Edge and Christian vs. the Hardy Boyz in a Ladder Match at No Mercy 1999; the match would put both teams on the map, and is still considered one of the best ladder matches of all time.
How good was it? When the two teams came out the following night on Raw, the whole arena gave them a standing ovation. To explain, both tag teams were considered mid-card at the time, but the ovation is around the likes for cheering Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Edge making his return from injury in 2001 to Chris Jericho's theme music (complete with siren & pyro cue), before hitting Jericho with a Spear as "Y2J" attempted to injure Hulk Hogan.
Doubles as a Funny Moment given how many jokes have been made about how similar the two look and act.
Edge's leaping Spear from a ladder to Jeff Hardy (who was hanging from the title belts raised above the ring) during the TLC Match at WrestleMania X-Seven. It may not have done either man any favors in terms of their health, but damn, was that a sight to behold.
The mid-air spear two years earlier at SummerSlam, where he ran along the barricade like a ninja before taking out Matt Hardy, was pretty impressive as well.
Hulk Hogan has held precisely one tag team championship his entire career - the only title that wasn't a world championship in WCW or WWE - and that was in 2002 with Edge, the Promoted Fanboy who sat in the Toronto Sky Dome cheering for Hogan at WrestleMania 6.
After cashing in his Money in the Bank contract, he defeated an already-weakened John Cena to win the WWE Championship at New Year's Revolution 2006 and ascended from midcard heel to "The Ultimate Opportunist".
Later that year, Edge cost Cena the WWE Championship at ECW One Night Stand by spearing Cena through a table, which earned a "Thank You Edge!" chant from the ECW Mutants who had been booing Edge earlier in the evening.
A minor one, but mention should go to his promo with Cena on the first RAW following Unforgiven 2006 where Cena had won the title back from Edge. Since the show was being held in Montreal, naturally the fans would boo Cena and cheer Edge. However, Edge manages to alienate his fellow Canadians and have them turn on him by saying that he wants to win his title back in Canada and Montreal isn't a part of Canada due their being French. It really says much about Edge's ability to gain heel heat that he could, in Cena's words: "Have all these people go from loving you to having every single person in this building want me to beat the holy hell out of you in thirty seconds," and as a Canadian wrestler in Canada, to boot!
How good did Edge make the fans turn on their native Canadian? When D-Generation X made a Big Damn Heroes at the end of the segment to save Cena from a sneak attack by Edge and Lance Cade and Trever Murdoch, the fans actually cheered for Shawn Michaels, never the most popular guy in Montreal for obvious reasons.
Edge's surprise return from injury in 2010 during the Royal Rumble Match, where he entered at #29 and won the match by eliminating John Cena last.
He got one a few months later at WrestleMania XXVI. In response to losing to World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho (due to some underhanded tactics on Jericho's behalf), an irate Edge got up a minute later and speared Jericho from the announcers' tables through the ringside barricade.
Summerslam 2008's Hell In A Cell Match saw Edge spear The Undertakerthrough the side of the hellacious structure.
His tirade against Michael Cole on the October 4th 2010 edition of Raw:
I would rather listen to a recording of Jim Ross than listen to you for one more second!
Finishing Dolph Ziggler off with Using Christian's Killswitch at the 2011 Royal Rumble to "beat" Dolph Ziggler, after using the Spear (banned under threat of title stripping at the time of the match) behind the referee's back.
As bittersweet as it may be, Edge retiring with the belt still in hand counts as a Moment Of Awesome for one hell of a storied career, especially since it rarely happens in an industry as in-flux as Pro Wrestling. He walked away, but he walked away on top.
To understand why Edge's career is so storied, one has to know these facts: Edge walked off into the sunset as the only WWE performer to have won both world championships (the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship), both secondary championships (the Intercontinental Championship and the United States Championship), all three variations of the tag team championships (the World Tag Team Championship, the WWE Tag Team Championship, and the WWE Unified Tag Team Championship), a King of the Ring tournament, and a Royal Rumble Match, and the first Money in the Bank ladder match. He also won more titles during his career — thirty-one, as of his retirement — than any other wrestler in WWE history. As the shirt says: "Done it all -- won it all".
Edge's sudden retirement allegedly caused the WWE Draft to be moved up six weeks; while there was a three-hour Raw scheduled for June, Edge's departure left SmackDown without a major main event babyface. Edge's presence was so important to WWE by the time of his retirement that said retirement instigated an immediate restructuring of both the Raw andSmackDownrosters just weeks after he left.
