CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW OF DISC TWO
CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW OF DISC ONE

The third and final disc of Edge’s Decade of Decadence set covers the recent years of his career when he had firmly established himself as a main eventer. And to be honest as most of these matches are fairly recent it took me a lot longer than the first two discs did to motivate myself to watch the matches again, hence the delay in part 3 of the review being done.

The first thing on disc 3 is the movie trailer promo used to hype Edge’s SummerSlam 2006 main event with John Cena, hyping it as Edge equalling ratings and generally being great but having to survive a guy who will never quit. Sometimes the simple and effective hype jobs are the best.

Edge v. John Cena – WWE SummerSlam 2006. This match would’ve worked a million times better if smarkish assholes decided not to boo Cena. Basically, Edge had backdoored his way to the title and used cheap tactics to retain; now he’s against the top babyface in his hometown, with the added stipulation that Edge can lose the title on a DQ. That’s a scenario that usually guarantees great heat and emotion, but to be honest it’s a fairly dull match more about the crowd entertaining themselves with Cena Hate for the first 10 minutes or so, but then things kick into gear and the match gets awesome. I will always love Edge cutting off the babyface comeback with a big boot against a smaller opponent, because even though he does it all the time it’s seen as a “big man move” so it kind of comes from nowhere. Athletically, Cena looked very awkward at times here, and you can definitely see that things hadn’t yet clicked for him, in fact it was probably the Umaga series that changed my mind from “Cena is a big star who gets great reactions” to “Cena is a big star who gets great reactions and is capable of such great matches to cement his top spot on the card.” The finishing stretch of countering each other’s key spots, while teasing Lita fucking up and getting Edge DQ’d, yet having her actually benefit Edge by distracting the ref so Edge can nail Cena with brass knux to the back of the head for the cheap win was a brilliant subplot. In many ways I feel like it was a mistake to watch this so shortly after their fantastic Backlash Last Man Standing match, because that match was special, this was just Edge and Cena doing Edge and Cena.

We are then back with current day Edge, who brags about beating Cena before putting over RVD as one of his favourite opponents, leading to the next match.

Edge v. Rob Van Dam, WWE Raw February 19th 2007. In the piece before showing the match, Edge commented that one of RVD’s kicks cracked his jaw. But they’re just so stiff and Edge sells so great that I have literally no idea it could’ve easily been about six of them. I guess Edge’s comment about RVD being one of his favourite opponents must be true as there’s no real reason for this match to be included on the set, as it’s just a random good RAW TV match. I think at the time, having to watch RVD every week, he got stale quickly, but as he’s been away I’ve probably not watched an RVD singles match in a year or possibly more, and with that break his stuff looked fresh, and so different to what anyone else in the WWE does (there are some similarities with CM Punk in terms of their stuff being kick-based but Punk doesn’t have near the gymnastic athleticism RVD has) and the crowd respond to him that I ended up really enjoying this. Edge is great as usual, he’s transitioned brilliantly into a “less is more” guy where he can get reactions just bumping and selling, without having to be overly spectacular himself – basic spots like using a powerslam to counter the Rolling Thunder both look great and have a great reaction. The best thing I can say about this is that at the start of the match I was wondering why they bothered putting this match on the set but by the end I was so glad they had.

Edge v. Randy Orton, WWE RAW April 30th 2007. RATED RKO EXPLODES~! Heel v. Heel matches are the most difficult dynamic to provide a compelling match with, especially since neither guy was turning babyface any time soon. But they managed to have this great match together, with enough built in history as recently-split-up tag team partners, and strong enough characters that people were into it, even if at first it was a struggle. Usually in these matches one guy will take the responsibility to “play babyface” but Orton was still a sadistic heel while Edge still did his over the top facials and bumping, and opportunistic stuff to get the advantage. The ending saw people going crazy, which is to the credit of both these guys, as they countered each other’s moves (Orton countering Edge coming off the top with a dropkick was a great spot as his dropkick looks great because of the spring he gets in his jump), and then tried to out cheat each other by pinning their opponent with feet on the ropes, before Orton got busted open hard way off a snake eyes, and Edge avoided the RKO and hit the spear to win. A really good match that was overshadowed at the time coming a week after the Michaels-Cena match from RAW in London and the night after the Cena-Michaels-Edge-Orton four way match at Backlash 2007, both of which were Match of the Year Candidates, while this was merely very good and unique.

