Edge gets on the phone next, speaking about how his frustration with not being at the top of the mountain already really began to grow when he sustained his neck injury, as he thought that he was really on the cusp of something big at the time. He was on the sidelines for months, watching Chris Benoit win the Royal Rumble and go on to become the new world champion at Wrestlemania. Edge believed that it all should have been him attaining all this glory and that Benoit only got this opportunity because Edge was absent. (Now that you mention it, it is quite interesting how Edge was on Smackdown and Triple-H at the time was touting how he would love the chance to battle the Torontonian in the future. A good way for that to happen would have been for Edge to win the Royal Rumble and do what Chris Benoit did, switching brands to challenge Triple-H for the title. I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that this scenario was actually in the works for Edge, and since he got his untimely injury, they kept the same storyline and gave it to Chris Benoit. So, there very well might be a lot of truth to what Edge is saying…)
Edge speaks of the brutality in being inside an elimination chamber. Although one who participates in the match will feel pretty hurt later that night, it isn’t much compared to what he will feel the next few days afterwards, discovering new aches and sores that you have to think back as to where they all came from. Knots in the neck, incredibly sore hands from holding on that steel chain, they go mainly unnoticed when inside the demonic structure due to adrenaline pumping through the body, but they start to appear like a nosy neighbor in the days subsequent to the event.
A caller mentions Edge’s autobiography where the former Brood member mentions the three superstars that he has always looked up to. At first it was Hulk Hogan that turned him on to wrestling, with whom he got to win the WWE tag team titles with, and then as he grew into wrestling he began to admire Bret Hart, who helped get him into WWE, and Shawn Michaels, who he gets to work with now.
He realizes that, although he has been in the business for fourteen years, since eight of them were under contract with WWE, speculators must be wondering, “‘What does he have to tell? There’s gotta be more to tell.’ And there probably is more to tell,” he admits. “I still have to win the world title. But, [writing a book is] something I wanted to do. And thankfully Mick Foley knocked down the doors to show that a wrestler can write a book. So, it’s fun to see Adam Copeland on the spine of a book, I’m proud of that. I’m proud of the way the way the book turned out, besides the typos that got screwed up in editing. But other than that I’m proud of it, I’m really happy, and it’s something I’ll always be able to look back on and say I did that.” Marc Lloyd chimes in that hopefully later on down the line maybe Edge will be able to write another book when he retires, “and I’m sure it will be just as successful,” Lloyd vexes.
Edge is happy to hear about Steve Austin and WWE working together, saying that he has always gotten along with Austin, who used to give him and Christian a lot of advice when they first started. He appreciated that he would always get an honest opinion with Austin, because with him, “what you see is what you get. He’ll shoot straight up with you.” He acknowledges that “physically he’s through the ringer so it’s nice that he has this additional outlet.”
Edge tells us that he has had movie opportunities but was told he would have to give up wrestling for some time to do them, which isn’t something he wants to do.
But he does give up the call as Shawn Michaels is BT’s final guest of the evening. Preparing for two matches in one night is quite difficult, admits Michaels. He hasn’t that many matches under his belt since returning from his recent surgery. However, the Royal Rumble match is a bit slower paced, and with so many other wrestlers in the ring with you, “you have a chance to get lost in the forest, so to speak.”
After being part of more than one elimination chamber match, Shawn feels that this past one was the best to date.
An e-mail asks him what felt better to him: winning the world title for the first time ever or returning after so many years away and winning it again. Shawn says that the latter meant more since when he won it the first time he wasn’t really that mature to appreciate the magnitude of what winning the WWF world championship symbolized. “It was a wonderful time, I was so glad to be one of the guys that has held that title. But to honestly believe that it was all over, that I’d never wrestle again, and then to come back and to have it go so well… The last two and half three years has been awesome. If it would all be over tomorrow, I would not have one complaint. It has been just a terrific return. It has been a sheer pleasure to come back and work with people, not only within the company, but also some of the talent that was there when I had left, and to get a chance to know the new talent. So, I’d have to say the return, hands down.”
Marc Lloyd mentions how Edge told him earlier that he looked up to Shawn Michaels as he was getting into the business, and in a way, modeled his style a bit after Shawn’s. Shawn says it’s nothing new to him as he has taken on other performers who have also grown up watching him, like Chris Jericho and Christian. “I’m always flattered by that,” he accepts. Flattered by the future of the industry as well as the past, as many now compare him to the greatest legends in sports entertainment, Lloyd notes.
And the autobiography bug has now bitten the Heartbreak Kid. Shawn discloses that he has just met with the writer for his book this past Monday and will be getting started on it shortly. “It was something that has been talked about, and for a lot of different reasons I was a little worried about doing it. I mean, so many of them have been done, I didn’t want to be just another wrestling book. And, it’s hard for me to describe, I needed to find somebody that would be able to… The reason I was so controversial in this business for so long is because I went about doing things and mostly just, towards my matches, have been doing things differently than most guys. And that created a lot of animosity, a lot of controversy, a lot of anger, but strangely enough, most of it all centered, or started from a decent place. It just manifested itself in a real negative way. And I really didn’t want to do [the book] until I found someone that was able to put down on paper those feelings that I was trying to bring forth. I guess my point is I never set out to be this person that I became in the wrestling business, it just sort of happened, and most of it was because of a lot of personal things that were going on inside of me. And I really wanted to make sure that I was able to find somebody that was able to explain that better than I can, and even as I sit here trying to say it now, it’s difficult…” (Basically, coming out this Christmas, the Passion of the Michaels, coauthored by God Himself)
Marc Lloyd brings up the animosity Shawn still consistently gets in Canada. Will they ever forget? “I don’t think so,” Shawn laughs. He doesn’t mind the jeers because he realizes that, “Now, at least, everybody is doing it with a smile on their face. And I could be wrong, they could genuinely just hate me, but I don’t think that is the case. I see that most of the reactions I get, it’s all done with a smile on their faces, and I think that that has just become our thing. And as a company, we don’t let it die, and as a character, I don’t let it die. I can continue to needle at it a little bit, so I think it’s become a little thing between the Canadian fans and myself. But I think it certainly comes from a good place. I mean, there’s always going to be a few bad people… the same people that I will always look at, in every aspect of wrestling and go, ‘you’re taking everything a little too seriously.’”
Marc Lloyd asks him about his feeling that Steve Austin is returning to WWE Films. Shawn pauses for a few seconds to get the build up feel and announces, “I have no comment about Steve Austin coming back,” and leaves it at that.
Shawn Michaels, ever the controversial and mysterious one, then goes and thanks all of us for listening to him once again. What does he mean by no comment? What was he commenting by not commenting? Perhaps good ole WK would like to do some scooping around for us and get to the bottom of this because I smell a story. Well, I smell something….Oh, never mind…