On Sunday, AEW (All Elite Wrestling) will be holding its “Dynasty 2026” pay-per-view event. A marquee title match set for the card will see the legendary tag team of Adam Copeland and Christian Cage challenging FTR for the AEW World Tag Team Championship. Since Copeland and Cage reunited, the duo has received high praise for their new good-cop, bad-cop dynamic.
During an interview with FightsATW, Copeland revealed that both he and Cage knew they needed to do something fresh in front of today’s professional wrestling audience when they decided to team up again.
“Absolutely,” Copeland said. “For anyone that was like, ‘Oh, it’s just gonna be Edge and Christian,’ no. This is a completely different thing. Our characters are in completely different places. From a personal standpoint, we’re totally different men now. At this stage, it’s got to be different. One of our main discussions before we got into any of this was making sure that Christian didn’t lose the element of this character because this character that he crafted from the ground up is why he’s at the stage he’s at. Now, it truly feels like an equal tag team. He’s got his character dialed in, and it gives me something to play off of. We’re kind of like Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Pick your buddy cop movie.”
Art of the Comeback
At this stage in Copeland’s life, he’s able to take on some high-profile projects outside of wrestling. This has opened the door for many opportunities, such as playing the role of Ares in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Copeland joked about wrestling fans getting tired of his constant returns, but he’s grateful that the reactions are always strong.
“I’ve become the master of the comeback,” Copeland said. “At a certain point it’s just like, ‘How many more times can we do this?’ Stuff just keeps coming up, and it’s good stuff. At a certain point, though, it’s just, ‘Ok, this is the ninth time. It’s getting a little ridiculous now,’ but I think absence makes the heart grow fonder. So, if you’re not seen for a bit and you come back, the reactions are usually pretty fun. ‘Revolution’ was much the same. I always say I can chew through concrete when I hear those reactions, and if I can encapsulate why I do this, that feeling, I’ve never found it anywhere else, and I think that’s what talent find difficult to leave behind.”
Copeland went on to say he’s never concerned about whether or not the reactions will fade away whenever he steps through the curtain. He credits navigating through the industry just as he did when he first entered wrestling.
“I don’t really worry about anything wrestling-related,” Copeland said. “For me, it’s fun. I’ve really made sure to place it in terms of pecking order in my life. It’s down the list now. It’s my family, and then everything else falls behind that. I didn’t have that before. I think that’s really kind of made me look at this differently and really just come at it the way I came at it in the beginning, where it was just about fun.”
More Beth Copeland on AEW TV?
Going into AEW “Dynasty 2026,” a major storyline point dates back to “All Out 2025,” when Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler of FTR injured Copeland’s wife, Beth, in a post-match angle. While Beth’s involvement wasn’t something that had long been mapped out, Copeland admits his wife fits like a glove in certain scenarios.
“No, there’s never any plan,” Copeland said. “More than anything, she was signed to a legends deal in WWE, and she didn’t want to re-sign, and she left. That was it, and every once in a while we’ll kick around some ideas and go, ‘Oh, Beth would be really great here.’ She’s just an awesome weapon to have in your pocket to further something along or to end something, but she’s moved past wrestling on a full-time basis.”
Future Clash With The Young Bucks?
Copeland knows a thing or two about tag team wrestling, given his aforementioned decorated alliance with Cage. Copeland thinks Matt and Nick Jackson of The Young Bucks are just as good as any team, but he won’t waste his air on creating an all-time list.
“Lists to me are silly when it comes to things like wrestling because it’s all subjective,” Copeland said. “I think you can have your own personal list, but for someone like me, that’s always changing. I’ll just go through a stage where all I want to watch is Brad Armstrong matches, or I’ll go through a stage where I just feel like watching some [Ricky] Steamboat or Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. What I will say is FTR and The Young Bucks were two of the major reasons I wanted to come to AEW. FTR and The Bucks, I do consider two of the greatest tag teams ever. When you start getting into placing a list, I think you’re wasting your air.”
As far as a potential dream match involving the team of Copeland and Cage and The Young Bucks goes, “The Rated-R Superstar” thinks it’s a must.
“They’re both just so good, as evident by their match at Revolution,” Copeland said. “Just watching that going, ‘Damn, what a tag team pro wrestling match,’ which is a bit of a lost art now. To be able to stumble our way into this thing while these two teams are here, that was definitely one for me where it’s like those two matches need to happen.”
Chris Jericho is Back
Much had been made over the contract status of Chris Jericho. Early reports indicated that Jericho would likely make his way back to WWE. Ultimately, “Y2J” returned to AEW TV during the April 1 episode of “Dynamite.” Copeland expected Jericho to stay with AEW.
“I did, but that’s just me,” Copeland said. “I know what I would’ve done, and it’s what he did. I wasn’t totally surprised, but Chris and I stay in contact. It’s not like he’s gone for a year and I don’t talk to him for a year.”
Emerging Stars in AEW
As AEW continues to grow, so do the men’s and women’s divisions. Some names have been hitting their stride over the past year or so. Copeland has taken notice of the current TBS Champion Willow Nightingale.
“I think Willow for me,” Copeland said. “She is untapped. Untapped potential, untapped stardom, untapped all of it. She just has an energy that is very, very infectious. You want to look at the term ‘babyface’ and somebody who just brings all of the babyface elements that a Steamboat or a Ricky Morton brings to the table, and Willow, to me, is that.”
Nightingale’s Babes of Wrath partner Harley Cameron is right there with her as far as Copeland is concerned.
“Harley Cameron, she is so entertaining,” Copeland said. “We’ve had talks too. I’m like, ‘Make sure you don’t lose that element that people love and that charisma and that fun aspect,’ because wrestling is a variety show. It can’t just be about anger. You need some surcease from that every once in a while. That’s why someone like Harley Cameron is always gonna be very important to the totality of the show.”
Over on the men’s side, Copeland is old enough to consider Swerve Strickland a young talent. While Strickland has established himself as a main eventer and a former world champion, Copeland believes there are even greater achievements along the way for him.
“To me, Swerve’s still a young guy,” Copeland said. “He’s reached massive potential, but I think he’d be the first to say there’s always places to go. I love sitting down and chopping it up with him. There’s so many talented people here. Will Ospreay can do things that I can’t even fathom being able to pull off. Then you’ve got your Brody Kings and you’ve got your hard-hitting Mark Davises.”
What Fulfils Adam Copeland?
Copeland has just about done it all in the wrestling business, but he will never get tired speaking to other talent. Whether it’s having fantasy matches, reuniting with old friends, or helping the stars of tomorrow, Copeland finds it all gratifying. There are also special moments outside of the ring that simply can’t be replaced.
“It’s all of those things,” Copeland said. “It really is. I’ve talked to Anthony Bowens before, but we were on a four-hour flight together, and we had an amazing conversation. I learned so much about him and what a great quality human being he is, and him picking my brain. I thought to myself as we were talking, ‘This is actually what I bring most to the table.’ I can be either a sounding board or you want to run some ideas by me; maybe I can float some in there to get the ligaments behind the bones kind of thing. That to me is really fulfilling.
“The most fulfilling thing I could say, people talk about legacy, I say it’s a bunch of BS because how do you have legacy in entertainment? It’s all chosen by somebody else, but when I have a dude in his 30s come up to me and go, ‘Man, thank you for making my childhood a cooler place,’ that will never get old.”
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