OverDrive - Copeland on the AEW world, the All Out event and his fandom of the Maple Leafs

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

AEW Wrestler Adam Copeland joined OverDrive to discuss the AEW All Out in Toronto, his journey entering the wrestling world, the favourites matches of his career, the atmosphere in Toronto, his fandom of the Maple Leafs and more.

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And obviously, we know you can watch it on TSN. They're in London tomorrow night. If you can see on TSN. And then this weekend on Saturday, AEW, all out at Scotia Bank Arena on pay-per-view. And Adam, Copeland's in the house. Great to see Adam. How you doing, man? Good.

How are you? Good. Is homecoming for you? Yeah, yeah. I mean, anytime we can get up here, it feels good. I was saying before I got 20 Copeland's coming to the show Saturday. That's always good. That's always good.

You got to do, like, when you put that guy in a headlock or something and just slam them against the desk or something. Once we're off air? Yeah, anything. Anything to cause harm to that guy. On air. How often do people ask you to do that? You'd be surprised. Like, or, or, like, do an interview.

And it's like, so do a wrestling growl. I'm like, what? What? Wait, I'm a trained monkey now? I just go around growling? Just growl out me, please. So I think things have changed. Yeah.

Where, you know, we're kind of understanding what it had. actually is that we do. Well, I used to work with a guy, and they used to interview wrestlers and UFC fighters, and they had a UFC fighter come in and put him in a chokehold on the air, and he was choked out. That's what happened. Yeah, he was out. And everyone was like, what were you expecting?

That wasn't the best idea. I've seen that, too, with the guys, like, hey, can you put me out a little bit? And it's like, what happens if it goes wrong? Right. Well, also, there's no put me out a little bit. Yes. Or whatever they say. It's either you're going out.

Yeah. Or you're going to be awake. I always wanted the cross-faced chicken wing to hand it out to somebody. It's like that. Isn't that one of the more famous moves or is that not? Not really, but it's a good one. It's definitely a good one. Bob Backland, when he came back and was a crazy character there for a while.

Right. Well, noodles's a westerner, right? So noodles, he used to, where did you go watch wrestling? I grew up in like Stampede wrestling with the hearts and like that's old school stuff, right? So that was that. And I wasn't in the house. watching it at like in in the stadium watching it i'd watch it on tv edwayland and all that

that's kind of where i grew up watching a little bit of wrestling and kind of lost touch but uh it's nice to circle back and see a a good canadian boy that says absolutely absolutely it's uh i grew up on stampede too so you know i just watch as many different things as i could get so we got like international wrestling in a montreal there's stampede out of calgary and then you had bc all-star wrestling out in Vancouver. Right.

So I watched all of it. That's awesome. Adam Copeland. And I know you're at WrestleMania 6, right? Yeah. Yeah, I was there with my mullet and my Hulk Rules tank top, man. I was 11th row. They actually were able to find pictures of it.

Really? Oh, you've seen pictures of you. Yeah. Amazing. Because I remember I was there with my cousin. Yeah, you were there. Oh, we've talked about it. It's such a connection for people in Toronto, I think, or Southern Ontario.

Ultimate Warrior, right? Absolutely. Warrior versus Hogan. Yep. Like I went in rooting for Hogan. and then once I got there, I turned. I'm like, I think I'm for the warrior. Bandwagon.

A total bandwagon. Total bandwagon. But that was incredible, man. And Andre, the Giant was on that card and watching him walk around was like incredible. Being there and just feeling the electricity of that. You know, it's cliche, but you really could. Like, it just felt amazing in the dome that day. And, you know, I was already hooked anyway, but, I mean, if there was ever any doubt.

That was your inspiration. I got to give this a real shot. I'm doing this. Right. And were you in radio broadcasting at some point? You went to school for that? I went to Humber. You went to Humberus.

Yeah. Yeah, there it is. Look at that mullet. Look at that mullet. Now I have a mullet again, but it's a pseudo mullet compared to that thing. That's like legit. And then look at my mom up to my shoulder on the other side. Bless her heart.

That's awesome. That's great. What do you think you would have done? Like top 40? Do you think you'd be doing what we're doing? talk radio or something like that in a different life or what truly the reason i took it is because i thought it would help me with my wrestling promos oh yeah and it would help me with the mic and it would help me with my timing my inflection telling stories and it did it did and i also

thought okay if i break something to the the point where i can't do this then i have a fallback option but i really thought it would help me with with uh you know just speaking that's a huge part of it is and it really is and it really became even that much more so as i started to get into the industry where it uh it became almost more important right than what you like the storytelling and being able to work that right yeah and just being able to be handed a microphone and go okay you got nine minutes to fill okay is that how is that how it works like more or less like that's how it worked when i came in it's to fill yeah i remember that because we're five minutes before raw was about to go live and they said okay you got nine minutes wow oh right thanks for that you i guess you're going out

they're thinking, okay, I got to work the crowd to an extent, clearly. But, like, how would your internal clock be working there? Because it is a tightly run show, like, A.E.W, whatever it is, it's like, if they say nine minutes, that doesn't mean you can have 15. No, that means you got to come in on your time because now you're affecting everyone else on the show. Right. So, yeah, it's, but I love that part about it.

I love that you're live without a net, and you're just having to figure this out. I've always kind of related it to stand up. I mean, if your standup isn't hidden, if they're not. picking up what you're putting down, then you better change it because El Paso isn't the same as Seattle. So that audience is going to be different, and you need to be able to pivot and ad lib accordingly. It's tough to get them back in, though, once you start to join up.

It is. It is. It's possible. It's possible. I've seen great comedians where it's like, I can't get this back on the rails and they just start making fart noises. Start growling at people. That works.

