Edge DONE With WWE After SmackDown Tonight
Latest on Edge retirement rumours ahead of potential last WWE match.
Edge has claimed that tonight's SmackDown match with Sheamus is the last on his WWE contract, fulling speculation that he may be on his way out of the market-leading wrestling promotion - or retiring outright.
The WWE legend spoke with ET Canada in an interview published on Thursday. In the interview, Edge said he "100%" didn't know if the Shamus bout would end up being his last, though he confirmed he had no contractual obligations beyond it. He added that while wrestling was a "dream gig", it was getting "really hard" to continue.
Said Edge (h/t Fightful):
"Here's what I can honestly say, and this isn't the answer everyone wants. I truly don't know. I really really, with 100% truth can say I don't know. That's strange for me, but I don't. I really don't. I've put some thought into it, but not a lot. This is the last match on my current contract. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I probably won't know until I get to the locker room that night and decompress, let all the anxiety and tension that I never used to have before I performed, I have now. That's strange for me and makes it that much harder to do this. I'm going to be 50 in October. It's not easy anymore. Before, what I used to take for granted to be able to do, now, there is a process and a fallout. There's a lot. It's the dream gig, but it's getting really hard."
SmackDown takes place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, roughly 80km from Edge's native Orangeville. Talk that he might have one eye on retirement started last August, when he claimed in a post-Raw promo that at WWE's next Toronto show, "in a perfect world," he and the crowd would "say goodbye to each other."
Tonight is that next Toronto show.
A recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio saw Dave Meltzer report that Edge's trainer of 30 years, Ron Hutchinson, had "basically said that this is Edge's last match." Meltzer added that this was most likely the case.
Edge, 49, has been associated with WWE since May 1996, when he worked Bob Holly under the name Sexton Hardcastle, also in Ontario. His most recent spell commenced with a blockbuster comeback in the 2020 Royal Rumble match after a nine-year absence, having been forced to retire in 2011.