His hardcore match with Mick Foley at Wrestlemania 22 was 14:37 of awesome.
The look on his face at the end of that match is this. (Particularly that he had been cut open almost ear to ear across his forehead by the barbed-wire baseball bat.)
This cannot be stated enough. Against a man who made his name as the most hardcore wrestler in the company, Edge proved that he too could be a Determinator. What happens when he takes a back suplex onto a pile of thumbtacks? Keep wrestling. When Foley hits him with the Mandible Claw, wrapped in barbed wire? Keep wrestling. Then, to clinch the win, he spears Foley onto a table outside of the ring THAT'S BEEN LIT ON FIRE. What's worse, Edge was in worse pain from that move than Foley because Mick had a barbed-wire board underneath his shirt where Edge speared him. And. Yet. He. Keeps. Wrestling. Long. Enough. To. WIN.
The announcement that he'll be the first inductee in the 2012 class for the WWE Hall of Fame.
At the time of the announcement, Edge was the youngest living inductee at 39.note Eddie Guerrero would have been 38 at the time of his induction. Trish Stratus broke Edge's record a year later at 38
One of his earliest CMOAs was delivering an epic speech during the Brood's first interview. Especially pointing out that Gangrel tried his hardest but it fell flat and Christian was being his quiet self, and he still comes out with an epic line. Michael Hayes later stated that Edge would eventually become a rising star due to that sort of talent.
Edge makes a triumphant return to the 4/23/12 RAW and gives Cena a well-needed wake up call for his match against Lesnar at Extreme Rules and ends his promo with these words. Also very significant because that was also Cena's birthday; Edge's speech was basically saying "Happy Birthday, now wake up!"
Edge: I'm not asking you to beat up Lesnar. I'm telling you to.
His 2002 no-DQ match against Eddie Guerrero on SmackDown. WWE considers it "one of the best matches in SmackDown history," and for good reason.
During his "Talk is Jericho" interview with Chris Jericho, Edge mentioned that his first singles match with The Undertaker happened at Chile house show. They went for 40+ minutes and when it was all set and done, backstage Undertaker told Edge "You, Shawn and Bret." When one of WWE's biggest stars ever puts you on the level of two other all time greats, you're one of them.
During another Talk is Jericho, Edge mentioned how he was told to go to Bret Hart's place to help him train after his Knee injury. When he got there and did his time, Bret Hart, who was WWF's top guy, told him he has something special and to keep at it. When he came back the second time more experienced, Bret flat out told him he will recommend him to the powers that be in WWF, but won't make any promises. Edge says it very clearly.
Edge: Hey, I have the company's Champ vouching for me.
When he speared Elias at the 2019 SummerSlam signaling he may have recovered from his career ending injury.
His in-ring return at the 2020 Royal Rumble. The countdown clock ticks to zero, the buzzer sounds and then..."You think you know me." The crowd goes absolutely insane as he steps out from gorilla, in the best shape he's been in in years. He immediately made an impact, figuratively and literally, by spearing most of the opposition. Then when Randy Orton comes out later, the two have a Rated-RKO reunion, working together for a good while until Orton begins to show signs of stabbing Edge in the back, only for it to backfire when he's caught and Edge eliminates Orton instead. And to top it off, he made it to the final three.
While he didn't win, being eliminated by Roman Reigns, the man who subsequently outed Reigns and did win the Royal Rumble was Drew McIntyre — the same man who Edge went on the record fourteen months earlier saying he should be in the main event of a WrestleMania. Put that into perspective: Edge's personal pick for a main event walked into that Rumble taking out WWE Champion Brock Lesnar with a single kick. Edge himself FINALLY returned to action later in that same match, and they shared the ring all the way to the top three. After Roman took Edge out, Edge's pick took Reigns out to win the whole thing. These events all clearly received the loudest pops of the night. And in the day after his victory, the pick opted to challenge Lesnar, all but guaranteeing that he will get that match that Edge called for.
