koilungfish | On Edge by Adam Copeland (Reply)

Title - On Edge
Author - Adam Copeland
ISBN - 978-1-4165-1130-4

"While Team Extreme were in the ring after a match, Chriskel and Edgebert splashed up on the Titantron. We commenced to tear the Hardys teenage exploits to shreds. Bless their hearts, it was like beating baby seals. They stormed from the ring into the dressing room area only to be "Pearl Harboured" by the chairmen of the WWE."

On Edge is the third pro wrestler's autobiography to come under scrutiny, chosen by virtue of being what Rath had around the house other than Have A Nice Day and Are You Ready?. Mr Copeland eschews the hotel-room-and-tape-recorder-and-hack-writer approach and attempts to follow in the footsteps of Mr Foley, writing his own words whilst sat at home recovering from a broken neck.

In terms of construction, On Edge is the classic rags-to-riches story; the tale of a fatherless boy from a less-than-affluent family who, through hard work, determination and a relentlessly positive attitude, breaks into pro wrestling and becomes a major star, thereby fulfilling his lifelong goal to buy his mother her own house. All together now - awwww. Mr Copeland takes the sensible route of filling his book with interesting anecdotes, such as the Canadian Winter Death Tour and a summer spent selling bikinis, working his way up from watching wrestling to training to actually wrestling in front of huge crowds.

As to style, if you've ever seen Mr Copeland's in-ring persona, Edge, and know how he talks, On Edge is written in much the same voice. Sharp sentence fragments. Lots of impact. Very little flourish. Yeah. You start expecting that if you put the book down and turn around in mid-sentence, Edge might rush out of a corner and spear you.

Mr Copeland's presentation of his life story is relatively simple. There's little complexity to anything he relates - even Mr Michaels and Mr Helmsley got more convoluted in places - so on the one hand the straight-up no-frills style makes for a fast, easy, energetic read. On the other hand ... as mentioned in my review of Are You Ready, when someone presents themselves as happy with who they are and what they have achieved, it's hard to find the middle ground between smug bastard and big happy dog. Mr Copeland's can-do attitude and positive nature land him firmly in big happy dog territory. His enthusiasm, his love for his profession, jumps off the page and licks you in the face.

On Edge also omits everything as pertains to backstage gossip, industry politics and dirty secrets. There's literally nothing there. Mr Copeland has little to nothing negative to say about anyone or anything. Perhaps this is his general cheerful attitude - he definitely comes across as someone who doesn't dwell on the negative for more than five minutes before finding something more interesting to do - or perhaps he was censored. Certainly this book was published by and for the company he's signed to, so dishing out details of backstage arguments or dirty deals would hardly please his employers. Then again, perhaps he just didn't have anything to say on the matter.

One thing Mr Copeland does do that Mr Foley missed was to capture some of the basic things about being a pro wrestler - what it feels like to walk out in front of a crowd, what emotions and reactions the wrestler has, and so on - and that makes On Edge an interesting read in and of itself. I'd actually recommend reading On Edge before reading Have A Nice Day; Mr Foley wrote the better book, but Mr Copeland wrote the better introduction.

All in all, On Edge is a straight-up tale of This Is My Life And It's Awesome, written in an uncomplicated but energetic style by someone who loves what he does and does a creditable job of communicating his passion and enjoyment of his profession to his readers.

This book is:
* - energetic
* - a good introduction to what it's like to be a pro wrestler
* - a classic rags-to-riches story

This book is not:
* - complicated
* - written by someone who reads a lot of books
* - contained of any backstage dirt whatsoever