Edge returned to WWE in 2020 as a surprise entrant in the annual Royal Rumble match, receiving one of the loudest pops in the company's history.
Unfortunately, questionable booking decisions meant his run with WWE proved surprisingly hit or miss. It ended in 2023 and he later signed with AEW; now, Adam Copeland is one of the company's biggest stars, recently defending his TNT Championship against the likes of Brody King, Buddy Matthews, and Matt Cardona.
During a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet, Copeland confirmed he almost signed with AEW for his original in-ring return in 2020.
"When I first started talking to AEW, I wasn't yet cleared, but I still wasn't cleared by company doctors," Copeland recalls. "So once all of those clearances started to come, I was like, 'Oh this is real now. Okay.' So before I did anything, I had to go, kind of, get the final clearance needed for either company."
"But I had negotiated with everybody. I was like, 'Okay, here's where I'm at, here's what I've been told I can do,' and started the process."
"Sitting down with Vince, he goes, 'Well it's got to happen here,'" he continued. "At that stage, I looked at the equity built and it felt like having to start over, especially having to start over after having been gone for nine years, felt really daunting, if that makes sense. It felt like at least with WWE that's one thing off the table that I don't have to worry about. I can come back and walk into the history of this character."
No one ever expected Copeland to get a second chance after being forced to retire in 2011 following a serious neck injury and, in AEW, he's looking to build up the stars of tomorrow.
Asked how much longer he sees himself competing, he said, "When I retire this time, I truly - I'm going to come home and be dad, and occasionally act, and walk my dogs."
"I have about a year and a half left right now," Copeland noted. "A lot of business trying to get done in that time, there's a lot of people I want to work with in that time, and I look at it already and I think in the six months I've been there I think I'm close to 20 matches already."
We'll see what happens, but it's unlikely the WWE Hall of Famer will return to that company given how sporadically they decided to use him compared to the huge amount of work he's been able to do in AEW.
Watch the full interview below.