CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW OF DISC ONE

Disc 2 of Edge’s DVD kicks off with him sat in his “Joey Chair” apologising for the intermission, and plugging disc 2 as his return from injury. He talks about facing Randy Orton, and the upcoming match would prove who carried the Rated RKO tag team a few years later. Then we get a movie trailer about how Edge’s promising career was cut short with his broken neck, and his triumphant return.

Edge v. Randy Orton – WWE Vengeance 2004. The main thing I think about when watching this match is how much better it would be today. That’s not to say this wasn’t a good match, but Edge just wasn’t catching on as a babyface here, and Orton you can tell is just running through what the WWE classifies as a good match, but without the awesome character and talent to back it up. I loved this match at the time, but watching these two today you sense they’re working a WWE match in a basic fashion, but better than normal because they’re just that good, without it being anything special. The crowd being so pro-Orton actually worked out great for Edge in the long term, because they turned him heel soon after this, and he’s never looked back.

Edge v. Shawn Michaels – WWE RAW, February 28th 2005. This was a street fight, that served as the culmination of their feud at the time, and it’s definitely interesting to watch in the PG standards of today, as Michaels does a horrific blade job that would never be allowed today, as well as both guys taking unprotected chair shots to the head, that made me cringe at the time and do even more so now. But for all that, it’s a GREAT match.

They work clever spots around the no-DQ stipulation, such as Edge countering the Sweet Chin Music by using a chair for a low blow. They have great heat with Shawn as the fired up babyface looking for revenge and Edge as the psychotic twisted heel mentalist, both great roles for them. From a television perspective, the timing of the commercial was perfect, as Edge nailed HBK with a DDT on a chair, and Shawn rolled to the floor, then bladed, and they go to commercial with Shawn lifting his head up to show the blood for the first time. They had a really great finish too, with Edge charging in for the spear only to be met with Sweet Chin Music.

They cut away on here before Kurt Angle ran in to beat on a bloody Michaels, which at the time I was really pissed off about, as I wanted Edge/HBK to run through WrestleMania, but instead he won the first Money in the Bank match, so in the end things definitely worked out for the best.

Edge v. Kane – WWE RAW, May 16th 2005. This isn’t here because it’s a great match or anything, but it is important in Edge’s career, as it was the first time he aligned himself with Lita, on screen, following their real-life affair earlier in the same year.

To be honest, the WWE really didn’t have much option as word of their affair had got out to the point where crowds chanting and yelling about it during their segments on TV became really distracting, so you may as well pair them up and use the real situation to get them nuclear heat, something which most definitely happened, even if you are splitting Lita from her TV partner, feuding him with Edge, then bringing back Lita’s real life ex and feuding them immediately afterwards which kind of messes things up as far as dodging in and out of reality.

The match was good, and I liked the spot at the end where after a ref bump, Edge tries to use the Money in the Bank briefcase, but Kane punches him and the briefcase rolls outside, allowing Kane to go up top for the clothesline, but Lita slips Edge the briefcase so he can nail Kane on the way down. JR was excellent on commentary selling the betrayal here; when he gets all indignant and angry and sounds like he’s going to explode he’s fantastic.

Then we get another movie trailer on how Matt Hardy’s life was torn apart by Edge and now he’s coming for revenge. I’d totally forgotten about things like their Byte This! (An old wwe.com show where people would call in and talk to the wrestlers, who would drift in and out of character) appearances working the angle. And having to explain what Byte This! was really strange too, but they seemed to drop that show with no explanation one week randomly.

The highlight of the Byte This run was towards the end you’d get TNA marks calling in, and Todd Grisham once cut the troll down with “if you like TNA so much you should call into their show. If they even have one, I think it’s on at 2am. In Japan.” Or The Rock responding to being told that Chavo Guerrero Sr was the cruiserweight champion by asking “who’s the women’s champ – Big Show?”

Edge v. Matt Hardy – WWE RAW, August 29th 2005. Edge’s feud with Matt Hardy was interesting, because it came from real life events that made sure everybody knew the TV events of Edge’s feud with Kane were fake. Then they parlayed that into a fake feud with Edge and Matt. Ordinarily, this would be TNAriffic booking, but it became something that EVERYBODY (not just fans who surfed the internet) knew about, so they might as well play it up on TV.

