The recent episode of Sam Robert’s Wrestling Podcast featured the 11-time World Champion and WWE Hall of Famer, Edge. Edge announced his retirement from pro-wrestling during the RAW following WrestleMania 27. He was diagnosed with cervical spinal stenosis and an MRI result forced him to retire. Although he was mentally prepared to wrestle throughout the year, Edge revealed that he had plans regarding his retirement :
“It was more of a realization, like, okay, mentally, was I tired of travel? Yes, but it was also because physically I was tired of the travel and that lent to the mental tiredness. But it wasn’t like I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m fed up. I can’t stand this anymore.'”
Edge was aware that his last wrestling match will be taking place at WrestleMania against Alberto Del Rio. As a result, questions were raised if the outcome of that match was influenced by the retirement plans of the Champion, to which Edge clarified and said, “Oh, that’s horrible. That sucks! What are you talking about? That’s f–king awesome! Yeah, ah, he wanted to win in his last match! What an asshole! It’s like, no, I just [can’t wrestle anymore]. What do you want me to do? I’d put somebody over. I’ve got no problem.”
After his retirement, Edge has made rare appearances on WWE shows. The Hall of Famer stated that he purposely distanced himself from WWE as they won’t involve him in any physical altercation:
“Like, ‘if I’m going to show up, at least have me do something’. ‘Nope, you can’t’. ‘Alright, then don’t have me show up because why bother?’ That’s why I’ve kind of really distanced myself even from watching the product too much. It’s like, ‘well, I can’t do it.’ If you want me to come back and cut a promo on all this stuff, it’s like, I can’t really further stuff along too much because there’s no physical payoff. It’s like nobody’s going to get heat from attacking me because they’re not allowed to attack me.”
There have been instances where a wrestler squandered the money he had earned in his pro-wrestling career. The Rated-R Superstar mentioned it as one of the reasons behind his decision to save money:
“Well, I was never stupid with my money because I grew up without it. So when I started to make some, I was like, ‘okay, first rule of thumb, I’m not buying it unless I’ve got the money to buy it’, so I have no debt. I own three homes. I drive a Jeep. I’m cool with that. Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to learn from [veteran professional wrestlers who have squandered their money]. If you don’t and you put the blinders on, and don’t learn from that, you’re pretty much a dumbass.”
