10 WWE Superstars Who Turned Heat Into Magic

Only the ultimate opportunist could use a truly horrible personal moment to catapult himself to main event status. 2005 saw a messy backstage love triangle between Lita, long time boyfriend Matt Hardy, and Edge. An affair with the latter led to Lita calling off her relationship with Hardy; the whole thing was raw, and not a matter for public consumption.

Or it wouldn’t be, anyhow, unless you were a wrestler. Vince and co smelled money, and reinstated the fired Matt Hardy to throw him into an angle with Edge, figuring the two of them could work out some issues in front of a crowd. While this can’t have been easy for Edge (to say nothing of Hardy), it gave his career a huge shot in the arm. He was ever-willing to lean into controversy, and carved out a terrific career as permanent heel.

Through skill and hard graft, along with one of the finer senses of comic timing, Edge spent many years as the top bad guy in the business, going on multiple championship runs and finding his way into the hall of fame. While the love triangle angle shows one of the uglier sides of the business, there’s no denying the Rated R Superstar used the controversy to his advantage.