Edge is a bookworm wrestler
WWE legend Adam Copeland is a panellist on Canada Reads
Back when Toronto’s Adam Copeland was still tackling people from 18-foot ladders, crashing through tables and flinging steel chairs like parade confetti as the daredevil pro wrestler Edge, there was another “heavy foreign object” that he was sure to lug everywhere he went: a hardcover book.
“If I was going to Europe, and I knew I was going to be there for three weeks, I’d bring three hard-bound books,” the personable Copeland recalled recently. “It made the bag heavier, but I didn’t care.
“On flights or back at the hotel room late at night when you need that hour to decompress . . . It was books. It was books that got me through that whole crazy travel circus, 300 days a year.”
Now, the bookworm wrestler is applying that literary acumen to a showdown taking place far outside the squared circle: Canada Reads, CBC’s annual novelistic dust-up which kicks off Monday and runs to Thursday.
Copeland is one of five panellists who will advocate for a book in a series of debates in which he’ll square off against Farah Mohamed, Clara Hughes, Bruce Poon Tip and Vinay Virmani.
The book Copeland chose is Michael Winter’s Minister Without Portfolio, a 2013 novel about Newfoundlander Henry Hayward, who joins an army contracting crew in Afghanistan to recover from a nasty breakup. There, he witnesses a friend die and he returns home reeling and confused.
The theme of this year’s Canada Reads is starting over — and that certainly resonates with Copeland.
After growing up in Orangeville, Ont., and graduating from Humber College’s radio broadcasting program, Copeland signed his first contract with the WWE in 1997. Over the next 14 years, the lithe, six-foot-five grappler became a headlining draw, claiming a total of 31 championships and carving out a niche as a depraved villain — the Rated-R Superstar — willing to resort to whatever caustic vio- lence was necessary to succeed.
In reality, it was Copeland’s own body that was subject to ceaseless punishment. After a career of disbelief-defying stunts, Copeland had chronic neck issues that could no longer be soothed by surgery. In 2011, he announced he’d been diagnosed with cervical spinal stenosis, and at 37 years old, he was retiring.
“I had to reshuffle my entire deck,” Copeland recalled. “What I’d known and done for my entire adult life — it was done. There was no choice in the matter.
“I was stepping into wide-open, completely foreign territory. I didn’t know what life was after (wrestling) because I started when I was 17 and it’s all I wanted to do.
“That’s why I really related with Henry. He gets up, he figures out a way (forward) — that’s, I guess, what I had to do.”
In Copeland’s case, his transition was aided by a touch of serendipity.
Producers of the Syfy channel series Haven saw his eloquent retirement speech and cast him for what would become a four-season, 42-episode run. The WWE instantly elected him to its Hall of Fame, and just recently hired Copeland to host a new show on the WWE Network. In December 2013, he and his partner — fellow ex-wrestler Beth Phoenix — welcomed a daughter named Lyric, and his “brand-new dad” status is another thing that connected him to the book’s central character.
Copeland’s aware, by the way, that some might be surprised by the notion of a bibliophile grappler — and it’s part of the reason he got involved.
“I love to read,” he said. “Maybe some kid who isn’t a big reader (will say), ‘Hey, is that Edge? He reads? Maybe I’ll pick up a book.’
“If one kid picks up a book, then to me it’s a success.”