When Edge and Christian hit the ring, it's the fans who benefit

      Back when fans were cheering them, Edge and Christian used to titilate the crowd by rushing through the crowd en route to the ring. But once they began inciting jeers from the spectators, they realized that their entrance tactic had to change.
      "People were grabbing us and trying to get in our way when we went to the ring," Christian says. "But we still wanted to keep the same kind of sensation we had before. So we came up with the idea of posing before our matches, telling the fans it was their privilege to view us for five seconds and take pictures before the bell rang."
      This farcical solution is characteristic of the two-time World Wrestling Federation titlists, who've been virtually inseparable since their youth in the Toronto suburb of Orangeville. "We always played off each other and acted goofy," Christian notes. "But when we get in front of the crowd, we turn up the volume."
      But there's another side to Edge and Christian's routine. Once the clowning ends, the pair often offers the most thrilling match on the card. According to a sizable portion of the wrestling public, the team participated in the best battles of 1999 (their Ladder match against Matt and Jeff Hardy at No Mercy) and 2000 (their Triangle Ladder Match against the Hardy Boyz and Dudley Boyz at Wrestlemania). As a result, fans have come to expect the "for the benefit of those with flash photography" rap, followed by a Swanton bomb through a table.
      "I'm sure when I'm 41, I'll look back at some of the things I'm doing now and say 'So, that's where this arthritis comes from,'" Edge says, "But we'd destroy ourselves if we had a ladder match every night. We save it for special occasions. This year, it was Wrestlemania, SummerSlam and the debut of Raw is War on TNN."
      Adds Christian, "I think our success has a lot to do with what we can deliver. I wouldn't want to be known as a guy who just flies around. We can do technical wrestling and have brawls. The last thing I'd want to be is one-dimensional, and I don't think anyone could accuse us of that."
      Perhaps Edge & Christian are able to perform so well because neither ever spent much time contemplating another career path. Christian recalls discovering the mat wars as a child, while nursing a broken shoulder sustained in a hockey game. He found a World Wresting Federation program being broadcast on a Buffalo, New York station. When the hour ended, he turned to a Canadian channel and caught another World Wrestling Federation show. "I was hooked," he says. "Against my mother's wishes, I put on my winter coat and started wrestling outside, one-armed." As for Edge: "I was always the strange little guy running around with KISS face paint, and reading Spider-Man comics. Wrestlers, to me, were real-life superheroes, and that's what I wanted to do with my life."
      Edge was just 17 when he took a giant step towards that goal. He entered an essay contest offered by the Toronto Star. The subject: Why I Want To Be A Wrestler. "I explained that I wasn't just a fanatical fan," he remembers. "This was a career goal that I was willing to sacrifice for." Stirred by the strong sentiments, former grapplers Sweet Daddy Siki and Ron Hutchinson awarded the boy with a scholarship to their Toronto wrestling academy.
      Christian couldn't afford the tuition. But, while he and Edge were attending Ontario's Humber College, a plan was hatched. "I applied for a student loan," Christian says, "and I put some of the money towards wrestling school. I wouldn't really call it dishonest - I still graduated college - but this was the way I was able to do what I really wanted to do."
      Soon, the duo was appearing on independent shows, having become true connoisseurs of the mat game by studying tapes of grapplers like Owen Hart, Brian Pillman and the Dynamite Kid. But their trainers wouldn't allow them to hone their aerial skills until they'd mastered their wristlocks. "Learning to fly was something we really did on our own," Christian says. "We'd do these shows on an Indian reservation in northern Manitoba, and sleep in the gymnasium in sleeping bags. During the daytime before a show, there'd be nothing to do. So we'd pull out these crash mats and practice -- first a moonsault, then a hurricanrana, then a hurricanrana off the top rope, then a springboard moonsault."
      Eventually, Edge was given a shot at filling on a World Wrestling Federation show in Hamilton, Ontario, tangling with Hardcore Holly. As a result, he was invited to the organization's training camp, emerging from the course with a developmental contract. One night in Cornwall, Ontario, he brought Christian along and the two engaged in a riveting match before the television tapings began.
      "Edge went over," Christian says. "But when I came back through the curtain, Jim Cornette [a former Federation manager who specializes in spotting new talent for the league] was standing there with a big smile on his face. A few months passed before he called telling me that another training camp was going to be starting up, and I should be ready. So I kept wrestling on indy cards and trained to stay in ring shape. I have to point out that there's a difference between being 'in shape,' and being 'in ring shape.' If you take time off, you drag in the ring. When you're in ring shape, everything flows. You feel crisp."
      Because of this conditioning, Christian also received a developmental contract. Edge was already a presence in the league, evoking fan interest by mysteriously situating himself in the crowd for several weeks, before engaging in a feud with Gangrel. In time, Christian was introduced, when he joined Gangrel's side by interfering and causing Edge to lose a match against Owen Hart. Eventually, Edge switched sides, forming the Brood with his two former enemies.
      In time, Gangrel turned on Edge, prompting Christian to attack the Gothic grappler. "The idea was I joined the Brood to get Christian out," Edge says. "I rescued my brother."
      The fans responded in kind. "It's great to be cheered by 20,000 people," Edge says. "But we didn't get to talk."
      
      Christian claims that the attitude towards the team was "neither up nor down. The people liked us, but they didn't have anything personal to care about."
      That started to change before WrestleMania, when the tandem was asked to do color commentary leading up to their now-legendary Triangle Ladder Match with the Dudleys and Hardys. When announcers would mention that Matt and Jeff had beaten Edge & Christian in a prior encounter, the future tag champs seemed to be jealous and resentful. "The fans were beginning to turn on us, so we changed from being silent, brooding and enigmatic to be exaggerated surf bums," Edge says. "We acted like the kids in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, but we could also be vicious and mean. That surprises people, because just when they're starting not to take us seriously, we do something brutal, like hitting Matt Hardy in the head with two ladders simultaneously."
      Conversely, just as the fans are feeling outrage at the duo, Edge & Christian turn silly again. "I see what happens when we get in the ring and crack on people's cities," Edge says. "A lot of the fans boo, but a lot of them can't help themselves and start laughing. As a matter of fact if we weren't so vicious, the fans would come back to us. I think it would take one show and the whole arena would be cheering for us again."