It was tough to watch.

I knew I was getting closer to the end.

I didn't know that was my last match.

That can't be my last match. I didn't know.

I would have treated it differently. I would have come into it differently. I

would have approached it differently.

I don't know how, but I would have.

Rumors have been swirling all day long about what Edge is about to tell us.

I hope it's not true.

I went to Raw, and I basically just went out and talked.

As Adam.

Like there was no edge.

Last little while, I've been in a lot of pain.

It was Adam.

Ending what he'd always wanted to do.

And that's it.

The WWE wanted me to go get more tests.

And thankfully I did.

Because the MRI showed that I have to retire.

I mean, trust me, it's not my choice. The doctors have told me that I got no

choice. I'm going to miss all of this.

All of it. No matter what, I came out here and I tried to give you guys as

as I had every single night.

And in turn, you guys gave it right back to me.

Thank you, guys.

shocking to me i felt bad for him and i know he felt like a

good part of his life was being ripped off i cried i cried because i felt

for adam copeland the human being it's sad when a

talent has to lose what they love and what they have a passion for and what

they've dreamt of doing their whole life, and it's taken away from you in an

instant.

There's going to be some uneasiness in his soul that is never going to go away.

That's what we live with if we don't have closure on our careers.

I have to figure out how to wrap my mind around this because...

This is all I know. This is what I've done with my entire adult life. This is

all I've wanted to do since I was a kid.

If I don't figure this out, emotionally, this could be bad.

This could cause a wormhole of I don't know what, but I need to put on my big

boy pants and just go, right, what is life now?

Here we go.

There you go.

Being a dad now, having not necessarily a template to draw ideas from

on how to do this dad thing, I really just came to my own conclusions is that

all you got to do is love your kids and support them.

Is there any ice cream in there or is it just candy?

I put ice cream in there. It sounds delicious with gummy frogs and

and chocolate.

Beth and I were on the roster at the same time, but very just, hey, Beth.

And, like, never called me Adam. It was always Edger. Hey, Edger.

I could totally have him wrapped around my little pinky finger, too.

And I retired.

And then we started talking and talking and talking and talking.

And it just kind of blossomed from there. And we started dating seriously

then started talking about the idea, okay, well, we're going to have kids,

right? What?

Chicken butt.

Being a dad is easily, hands down, no competition with whoever the best

thing I've ever done with my life.

I tell him this a lot, but I said, Adam, you've become the dad that you always

deserved growing up, that will get on the floor with the kids and be silly and

let them paint his toenails. He's just all in on being a dad.

It was a life away from wrestling. It really was. We didn't watch.

We moved away from it.

and into what everyday life was now.

But if wrestling's not on the table, I still need to do something creative,

whatever that is.

You had no business here.

This is Haven, making things disappear is my business.

I'm going to go act on a TV show.

I don't really know how to do that, but, I mean, I guess I'll figure it out.

I had four scenes in the first episode that I was in.

And halfway through the second scene, they pulled me aside and said, can you

more episodes?

I mean, I got nothing else to do now.

Sounds good.

So that first episode, it turned into four that season, turned into 41 all

And I realized in that time how much I loved acting.

After all, I am a Viking.

None of this is possible without Beth.

She has been my support.

She has been my everything. The mother of my children, my partner, my best

friend.

She almost took on, and I think on purpose, what my mom would have done.

I think that was probably part of a pact that they made.

And I don't know if they officially did, but I know they did.

We really wanted his mom, Judy, to be here with us in Asheville.

And we were working on her immigration papers, and right around that time, she

was diagnosed with cancer.

It was a really hectic time, just because I had already signed on to do

I found myself doing this triangle of travel for about two and a half years,

where it would be Asheville, dad, husband.

try and be all of those things.

Got to get up to Toronto, check on my mom, see how she is.

I got to go back to Dublin, got some scenes coming up, then back to

then Toronto, Dublin, then maybe back to Toronto, and it was pretty exhausting.

And the emotional aspect of watching my mom go through, you know, chemo and just

battle through this thing.

Yeah, I was with her the last five months. It was gut -wrenching.

I just said to Adam, I texted him, I said, you better get back home soon

I don't think this is good.

I think she finally felt like she could rest because I had Beth.

And she knew, like, I had a partner.

that truly has my back.

Losing his mom, like that tore that constant in his life.

It really hit him hard.

And I don't know how much he dealt with that grief for a long time.

The weird thing about depression, I think, is sometimes you don't

know you are because it becomes just mundane and you just,

I don't know.

It's a weird funk, like you're just kind of stuck in the mud, right?

I don't know if I really fully grasped that I was until I pulled myself out of

it. And that I can attribute to... The girls.

Howdy, girls.

And realizing, like, whoa, hold on a second. Snap out of it.

They became kind of the starting point for everything.

I don't think it's the wrestling that makes him happy. I think it's the

challenge. Whatever the toughest route is, whatever the road least traveled is,

that's what makes him feel alive.

I remember once or twice it was ever said, like, I wonder if I could have one

more match.

And I would shut that down real quick.

