Adam Copeland: My Perfect World Was Ending My Career Working Alongside Christian Cage

Adam Copeland comments on joining AEW. 

Adam Copeland made his AEW debut at AEW WrestleDream, laying out Nick Wayne and Luchasaurus as Christian Cage ran off. Copeland spent 25 years in WWE, but his contract expired in September, and he made the decision to jump to AEW. 

“If we could end this together, that’s the dream,” Copeland said in an interview with Shakiel Mahjouri of CBS Sports of working with Cage, real name Jay Reso. “I sat down with my girls and I’m like, ‘OK, so what does dad do, girls?’ What do I do? And I laid out the scenarios for them. Lyric said it and then Ruby agreed, ‘Go be with Uncle Jay and have fun.’ And that doesn’t mean that I’m not having fun in other places, but they know the most fun I’m going to have is with my best friend of the last 40 years.”

He continued, “It wasn’t until my contract was up on [Sept. 21]. It wasn’t until then. So it was really, really quick to get everything done and get everything dialed in. Figuring out so many things like getting with Alter Bridge and getting the music and doing all of those things. There were nine or 10 days. I didn’t know immediately, but I thought that’s where I wanted to go. I really thought that working with Jay again was what I wanted to do and how I pictured it in a perfect world. Beth said, ‘What’s your perfect world? ‘I was like, ‘My perfect world is that I end my career with Jay.’ So suddenly that perfect world looked like it could be there. It’s tough to pass that up.”

After joining AEW, Copeland released a statement saying he wanted to do more in WWE, but they didn’t have much for him. 

Copeland expanded on things and once again tied it back to Christian Cage, who left WWE for AEW after making his return at the 2021 Royal Rumble. 

“I kind of got the sense there wasn’t really a plan [for me in WWE]. I get it because what else do we do? What else is there to do? And after 25 years I’ve literally done everything there. So what do we do? It wasn’t anybody’s fault. I was coming up against creative walls too. I was having a hard time coming up with ideas and that’s not usually the case. I think they were too.

“There was also the conundrum that I was contracted for 10 matches a year. I offered to do more, but to their point, it wouldn’t feel quite as special, which I understood too… It just felt like neither one of us really had any ideas and that’s never been the case before. So when you look at that and then I look at my best friend over there having the time of his life, at a certain point, once I thought, ‘You know what, I still have a window here where I can do this and I don’t feel like I’m maximizing that.’ I think that was really what it boiled down to.”

Christian Cage has been praised by the likes of MJF for doing his best work during his AEW run. He is the reigning AEW TNT Champion. 

Copeland is set to appear on Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite and have his first match on the October 10 episode of AEW Dynamite when he faces Luchasaurus.