I was disappointed that they kicked things off here with Attitude Era-inspired brawling, given the personal nature of the feud, but once they got back to ringside things were kicked into a really high gear, with Edge’s sadistic heel character gelling perfectly with the fact that Hardy lost their first match via concussion and blood loss. For as many good straight-up singles matches as Edge has had, his strength is in hardcore brawls, and this is no exception. The finish is fairly well known too, as they brawled up the ramp and Hardy took them both down with a Side Effect off the stage onto some technical equipment which exploded. Classic wrestling booking in that they had a good enough match to get people talking, but a non-finish, so of course the PPV was a cage match to keep them locked up and guarantee a winner.

We then get the final moments of the 2006 New Years’ Revolution Elimination Chamber, where it came down to John Cena, Chris Masters and Carlito. Yeah. I know it sounds lame now, but at the time I thought it was really cleverly done to have the young guys in Masters and Carlito team up to eliminate established stars like Kurt Angle, Shawn Michaels and Kane – it felt fresh to have newer faces in the main event scene.

Of course, after a bloody and beaten Cena wins, Vince McMahon is out to announce that Edge cashes in Money in the Bank there and then. This gets a gigantic pop, I think Cena hate was really at its absolute zenith around this time. I recall that they totally got me to go mental for a false finish at the time, with Cena kicking out of Edge’s first spear, only to win the title on a second. A brilliant angle that inspired a booking crutch WWE has relied on ever since – but it’s NEVER been done this well. And Edge celebrates in such a way that you know winning the WWE Title is something he’s dreamed of his whole life, and here it was coming true.

Then we get current Edge talking more about how great he is, and then we get the “Rated O for Overrated” Mick Foley video package that was used by the WWE in the lead up to WrestleMania 22. It was quite frankly a fantastic piece of production work, just burying Foley and showing him getting beaten up acting as if that was all he ever did.

Edge v. Mick Foley – WWE WrestleMania 22. This is a match that was really about proving a point for both guys, as Edge felt (rightly) like he should’ve been in the main event after his WWE Title run upped ratings and freshened up the title scene, and Foley felt like he needed a great match at WrestleMania to make his career complete.

The use of Lita as a ringside valet was a big part of Edge’s act around this time, and part of the reason why I think she was a better fit for Edge’s character than Vickie Guerrero has been, as great as Vickie is in her role, and there was a great moment here early to illustrate this, as Foley has Edge tied in the ropes and goes for a barbed wire baseball bat, but Lita jumped on Foley’s back allowing Foley to do a running Cactus clothesline taking all three of them to the outside.

This was just a bloody and brutal hardcore brawl, with both guys bleeding heavily, Edge adding bleeding from the arm – from barbed wire shots – to the usual forehead blading from both guys. Also, in a spot that had the live crowd gasping from how sick it looked, Lita took the Socko Claw, but with Mr Socko wrapped in barbed wire, cutting her mouth. The maniacal and unhinged side of Edge’s heel character was out in force here, as you really believe that he’s enjoying the sadistic violence, which makes payoff spots such as bleeding or getting suplexed onto thumbtacks even better.

Of course, the biggest problem most hardcore brawls have is that they do all this crazy shit and the finish is almost never the biggest spot in the match, this often happened in ECW and it’s infuriating. Yet here, they’d done a lot of crazy stuff, but the finish was LITA GIVING FOLEY A BARBED WIRE BASEBALL BAT SHOT TO THE BALLS FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY EDGE SPEARING FOLEY THROUGH A FLAMING TABLE~! I still mark out just like it’s first viewing every time I see that spot – an amazing moment that, once Foley leaves TNA, will be back in heavy rotation as one of those WrestleMania highlight reel moments.