When that man comes up with an idea, there ain't no stopping him.

If he wants something, he manifests it.

How's it going? I'm Seamus, a .k .a. the Celtic Warrior here with the rated R

Superstar Edge. We are going in the mountains, fella, and we are not coming

back.

That was a good one.

They came flying up, and my brother -in -law, Eric, was behind me with the

GoPro, and he's like, whoa, dude, are you okay? I was like, yeah, actually.

Sounds all right. That's the important thing.

Yeah, that was my first, like, good one.

People see that and go, why can't he wrestle? I feel great.

I feel alive.

I feel like that's all that was running through my head.

Oh, sh**. Go. Oh, yeah.

There we go.

I feel like I was a big roadblock for the return.

I retired from wrestling in 2012.

It was six or seven days later, Adam had neck surgery.

We don't talk about it a lot anymore, but he was having very bad symptoms at

time of his retirement.

He was dropping things. He had atrophy. He had nerve damage.

And so what I was told when he had that neck surgery was, like, if he gets rear

-ended, you know, in a car accident or something, like, he could die.

She'll tell me, you know, we would be out for two hours running errands, and

then you'd have to go get flat because your head would just be pounding.

And I've washed that out of the memory banks a little bit.

I said, listen, for this to happen, there's two things. I got to hear it

the best in the world that it's okay. Because for a long time, I've been told

this will end badly.

And number two is I got to see it with my own eyes. I got to see this and I got

to make sure you're okay.

Once he took that first bump, and I looked down at him, and he looked up at

and we were just like, is everything okay? And I was just holding my breath,

he's like, I think I'm okay.

So, went up, met with the doctor.

We had a long, detailed discussion, and we thought that, yes, there was minimal

risk. There's risk any time you do these kinds of things. But we ended up

feeling that it was safe.

I still can't fully explain it.

I've worked really hard, you know, to strengthen everything.

You know, there's still parameters, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to try

land on my head, but that's pretty much everybody in the world.

Got that final clearance, and then it really became real.

Welcome to the 33rd Royal Rumble.

If someone took away the thing that at that point in your life you loved most,

and after that... You landed on your feet. You started a beautiful family.

did all of these things.

But if someone dangles that carrot of doing it again and ending it the way you

want to, how many people are going to say no?

When I found out he was going to come back, I thought it was the most amazing,

coolest thing that I've seen happen in this business, maybe of all time. I was

excited for him because he was going to have an opportunity to go out the way

that he wanted to go out.

and finish what he started, really.

About to blow up.

Let's just cut to the chase, shall we?

He looks amazing, doesn't he?

I think that's when it really became real for Beth, for the company, for

everyone to really start, oh, this thing is, not only can it happen, it's now

going to happen.

And in 10 seconds, entry number 21.

Who's it going to be?

People are always looking for those surprises.

I dare say Edge was a huge surprise and unbelievable

live response.

It's been nine long years.

It's still surreal, you know, and it really kind of felt like a dream

out there.

It felt really good to hear them react the way I thought they would.

You can't beat that.

I know there's not many of these left for me, so I have to truly soak it

all in.

The Rated -R Superstar!

Ed Stumdart wins!

Edge wins!

Edge go to WrestleMania!

If you wrote this as a script for Hollywood, they'd say it's impossible.

It can never happen. It's not realistic.

Yet here we are.

Adam's comeback has been special.

First of all, it was never supposed to happen. So anytime you hear something

like that, that's excellent.

Second of all, it's the best he's ever looked.

I've been waiting for the moment for someone to step up.

What makes him a legend is the fact that it's in his blood.

I mean, when he was a kid, he wanted to be a wrestler. He lived his whole life

wanting to be a wrestler. And he left a mark that you can't erase on this

business.

There's no man.

There's a few wrestlers that have had the

journey that Adam Copeland has had. You think you know me. To have it gone for

nine years.

Nine years is long enough that you think this thing has sailed.

That ship is gone. And it's not even on the horizon.

Edge is out of it.

So I had to come to terms with that. Bodies and ladders are broken.

And now suddenly, wait, hold on a second.

This is doable, and I got it back now.

Even if it's for this limited time frame, I'm going to make sure that I

every single part of it.

So in a strange way, I'm almost thankful for the nine years.

Because in that nine years, Beth and I become a couple. We have kids.

The extra special thing, he's a great husband, a great dad. He's got a lot

things to balance. So I respect the hell out of him for what he's done.

It's made me appreciate all of this so much more and not look past it and

understand that you have to live in every single moment as it's happening.

He's not a wrestler that stands out for a particular time or the end of his

career where he was great.

He's a guy that was great throughout his whole career.

I'll consider Edge one of the all -time greats. He's a legend.

He's the guy.

He's quietly carved out one of the greatest careers in the history of the

From the get -go, Edge had something, and you saw it. I'm just proud of the

he's become.

I'll be able to know when the end is and be able to walk away

from it and know that I'm walking away from it.

That's going to be huge.

This time it's going to be my choice.

And in a strange way, I'm looking forward to that too.