Edge‘s return at the 2020 Royal Rumble was one of the biggest moments of the year so far and the Rated R Superstar put things into perspective on how big of a personal moment it was for him.
Edge recently spoke with ESPN and talked about how once it happened, he was so hyped he “truly feel like I could have beat King Kong’s ass.” He said it was a surreal feeling and you can see it in his expression, but the moment only came together after an accident while he was out biking in Asheville.
“It started dawning on me that this could be a possibility when Sheamus came to town, and we were filming an episode of his Celtic Warrior workout show. He wants to do different challenging things that he hasn’t done before, and I love to mountain bike,” Edge said. “In the process of doing that — this stupid competitive thing — I’m flying down a mountain, I hit this one jump, and I wiped out. It’s a pretty gnarly wipeout. I was going probably 20, 25 mph, landed on these stones, rolled right up to my feet. But I’m fine. I was all cut up, but my neck was fine. Couple that with doing all of these fight scenes over the years on sets — some pretty physical stuff, especially with ‘Vikings’ — and I thought, ‘OK, I feel really good.’”
“My family doctor just said, ‘Let’s get some pictures on it, just see where you’re at, and we’ll see a spine specialist here in Asheville.’ [I] did that, met with [the specialist]. He said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing. Obviously, it’s working for you,’” he said, “and that’s when I floated out the, ‘But what about wrestling?’”
Edge says he then eventually set up an appointment in Birmingham, Alabama, with Dr. James Andrews’ team and realized an in-ring return could actually happen.
Edge also explained that once his return was a lock—which Wrestlezone reported in January—he needed to resume his in-ring training but wanted to keep it a secret. He says Triple H arranged for a ring to be sent to him in Asheville and The Revival and his wife, Beth Phoenix, helped him get his ring timing down in a warehouse he rented to set up camp.
“I was keeping up with them. I wasn’t tired, and I wasn’t sore, and I thought, ‘OK, this is going to happen, and this is going to happen at a level that I wanted.’ I didn’t want to come back and be anything less than what I was,” he said. “I’m going to have to work differently. I’m going to have different limitations … I still want to be able to go in there and be able to go half an hour.”
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