‘Over-Produced, Over-Rehearsed’ – AEW Star Shares Honest Thoughts On His Final WWE Run

WWE/AEW

An AEW star has shared their thoughts on their last WWE run that brought an end to a career that started back in the late nineties.

Known to WWE fans as Edge, the Hall of Famer left the company in September 2023 after his contract expired, heading to AEW on October 1 as Adam Copeland.

Reflecting his experience in AEW, Copeland would compare it to the Attitude Era during an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, saying:

“I gotta say right now, this last year really turned the corner in terms of it feels that everybody is pulling in the same direction. And, once you can do that, and once you can get a few creative elements to the show that are really starting to hit, I feel that everything is starting to get dialled in, and that’s where we are right now, and that’s always fun.

“What’s amazing about AEW, too, is just the freedom to explore and to try things. It’s much more like the Attitude Era in that regard, because a lot of times when we were out there during the Attitude Era, there might be a plan; there might not be, too, or you might be figuring out as you go.”

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While Copeland clearly has fond memories of the freedom of the Attitude Era, that enjoyment wouldn’t spread to the end of his WWE tenure, with the star stating:

“My experience by the end of WWE was over-produced, over-rehearsed, over-everything, and they kept handcuffs on you to the point where you couldn’t really explore too much.

“That’s not the case with AEW, and that, again, is fun.”

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Copeland would also reveal that he plans to retire in AEW over the possibility of a potential return to WWE.

The Fine Line Of The ‘Hands-On’ Approach

Speaking on the benefits of Tony Khan’s leadership with Helwani, Copeland would comment that the AEW president is hands-on when it comes to the creative direction of the television product, conceding that, as a star, he and the owner are comfortable when it comes to disagreeing with each other.

When it comes to WWE, however, Copeland indicates that this wasn’t the case with his final run in the company, suggesting that there wasn’t the freedom he had experienced during the Attitude Era. With the former Edge calling the product “over-produced, over-rehearsed, over-everything”, it suggests that much was put into getting it right based on the prevailing creative direction, very much as one would expect from a live theater experience.

In comments made back earlier this month, the former Joe Gacy opened up about how far he discovered he was from being the TV product that WWE needed when he first signed with the company, indicating the level of polish a star needs in order to make it on NXT, Raw or SmackDown.

Over-producing and over-rehearsing runs the risk of taking away the “natural” feel of the entertainment, robbing stars of the ability to react to the unexpected that didn’t happen during earlier run-throughs. It becomes more obvious that something has gone awry when a beat is missed, and any given star doesn’t quite know what to do next.

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• Adam Copeland
• AEW
• wwe
• Edge
• Creative

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