Next we get another movie trailer, with GREAT revisionist history as we start with the spot from the WrestleMania 23 Money In The Bank ladder match where Jeff Hardy comes off the ladder and destroys Edge, leaving him to be taken out on a stretcher, and painting Edge as this great heroic character when he came back to win the Money In The Bank briefcase from Mr Kennedy when one of his not-at-all-related-to-being-a-steroid-user injuries necessitated him having to take some time off.

This is followed up by the angle, from the May 11th 2007 episode of SmackDown, where Edge cashed in Money in the Bank and won the World Heavyweight Title from The Undertaker. We see the closing minute or so of Undertaker’s cage match with Batista, which left both men bloody and saw one of those “both guys climb over and touch at the same time” dead heat finishes, where of course in the event of a tie the advantage goes to the champion, in one of the first instances of Batista as the 21st Century Lex Luger. Then Mark Henry came out and further beat down a bloody Undertaker, including several big splashes. Ugh, Mark Henry main event heel, thank fuck actual awesome heels like Chris Jericho and Big Show returned and Jack Swagger emerged and Randy Orton and Edge were solidified on top so we didn’t fucking need that shit anymore. Then, of course, with Taker laid out, Edge’s music hits and he’s out to cash in. Even JBL, the notoriously awesome heel commentator, was anti-Edge at the start here, but clearly Vince yelled in his headset at some point since as soon as Edge started celebrating afterwards JBL talked about how Edge was brilliant and what a great move this was. I think for Taker to drop the belt, still be super-protected, have two readymade feuds for his return, and continue to push Edge to the stratosphere of top heels in one angle makes this a resounding success.

Edge v. Batista, WWE Vengeance 2007. Fuck yeah, Big Dave in the World Title match playing the complete loser geek who FAILS is pure comedy to me right now. I’ve never seen this match, it being the PPV that took place on the weekend that Chris Benoit killed his family, once that news broke I really didn’t feel like scouring the internet for downloads of the PPV that, in the words of Stephanie McMahon, Benoit “no-showed because he was dead.” Anyway, this is Batista’s last chance as long as Edge is the champion (a gimmick they would do again a year later which lead to CM Punk cashing in Money In The Bank) so of course Michael Cole is screeching for him and JBL is being completely fucking awesome in putting over how great Edge is. So with the stipulations, you’d expect something like Batista running wild and beating the crap out of Edge, who is taking great bumps and hanging onto his title by a thread, to play up the drama of it being his last shot, right? Nope, we get ten minutes, which felt like a million fucking years to me, of fucking HAMMERLOCKS AND ARMBARS. Who the fuck could’ve possibly thought this was a good idea? Once they hit the near falls things really picked up for the live crowd, but I really wasn’t into it, that early arm bar crap had killed it for me. Edge got DQ’d for giving Batista a low blow, and it was so refreshing to hear JBL, the heel commentator, mark out for the heel being heelish, talking about how brilliant it was. Then SmackDown GM Teddy Long restarted the match, and after a few near falls Batista powerbombed Edge on the floor, then rolled him back in the ring, but couldn’t beat the count himself, losing by countout. BRILLIANT. Big Dave is such a loser geek and JBL gloating over him being a loser while Cole whined was hilariously entertaining. But my GOD those FUCKING armbars. I could watch Batista fail to win World Titles forever and given the WWE’s lack of upward mobility in their current booking I might actually have to.

Edge v. Rey Mysterio – WWE Royal Rumble 2008. The main thing I remember this match for is the Madison Square Garden crowd turning on Rey, booing him right from the ring introductions, in a night most memorable for the smarky crowd marking out like 5 year olds for the return of John Cena, which looks even funnier when you think back to them playing the asshole here. Of course Rey horribly blowing the first spot of the match, fucking up a headscissor takedown, doesn’t help things or get the crowd back on his side. This is definitely a match where the crowd trying to get themselves over significantly hurt the atmosphere of the match, especially once Rey started selling a knee injury and Edge worked it over, it was your classic bully heel against valiant underdog story, and these two told it well, I just wish the crowd had responded. Rey even adjusted his comeback to still sell the injury, as once Edge went outside, instead of doing a running plancha or something that you’d expect, Rey did a Klinsmann dive along the mat, grabbing Edge’s head as he stood up on the arena floor and hitting a DDT, in a spectacular spot. I marked out for Edge cutting off a comeback with a big boot, which he’s been doing a lot lately in his SmackDown matches with the likes of CM Punk and Jeff Hardy, and it works even better here with Rey. The finish was very creative too, with Vickie Guerrero hopping onto the apron to protect Edge and take much of the impact from the 619, allowing Edge to recover and counter the West Coast Pop with a spear in midair for a great finish.

