Edge Responds To Criticism That His WrestleMania Match With Randy Orton Was Too Long

On the latest episode of After The Bell, Corey Graves spoke with Edge about return to the ring at WrestleMania. Graves asked Edge if he had any hesitations about his comeback, especially with it being in an empty arena.

"No, no, I really didn't have any. We had a lot of things that that we had to adapt around on top of doing it within the empty arena," Edge said. "The time that we filmed, it didn't coordinate with the ideas we had, so we find that out on the day, hours before. So we had to change everything, and that's truly what you saw, was a 40-minute audible, and I'm proud of that. I'm proud that we, without uttering two words to each other, were able to do that. I'll always be able to look back, and again, I thrive on challenges and I love challenges and talk about a massive challenge, so can we do this? Can we pull that off ?

"It's a very very challenging thing on top of the challenges that were already there. But again, that's part of the gig it's part of your job."

Edge stated that he was proud of the match that he and Randy Orton put on at WrestleMania. He stressed the fact that the story needed a match to be a fight, and he felt that was what they delivered.

"I am and I'd like to think I'm a realist and everything, and I'm actually really really proud. I really am," Edge admitted. "I go on what my gut tells me, and my gut tells me that we had a fight. And it's what it needed to be. You weren't going to see two guys creating these extreme high spots within the parameters of a last man standing match. To me, It wasn't a last man standing match. It was a last man standing fight. This story was dirty. It was ugly. It was personal. It feels like it should take place in the bowels of a boiler room or something. Like it shouldn't be pretty. It shouldn't be fancy. It should be two guys that are just beating the piss out of each other.

"It had to be a fight and initially, I had ideas of drones and going on rooftops. And again, we're filming during you know, sunlight so that's not going to work. Okay, cool let's shift focus here. How do we do this? No, right. It's a fight. Let's just go fight and that's what we did, and for that, I'm very proud. I'm also very proud of the fact that after nine years off. I could go for 40 minutes."

The length of the match has drawn its critics. Edge noted that he did not know the match would be as long as it was. Edge revealed that WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart called him to praise the match and said that was the only opinion that mattered to him while decrying the people that complained about the match run-time.

"It wasn't even anything that we realized we were just going, and again, just it just ad-libbing and fighting," Edge said. "By the time it was done, someone told me it was like 42 minutes long. I was like, 'really? Okay. Well damn, cool. My wind is good,' but I am very very proud of it. And you know, I heard there's feedback that it was too long and it's this and it's that. Listen to me, all of the feedback I've gotten personally to myself or to my social media feeds has been all positive.

"When I have Bret Hart call me and tell me that he loved it because it looked like a fight, well, I don't care what anybody else says from that point on because his opinion to me has more weight than absolutely everyone anywhere. Nobody's going to top this opinion to me, and if he liked it and he thought it was a fight, good. Mission accomplished.

"I mean everyone's entitled to their opinion. It's wrestling. It's art. it's subjective and whatever blows your hair back, but Randy and I have broad shoulders, and we can weather the weight of a minuscule militia of malcontents who will just want to complain about everything. [They] complain about the length of a wrestling match during a pandemic. Like really? Come on, but they're also the same people are going to complain that Bill [Goldberg] and Brock [Lesnar] went for 4 minutes. I just think there's a segment of people that enjoy not enjoying things and dwell on negatives."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit After The Bell with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription