Edge is a WWE Hall of Famer who left his mark on the business, but he unfortunately had to retire a few years ago. Edge was part of many great rivalries throughout his career, but it could be argued that his rivalry with The Undertaker was his most memorable feud.
The rivalry between Taker and Edge culminated with a Hell in a Cell match at SummerSlam in 2008, and during a recent episode of E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness, the Rated-R Superstar admitted that he had big plans to use color in the match. However, he was very disappointed when Vince McMahon told him that there would be no blood inside Hell in a Cell.
“For me, I would say that Hell In A Cell… I remember going into that, and a little story about that Hell In A Cell, we got from Vince the edict that day that there would be no color in that match and I had put together this whole thing in my head that involved color and also involved me taking a chokeslam through the panel, through two tables, this whole thing,” Edge revealed via WrestlingInc. “I know I have this written down somewhere. And it wasn’t going to work and color wasn’t going to work. And I’m mad. And I remember saying to Vince that day, ‘this is the most disappointed I’ve ever been in a decision that I’ve had to try and make do with, I guess, in this company’ because I really was. I thought, ‘this is the culmination of a year-and-a-half angle. There has to be that. There has to be color.'”
In the summer of 2008, WWE began to move away from edgy content and into what many fans refer to as the PG Era. One of the biggest issues that had to be figured out was how the company would make Hell in a Cell matches work within a PG show.
Edge added that even though he was disappointed that they couldn’t use blood, he was up for the challenge when Vince McMahon told him that he and Taker would be responsible for setting the standard of what a Hell in a Cell match could be in the PG Era.
“I wasn’t thinking further down the road or the big picture, all of the things Vince has to think about, and in hindsight he was right. He was right and what he said that day was completely right. He said, ‘I trust you two to set the template for what a Hell In A Cell will be going forward’ and I was like, ‘oh, well s–t.’ What do you say to that? There’s the challenge. Alright, so the challenge is, we’ve got to figure out a way to do this then, and I think we did. It still got in the story I wanted to get across.”
The fact that Vince McMahon put Undertaker and Edge in charge of setting the template for a HIAC match in the PG Era is a huge compliment, and there’s no denying that the match delivered.
However, there’s also no denying that the Hell in a Cell matches of today don’t quite match up to the Hell in a Cell matches of years gone by. But then again, it’s pretty hard to top Mankind going through the top of the cage, and topping that moment isn’t something any WWE Superstar should attempt unless they want to take years off their career.