Next we go back to current Edge putting that over as one of his favourite spear finishes, before talking about how The Undertaker was the Batman to his Joker, the Superman to his Lex Luthor, and other comic book analogies. Then we get a movie trailer about how Edge is the master of the TLC match and needs to beat Undertaker to cement his legacy and feed his obsession with the dead man.

Edge v. The Undertaker, WWE One Night Stand 2008. This was a match where Taker’s career was on the line, and in the build-up it was totally played up, with clips of Undertaker’s great career moments all over SmackDown in the build-up to this, and Mick Foley on commentary talking about how he can’t imagine a WWE without Taker. Doing a TLC match as a singles bout slows down the action that those matches became famous for in the multi-tag-team bouts of the early 2000s. But these two essentially went out there and had a great match, with weapons, and the spots with them walking around and setting up tables and going for chairs and so on actually looked like them preparing to deliver punishment to their opponent rather than killing time or being “slow” – so I was engrossed in the action despite it being perhaps slow, they managed to work a “WWE Style” match without throwing it into a “spot-spot-spot” deal, yet they still did a load of ladder, chair and table inspired spots added into what they normally do. Edge got the heat, for example, by countering Taker’s on-apron legdrop by holding up a chair so Taker injured his knee. The Edge Geeks as well as Bam Neely and Chavo did their run ins, and took chokeslams through tables and chair shots instead of just being punched out, and the ending of Edge tipping over the ladder so that Taker crashed through four tables he had set up earlier on at ringside was shocking given that Taker had put his career on the line here. A great swerve ending, and reinstating him a few months later actually made sense, with Vickie Guerrero making a vindictive decision for revenge on Edge when he cheated on her, a rarity for wrestling. I’m glad this was on the set, and I think it’s better than his Toronto TLC with John Cena a couple of years earlier, although the Cena match had far greater crowd heat, since Edge beating Taker is a huge moment for his career, especially in his speciality match.

Edge v. The Undertaker, WWE SummerSlam 2008. Having this match close the DVD is a good choice, since the ending of Undertaker climbing a ladder, chokeslamming Edge through the ring and then having flames shooting up, symbolising Edge being sent “straight to the depths of hell” was the perfect way to write Edge off television. It’s a shame that we didn’t get a video package for this one, as Edge’s Heath Ledger Joker inspired promo work was compelling television and some of the best work of his career as he came off like this unhinged madman who would go into Hell In A Cell with The Undertaker and take the fight to him, which is exactly what happened, giving it a different dynamic to the rest of their matches, and I’m a sucker for a great match that actually works off the story of the build-up, to me that made this match even better. This was a quite incredible match, with Edge taking the fight to Taker like nobody else, and making use of tables, ladders and chairs (Edge’s weapons) within Taker’s match made things look more even in a way, and right from the fact that Edge was smiling at Taker during his intimidating ring entrance you just felt that this was something different than your usual Undertaker match, and it’s all due to Edge’s brilliant promo work in the build-up and both guys’ excellent performances here. In many ways it’s the definitive way to end a feud, making Edge look stronger and tougher than ever, including having him spear Taker through the cell, breaking it so they can brawl outside for a bit, which culminated in Edge running across the RAW and SmackDown announce tables in order to spear Taker through the ECW one. Then they got back into the ring for the dramatic finishing stretch, with Taker basically getting payback spots in for all the shit Edge had done for him throughout his career in a great “poetic justice” ending, before the tombstone finish, followed by the post match chokeslam to hell, which was shown on this DVD with Taker’s old entrance video spliced in to make it look even more dramatic and otherworldly than it appeared at the time.

The DVD then ends with Edge saying even though he got chokeslammed to hell he’ll be back because the WWE needs him, naming great double acts in a comedy bit, before a final video package recaps Edge’s Decade of Decadence, with highlight clips of his whole career.

I really liked this last disc, although the time it took me to watch it was significantly longer than the earlier discs, but that’s more a consequence of Edge being a main eventer now so all his matches are longer which makes it more difficult to sometimes sit through several of them in a row. Especially as, for as much as I love him as a character and promo guy now, as a worker he isn’t on the level of the other guys WWE have given the 3 disc sets to recently, Eddie Guerrero, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels and Rey Mysterio for example. But overall this is a fantastic DVD set, and it really hammers home the point that Edge has grown up the card as a performer in the WWE, which I believe is a large reason for his success, he isn’t a guy like Batista or Cena who were pushed to the top right away, you really get the sense with Edge that you’ve watched him over his whole career and that gives him a connection to the audience that few people have.

If you live in the UK or Europe you can order this today via Silver Vision by clicking here.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com