Adam Copeland on Edge (WWE)

You think you know Edge? It's no secret that he's one of the most dynamic and popular Superstars competing in World Wrestling Entertainment today, and his in-ring success speaks for itself: ten-time co-holder of Tag Team championships, a WCW U.S. Champion, King of the Ring in 2001, and a five-time WWE Intercontinental Champion. His accomplishments notwithstanding, though, who is he? For the answer, Adam Copeland invites you to exit the ring, enter his mind, and become Edgeucated.Adam Copeland on Edgeis more than an autobiography. It's what the author himself describes as "a mental picture" that he has long wanted to paint for the reader. It's also a dream -- "one of many" -- that he decided to realize while at home convalescing from potential career-ending neck surgery. And it's a journey that explores not only his life but also his innermost thoughts.Despite growing up with "a lot less materially than other people" in the small town of Orangeville, Ontario, Copeland recalls his formative years fondly. He remembers a loving mother who, while working multiple jobs just to pay the rent, nurtured her son's passion for Spider-Man comics and KISS albums. He also recalls the family tragedy that created a void in his life at nine years of age, and how that void was soon filled by the yellow-and-red-clad form of wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, whose intensity and personality "made me feel like I could accomplish anything."For Copeland, "anything" meant becoming a wrestler, an ambition shared by his "Getalong Gang" of friends in Princess Elizabeth Public School (among them Jason Reso, who would eventually form the indie tag team Suicide Blondes with Copeland, then join him in WWE as Edge's "brother," Christian). Loyal "Edgeheads" will be surprised to discover how Copeland's writing skills kick-started his career, when winning a newspaper essay contest earned him free wrestling training from independent veterans Sweet Daddy Siki and Ron Hutchinson. Even more startling, however, are the author's vivid, often outrageous memories of wrestling throughout Canada and the midwestern United States as "Adam Impact" and "Sexton Hardcastle"; befriending future WWE Superstars like Terry Richards (Rhyno),Sean Morley (Val Venis), and Chris Jericho; and embarking on "winter death tours," which consisted of driving across frozen north Canadian lakes, enduring subzero temperatures, and eating Kraft dinners and canned tuna.Hard work and persistence, coupled with a recommendation from former WWE Heavyweight Champion Bret "Hitman" Hart, ultimately brought Copeland to the door of World Wrestling Entertainment. But his "inauspicious" Raw debut in June 1998 -- during which he accidentally knocked out his opponent -- supports his claim that "I had no idea" how to make the transformation to Edge, who up to that point had been envisioned as everything from "a tortured soul" to "a deaf-mute wrestler." With that, Copeland retraces the steps he took to "Edgeucate" himself, from his goth days with the Brood's Christian and Gangrel to ushering in the "E&C Dynasty," a tandem that introduced a vocabulary reeking of "awesomeness," "suckitude," and "heinousity" and revitalized WWE's Tag Team division (with the aid, Copeland adds, of the Hardy Boyz, the Dudley Boyz, and countless tables, ladders, and chairs).With vivid detail and sincerity, Copeland offers his thoughts about not only fulfilling his goals but also building upon them. While revisiting his greatest matches, he shares his actual surprise over winning the Intercontinental title for the first time; the anxiety he felt while splitting up with Christian and establishing a solo career; his eventual determination "to grab the damn ball out of someone's hands and take off" on SmackDown!; the distress of almost losing his long blond hair to Kurt Angle; his wonder over enjoying a brief Tag Team title reign with the icon who first inspired him; the simultaneous pain of a broken marriage and two ru