AEW star and pro wrestling legend Adam Copeland spoke with Inside the Ropes about various topics, including when he first started advocating for himself against former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon.
Copeland said, “It was really when the first time I remember it is when I heard that they were going to split Jay (Christian) and I up as a team, and that was before WrestleMania 16, before the first uh triple ladder match, I think it was called. So I heard that that was on the table, and Jay and I were like that, but this is too soon. I get that they want us to be our own things, but it’s too soon. We haven’t scratched the surface of what we can do together as a team, and if we can do that together as a team, we’ll be able to do more on our own eventually. So it was kind of I was looking at the long game, and so was Jay, and patience to me was part of that, and yeah, would you love to try and go straight into world title matches against Stone Cold? Sure. But I don’t know if that’s going to happen. What I know can happen is that if you let our personalities out and let us do commentary and let us cut promos and let the banter that is us out, then we can really do something with this. So, we went to him, and then we got on commentary, and that commentary changed everything. Then we went from splitting up to right, ‘We’re going to put the tag team titles on you.’ ‘Oh, wow.’”
On how he and Christian Cage spoke to McMahon:
“So, we just went and talked to him and told him what we felt with commitment and with intensity because we believed it. And now we’re standing on top of a table at WrestleMania 16. I’m pulling them down because I have much better core strength. And he’s grasping the table. Watch it back. and we’re tag team champions, going right, this is what we said we were going to do, we just did that, wow, that’s that’s one checked off.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