Speaking of the day after the Rumble, Edge himself didn't go without a memorable appearance on the fallout episode of Raw. Receiving an absolute hero's welcome when he came out in the closing segment, said closing segment consisted of a rousing speech about his refusal to live life with any what-ifs. Recalling how he realized after several years that he felt good enough to possibly work on a comeback, and then proceeded to put in every ounce of possible energy into working his ass off to make sure he was cleared and finally get back in the ring, Edge had the entire wrestling world hanging on his every syllable. Then came Randy Orton, praising his return and working his way into a possible Rated-RKO reunion... only to hit the most "outta nowhere" RKO of all time, dragging Edge head-and-neck-first into the ring mat. Edge's Theatrics of Pain playing right into the fears of him reinjuring himself had fans legitimately concerned for his well-being, while the subsequent one-man con-chair-to by Orton to Edge both cemented that he was okay in reality and successfully returned The Viper to his heinous 2009 best. With one speech, one slam, and one strike, Edge and Orton would rekindle a white-hot flame, no doubt setting the stage for their own WrestleMania feud.
Edge's Last Man Standing match with Randy Orton at WrestleMania 36. Instantly blindsided with an RKO outta nowhere at the start of the match, Edge recovered only to deal with Orton relentlessly assaulting him as their fight spilled outside the ring and all throughout the WWE Performance Center. Edge didn't go without getting his licks in, valiantly fighting from behind the entire time, and the two were not hesitant to use the environment to get at each other. While Orton favored directly hitting or choking Edge with anything that wasn't nailed down, Edge was able to nimbly use various surfaces to accentuate his own attacks, such as a swinging dropkick using a pull-up bar in the gym, an elbow drop off a chain link ceiling fence onto a table in a conference room, and even a diving elbow off a ladder through a table in a storage room. Plenty of times, the strain of Fighting Your Friend showed in addition to the physical pain of the match itself, as each man begged the other to stay down. The match ultimately ended on top of one of the trucks, where both men fought their way up from each other's finishers before Edge countered a Patented Punt attempt into a sleeper hold and then nailed a one-man con-chair-to, to which Orton finally stayed down.
YMMV on the match's quality, as many have complained of the match being too slow, as it lasted over 37 minutes with more selling and less lucha libre or strong style high spots than modern wrestling fans are accustomed to for such long matches. However, the fact that Edge can actually go for over half an hour is amazing in and of itself, and using selling and psychology to pad the time instead of peppering extra moves in was a decidedly old-school take, allowing the damage of the hits they were taking as well as the story itself to breathe, a refreshing beat for fans who prefer these classic aspects.
One year after Edge's world-shaking return in the 2020 Royal Rumble, Edge enters the 2021 Royal Rumble... and wins! And he did it from the #1 spot! Edge is on his way to WrestleMania to try and win back the world championship he never lost 10 years ago!
On route to his Summerslam PPV match against Seth Rollins, Edge brings back something that only the most hardcore wrestling fan would know: The Brood. He quotes his old catcphrase — "Beware, take care, because the freaks come out at night!" — puts Seth into a broodbath (of black paint) and for his Summerslam entrance he rises from a ring of fire like he did with Gangrel. And calling on the darkness from his past truly did seem to empower him, as after an epic battle, Edge triumphed over Rollins in what was pretty much universally considered Summerslam's match of the night.
Just as Judgment Day take out everyone in the 2023 Royal Rumble match and look poised to dominate, #24 enters and "You think you know me." blares through the Alamodome as Edge gives us another amazing surprise return where after being put on the shelf by his former lackeys, he gets his revenge by eliminating Finn Balor and Damian Priest.
Edge vs Finn Balor in Hell in a Cell at WrestleMania 39 had dark and demonic entrances. Balor emerges in his Demon King makeup with a spiky mohawk while Edge dives deep into his Brood days with fire, a skull-like mask made of mosaic and vampire wings, complete with Slayer blaring in the background with the properly titled "South of Heaven".
At the end of the main event of AEW Wrestledream, after managing to retain his title against Darby Allin and luring Nick Wayne over to his side in the process, Christian Cage tears up the ring, ready to hit Sting with a Conchairto on the exposed wooden surface. Right before he swings, he's interrupted by the lights suddenly going out and a vignette starts playing on the screen, backed by the intro to Cry Of Achilles. And then, after a slightly altered five-word catchphrase ("You think you know him?"), the stadium erupts into a much more recognisable Alter Bridge song: Metalingus.
against Eddie Guerrero on SmackDown. WWE considers it "one of the best matches in SmackDown history," and for good reason.