Featuring a forward by Copeland’s real-life friend, and fellow wrestler-turned-author, Mick Foley, On Edge sees the man known to millions as The Rated-R Superstar set out to meet the high-standards set by Foley’s own literary efforts, and whilst this tome doesn’t quite get there, it’s still nonetheless a good read.
In a departure from the standard protocol used by WWE published books, Copeland does away with the need for a ghost-writer. Instead, his memoirs were written by hand during an in-ring hiatus brought about by a severe neck injury.
The result is an autobiography that bodyslams the majority of the competition to become, if not the heavyweight champion, then at least the Middleweight champion of professional wrestling books.
Writing in an honest, concise and often humorous fashion, Copeland details his early childhood without the self-pity of sympathy-baiting that such a tale of a hard-working single parent family living on the edge of poverty may warrant.
From there, Copeland wastes no time into getting into all the humour, tragedy and dedication that form the backbones of his transition from wrestling fan and uber-geek to one of pro wrestling’s brightest stars.
Stories of Canadian Winter Death Tours, cross-country jaunts financed by small-time independent wrestling shows and friendships with fellow stars such as Jason ‘Christian Cage’ Resso, Terry ‘Rhyno’ Richards and others, are told with an earnest passion and a tongue occasionally planted firmly in the cheek.
Indeed, even when Copeland’s journey to the Big Time hits its most bleak, you still believe he sat and wrote about it with an insanely big grin on his mush.
Perhaps one of the most appealing aspects of Adam Copeland’s book is that it rarely takes many potshots at others in the wrestling world.
Whilst some books of a similar ilk seem to have been crafted purely as a grievance for a wrestling star to lay into a fellow ring-warrior, On Edge seems more than content to focus on the good times and its author’s rise to the top, rather than laying into all and sundry.
Though the layout does leave something to be desired, the pulled-out quotes and randomly-inserted pictures do give the impression that you’re actually reading a journal rather than a mass-produced autobiography, and it’s that which makes Adam Copeland – On Edge such an engrossing read for wrestling fans.
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