Edge, Mick Foley & Lita v. Terry Funk, Tommy Dreamer & Beulah – ECW One Night Stand 2006. Everything about this match is just fantastic. Heels who were able to play cowardly guys and sadistic assholes and have it fit, Edge’s sleazy Rated R character being the perfect fit for ECW, when it was still trying to be the ECW it was during the original company, and them getting the chance to show that with pre-match mic work, including Foley talking about how he used to love ECW when it was run by Stephanie McMahon, and even yelling “long live The Alliance!” Funk and Dreamer could kick ass, and get great sympathy heat, especially from this crowd, and Lita and Beulah were excellent in their roles as well.

It’s one of those matches where everything that everybody does makes sense, and it takes the crowd on a great journey where they’re having the time of their lives marking out for big spots while also being emotionally invested in the match. This is a wild and crazy brawl with barbed wire, blood, tables, ladders and even fire, working the crowd into a frenzy. It’s particularly amazing to see Funk do the things he does at 61 years of age, 41 years after his debut match and 30 years after he was NWA World Champion when that made you the top wrestler in the world. Longevity like that is something special, and he’s changed his act to move with the times brilliantly.

Funk injuring his eye and being taken to the back to have it taped up and come back later was a brilliant move, not only because it set up the comeback spot, but also put a ton of heat on the heels for beating down Dreamer and putting the fear of hell into Beulah that she’d get the same treatment. Edge played along brilliantly in a way that you know that if the WWE went forward in the future to more adult content then he’d be able to drop the cartoonish aspects of his character which are needed for the current PG rating and fit right in like a glove. The ending, with Edge taking down Dreamer with a barbed wire assisted Edge-O-Matic, the camera zooming in on Beulah giving the perfect “rabbit in the headlights look” then Edge remorselessly spearing her and – and there’s no other way to say this – humping her for the pin, was fantastically done.

If we’re giving star ratings, this one gets what seems to be the fashionable rating of the week, ****3/4, and I really feel it should get far more discussion as far as being a Match Of The Decade contender than it does, because it’s right up there for me.

Edge v. John Cena v. Rob Van Dam – WWE RAW, July 3rd 2006. This is another of Edge’s WWE Title wins, coming when RVD got busted for smoking pot while driving so had to drop the title, confirming that every WWE burial and failure to get behind him was completely justified. Shit, if you want to smoke some weed but can’t fucking wait until you get back to your hotel room and need it while driving, he’s lucky he wasn’t fired. Otherwise it’s nothing special besides the utterly shocked reaction of one young child when Edge won, the kind of great “lose yourself in the moment” deal that us adults can get on very rare occasions, that reminds me of how I used to react to wrestling as a kid.

The match itself was nothing special, you standard triple threat starting with the two babyfaces doing one-upmanship games taking it in turns to beat on the heel, and then it’s two in the ring, one on the floor at all times. The finish, Cena hitting an FU on RVD only for Edge to run in, hit Cena with the belt, but pin RVD, did a great job at having the champion lose but having the issue going forward be between the other two guys, which is what was needed at the time. Good enough, but basically standard fare for a RAW main event.

Disc 2 also has two additional bonus matches, commentated on by Edge and Matt Striker. Well, I say commentated on, it’s more that they talk about wrestling and make jokes with each other while the match is going on, and since they are long time fans it is really cool to watch and listen to.

The matches were Adam Copeland (Edge) v. Christian in a dark match at the November 10th 1997 RAW taping, and Edge v. Jeff Jarrett at a house show. Very cool to see Edge about 8 months or so before his debut on television, and when he’s going out there having a match in front of no crowd reaction it’s weird, but he definitely had something about him, as did Christian, where they weren’t going to be guys who never get out of developmental, even at this young stage in their careers.

The Jarrett match was from the night before the Fully Loaded 1999 PPV, and Edge won the InterContinental title in his hometown for his first title in the WWF. This must have been a last-minute spur of the moment thing because Jarrett won the title back the next night. The match was fine, Jeff going through his heel Jeff match without the million run ins, four ref bumps and a heel turn tacked onto the end like his heel matches in TNA, with Edge the plucky young babyface with the crowd behind him.

This disc did a good job of highlighting the major moments in Edge’s ascension to being one of the WWE’s top guys, and the rare matches were a cool touch that WWE should do more of.

Look out for a review of Disc 3 here at iFight365.com shortly. If you missed a review of the first disc you can find it here.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com