At the height of his WWE career, Adam Copeland (FKA Edge) had the perfect dance partner in John Cena. When the latter retired from professional wrestling in 2025, Copeland was a member of the AEW roster, causing the world to miss out on the two legendary rivals colliding one final time.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t some openness to the idea, though — at least on one side. Copeland, who’s currently one-half of the AEW World Tag Team Champions with his longtime friend and fellow wrestling legend Christian Cage, revealed Tuesday on “The Ariel Helwani Show” that a Cena match was entirely possible. He fully believes AEW founder Tony Khan would have allowed the groundbreaking crossover dream match.
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It all came down to WWE being willing to play ball.
“Here’s what I realized: They could link (doors) to each other. One place doesn’t want it to. So, OK,” Copeland told Uncrowned.
“Absolutely (Khan would have allowed it). I truly believe that. Because he knows what it would have meant to a very large segment of the wrestling fans. And that’s important.”
Although Copeland would’ve loved to have one last dance with Cena, just as the majority of the wrestling fan base would’ve, he understands the broader business landscape.
And despite their lack of a match, they still paid tributes to one another from their separate sides of the pond, using each other’s signature moves in matches.
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“I can see it from all sides. I really can,” Copeland said. “John knew I was there in spirit. … We kind of made our bones on each other, and we’re both aware of that fact. Both of our careers would have been great, but I think that angle (between us in the 2000s), that story, those two opponents kind of propelled us to a different place.
“(But) having been (at WWE) long enough and kind of knowing how the mindset is there, I realized (one last match) ain’t gonna happen. If it were up to me and John? Sure.”
Ultimately, Cena revisited as many of his biggest rivalries as timing allowed during his year-long retirement tour, from names like Randy Orton to AJ Styles to Brock Lesnar. Cena’s final match eventually came to a modern-day legend in the making, Gunther.
The ending of Cena’s career was polarizing, to say the least. Known for the majority of his career as the man who “never gave up,” Cena fatefully succumbed to Gunther’s patented rear-naked choke sleeper hold in his final in-ring appearance, tapping out to take the L.
John Cena and Edge made magic together during their WWE heydays.
(Don Arnold via Getty Images)
In the end, Copeland believes the community’s feelings about the match are meaningless. As long as Cena is fine with how he went out, that’s all that really matters.
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“To me, he’s the one who has to be at peace,” Copeland said. “The other people can move on. They can be worked up about it and this and that when they go back to think about it, but John is the one who has to walk in John’s shoes every day. So if John’s cool with it, then who am I to knock people over it?”
Copeland has been on a noteworthy run of his own since he returned to action in 2023 with AEW alongside Cage. The champs are gearing up for their big title match at Wembley Stadium against The Young Bucks at AEW All In 2026 next Sunday, Aug. 30.
Having been with AEW for three years now, Copeland has had a blast every step of the way.
“It’s been fun — and I say that word, and it sounds like a simple word, but that was really the goal. To have fun,” Copeland said. “I’m not chasing championships or the props, let’s face it. I’m not doing that. I just wanted to come, have fun and create with some performers I’d never had a chance to touch. That and the fact that I knew I’d get a chance to team with (Cage) again, and go against teams like FTR and the Bucks. Those were big things to want to be able to try and do. I knew there was only one place to do that.
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“I kind of ran the gamut with WWE. There wasn’t much left to do for either the company or me. To me, that writing was pretty clearly on the wall. It was more along the lines of, ‘Am I going to go to AEW, or am I going to retire?’ During (my last WWE match) with Sheamus, I still didn’t really know because I was having so much fun out there with him and just loving that experience, that I truly wasn’t sure.
“Then, looking at the roster in AEW and talking to Tony and kind of looking at the landscape, it became a no-brainer the more I looked at it.”
Copeland, 52, said he had a talk with his family once his WWE contract expired and it was time to decide how much longer he wanted to wrestle. If AEW wasn’t an option, the WWE Hall of Famer admits he certainly wouldn’t be an active roster member anywhere in 2026.
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“I think I probably would have come back for a year with WWE, and then retired however everyone wanted it to happen, and that would be that,” Copeland said.
“This kind of breathed new life into me, in terms of the creative avenues that we can take. Because again, I felt we’d kind of driven down most of those avenues with WWE, personally.”
Regarding his inevitable retirement, Copeland doesn’t have a definitive timeline for when he’ll hang up his boots for good. All he knows is that it’ll be in his current home with AEW.
“That’s where I want to be,” Copeland said. “And I know that can disappoint a lot of people, but it really, really — I love it there. I love the company. I love the attitude. I love the exuberance. I love the drive. I love the excitement that I see from the locker room. Yeah. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I’m good.
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“I did everything I can do there (in WWE) and then some. And again, I think (WWE) got everything out of me and then some that they could have. For the better. Which is really all you can ask for in a relationship or a partnership.”
