AEW Star Adam Copeland Recalls Working In WWE Performance Center During Pandemic

Adam Copeland's return to WWE in 2020 was marred by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to crowdless shows and other restrictions on professional wrestling. On the latest "Swerve City Podcast," the TNT Champion spoke with the AEW World Champion about the strictures of that era.

"It was much more personal and I actually enjoyed that aspect of the pandemic," Copeland said, searching for a sliver of a silver lining in the bleak days of the virus. "I hated wrestling in front of no one but I really liked doing promos — I call them monologues." The WWE Hall of Famer and Strickland compared the empty arena promos to the self-tapes that actors often record for auditions. According to Copeland, he was the first live promo segment of WWE programming's pandemic era, which were taped in the WWE Performance Center, and he decided to break WWE's rule about not addressing the camera, as he felt addressing empty space felt inauthentic.

"It was fun to explore it and work with what we had, which wasn't much at that point," Copeland said, chuckling at the "Greatest Wrestling Match Ever" billing his Backlash Thunderdome encounter with Randy Orton received. "What a ridiculous title ... What does that mean? There no such thing as the 'greatest' anything." Putting the match together would've been difficult for even the most seasoned wrestlers, but Copeland was coming off a decade of retirement heading into the heavily-hyped contest. "It's my second match back in 10 years and we have no fans," Copeland reminisced. "We ended up having some of the 'NXT' folk there, but still it was like 'This is ridiculous.'"

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Swerve City Podcast" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.