When Edge retired from WWE in 2011 after suffering neck injuries and undergoing several surgeries, it seemed unlikely that he would ever return to the ring. He made occasional appearances, but always in a non-physical capacity. So it was a surprise when he made his return to the ring at the 2020 Royal Rumble, and he’s been a fixture ever since.
Now at 49 years old, Edge recognizes his career is almost over. He told Logan Paul on Impaulsive that he thinks he can wrestle one more year at an elite level with WWE’s younger talent (h/t Fightful for transcription) .
“I don’t want to stick around to the point where it’s like, ‘Oh, there he is. Okay.’ I don’t want to get there. When I come out now, I feel the explosion. I feel all of that to throw at them. That’s still there. I don’t know if that, for me, will ever go away. I feel like, in this last run, the Rocky Balboa movie, which I watched two nights before my comeback. I was in tears. (Sylvester) Stallone’s monologues in it, were all things that were going through my mind. I realized, ‘I gotta get this out of the basement,’ because I didn’t have the chance to end it the way I wanted it to. This time, I’m going to get to do that. Now, I have two little girls that I have to spend the rest of my life taking care of. I have a wish list of things that are still to do, but it’s not long, and neither is the time. At most, I might have another year in me, to be able to do it at this level and still be able to do it at an elite level where I can still hang, where I have to get in with Austin Theory, who is 25 and wasn’t born when I had my first match in WWE.”
Edge recently turned in a quality Hell in a Cell match against Finn Balor at WrestleMania, so he has something left in the tank. He’s off WWE programming right now, but whenever he returns, it could spark a feud with another rising talent or placement in the new World Heavyweight Championship field.
Edge may be approaching the twilight of his career, but at nearly 50 years old, it will be an exciting journey to see what other accomplishments he can achieve.