There's go. Just growling. But most comedians have like a go-to-e joke that they'll spin into that they know that kills right they find some sort of you know semblance of a routine but adam were you always uh you know athletic was that your first choice to to be in wrestling or was you was in hockey or football so as a kid i it was it was kiss it was the maple leafs and it was wrestling and um in no particular order i just i i i loved hockey but i also realized you know from a single parent family we couldn't afford it you know we didn't

have a car so I couldn't that limits a lot of what you can do so pretty quickly I had to give up on that one but I realized that hockey equipment is more expensive than spandex valid so you can get those wrestling career yeah did you ever

get to meet kiss because noodles met kiss and who did you meet again noodles Jim Simmons several times and it didn't go well the one time yeah Gene was yeah yeah he was a creepozoid unfortunately and I was disappointed because you know you something

times want to meet your idol and sometimes when you meet them you're disappointed this one i was a little bit disappointed it's a long story i won't tell you but he was creeping me out and the girl i was dating at the time too so it didn't go well well so i had all of my my like adolescent uh I went and saw Kiss with Hogan. And so I met Kiss while I was with Hulk Hogan. No way. Which for 10-year-old me, I'm just crazy. If Stelissela Stallone walked in, that's it.

That's like all of it. Throwing Daryl Sittler or something. Wendell Clark. Wendell. Yeah. Throw in Wendell. Yeah. Crazy.

Nothing wrong. I love Sittler. Sillers great, too, but Wendell's the guy. Wendell's my guy. I'm with you there. Adam Copeland will us. So how does the Toronto market rank in terms of Rust. in terms of excitement, knowledge, you know, the crowd.

Like, there's a long history here in Toronto. There really is. There really is. And our crowd always comes out full force, like Saturday. They're going to be nuts, you know, especially, you know, you got me and Christian Cage, who I haven't teamed with in like 15 years, we're going back and teaming again, both local guys. Local guys, yeah.

So that's super fun. But the Toronto crowd's always, they get it. They know the assignment. They come to have fun. That's the way it should be. We have so many guys around. Like the guys back there, they're probably more nervous to meet you than anyone else. It will feel the way a least game should.

Yeah. Like honestly, Margo Robbie could walk in and they'd be like, I'll go talk to Margo. But you're in here, they're like, we can't do it. We can't talk to Adam. There's no way. A lot of grown men. JP is fired up. J.P. and J.P. are just, yeah.

There's, nose is stuck against the glass. Yeah, they're so jack that you're here. basically my demographic now is grown men and grandmothers Adam Copeland in town AEW Dynamite is in London tomorrow night and of course AEW All Out is at Scotia Bank on Saturday You can watch that on pay-per-view How are we feeling about the Leafs this year?

I think you know I said going into last season I don't think the point totals are going to be there as much in terms of just single point totals for each player But I thought they'd do better in the playoffs and that's kind of what happened. I think this year they're not going to be quite as, I don't know if they're going to be number one seed. Yeah, they won the division last year.

They won the division. It was a rarity for the leaves. They never do that. Yeah, I don't think they're going to win the division maybe necessarily this year. But I do think it's a tougher team now. And on paper, it looks like a far tougher team to play in the playoffs. So, and it feels like you brought in guys that are already playing a Barubei-type game.

So maybe there's not a, as much buy-in to have to worry about. And I feel like the rest of the locker room has. You watch, though, if they don't score goals, all the goal-scoring nerds are going to be like, oh, you got your Berubei style, but now they can't score, no Mitch, and they can't put it in the net.

That's coming. Oh, it's absolutely coming. Like, it's just a lousy fan base at times. But there's no way around it. I'm part of it. But, yeah, it's, they're loved, right? So with love comes hate, I guess. Yeah.

But, uh, so I think, think they're going to do better in the playoffs i really do and and i feel like you know boston has now been put in the rear view yes they have i feel like you're right about that put in the rear view although they're still kind of there but one team man florida man florida that's florida and then hopefully there's not exactly yeah still the same team but hopefully there's not a fallout or a dump after that right and now you run up against Vegas or the avalanche it's like they just steamroll you we'll take it though get to the cup final right figure that out right figure that out once you get to the cup final Yeah, it's great.

I mean, camp's open tomorrow. Yeah. And you were down there for playoff games. Yeah, and it felt like a playoff. Amazing. And it felt like a playoff atmosphere. And I think part of that was, it was Ottawa too. But, man, it just felt exciting.

There wasn't a lot of suits in the bottom level. Yeah. It was actual like Leafs jerseys. Funny how that happened. Right? Like it just, it's a different. There's you with Joe Bowen and Bonesy going into his final year call on leave games. Yeah.

It's incredible. Just an unbelievable career. And, yeah, it's great, man. We've got hockey back. We've got AEW in town. You can't beat it. I mean, it's a pretty good week. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I'm slightly excited. Well, good luck tomorrow night in London. And then Saturday, AEW, all out at Scotia Bank. Again, you can watch it on pay-per-view. Great seeing you, man. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, guys, thanks for having me.

You guys wanted to be on the show. Absolutely. Anytime you want to come on, you come on, man. The door's wide open. Absolutely. There is Adam Copeland. Hey, this is Ruby Car, the host of the podcast, Oncor. The greatest teenage dirtbag is one of the most relatable songs of all time,

but thanks to its impossible falsetto, maybe not the easiest to sing. He said I'll go tickets to iron main and... Yes, that famous female vocal verse was recorded by vocalist Brendan Brown in 2000, and thanks to a tech mix-up again in 2020. Listen to Encore on the IHeart app or wherever you get your podcast for the stories behind all the songs you love.