Ricky Havlik; STP vs Bang Bang Gang Copeland; San Diego, CA; AEW Dynamite July 2, 2026 Copyrighted by Ricky HavlikNow performing in his fourth decade, Adam Copeland has been one of the defining professional wrestling stars of his era. Though years of his career were taken away when neck injuries once forced him into retirement, he remains at the top of his game in the final act of a career that brought him from WWE to AEW in 2023.Copeland will add another accolade to his resume on Sunday, Aug. 30, when he competes in his first match at All In and his first at Wembley Stadium. He and Christian Cage will defend the AEW World Tag Team Championship against the Young Bucks in a first-time-ever match that’s among the headliners on a full card.The Rated-R Superstar will look to add another chapter to his storied career, doing it alongside the man who’s been connected to him for most of it, in what could be a special night.Ahead of stepping into the ring, Copeland spoke with Forbes about the upcoming match, how he discovered the Young Bucks, advice he’d give talent making the jump from WWE to AEW and more:Rob Wolkenbrod: We're just a few weeks away from your first All In. What's the excitement level like for you right now? Adam Copeland: Yeah, it’ll be fun just because of the fact that it’s Wembley as well. It’s always been on my list of places that I want to perform at, so it checks a couple boxes for me. I get my first All In, performance-wise, under my belt, and I get Wembley as well. And I've said before, at this stage of the game, to still be able to have some experiences that I haven't had before is pretty special. And really, that's what I wanted to try and accomplish in this second act.Wolkenbrod: You've been back alongside Christian for a while now in AEW, but when you're in the ring together, do you still get those "pinch me" moments knowing you started your careers together all those years ago and are still working together in your 50s?MORE FOR YOUCopeland: Not really. I think we were the first ones to wrap our minds around the idea, so it's kind of business as usual. It's what you would expect.Really, our biggest challenge was trying to make sure that we didn't rehash the same thing. So we wanted to bring in the current incarnations of our characters to make the team an entirely different team than it was back in 2000. I think that, more than anything, was our main goal, not the fact, "Hey, we're doing this again."I think we probably had a moment after we won the titles. It’s like, it’s 25 years since we won these types of titles. So I guess there are moments like that, but I don't really dwell on them.Wolkenbrod: When you think about how to separate your characters today from what you guys did back then, is it a process of going back and rewatching matches or old promos? Do you try to get back into that mindset and think about how you can progress it without rehashing what you did before?Copeland: No, no. Honestly, I think we have some memory of what we did, and we just thought if we can take what we’re currently doing and put it in the dynamic of this team, it’s almost this begrudging acceptance. And now it’s, okay, they’re finding their way, and they’re curmudgeons, or one of them is a curmudgeon, and the other puts up with it, and really just to explore the dynamics.I play the straight man and try to set up the bowling pins, and then he knocks them down. That's a fun element that we didn't really have before because we were kind of playing the same role. Now we're two entirely different characters, and that's just fun.Wolkenbrod: On the night you became world tag team champions at Double or Nothing, what did you feel in that moment, getting to hold gold alongside Christian again decades later?Copeland: More than anything, just the idea of having Beth out there, Jay out there, against two of the best opponents we’ve ever had. New York City, a hot, amazing crowd. That’s just one of those where, okay, it’s good, and really just making sure to soak it in. That’s a really good memory. That was a really good night. So I just try not to look past it.But yeah, it was like all my favorite people are here, short of my kids, but within the wrestling industry. So those are fun experiences too. And then also to feel like, okay, we put a good product out that night. That thing looked like a demolition derby by the time the ring was cleared. It looked like a tornado went through a trailer park, so that's always fun too. It was just a fun night. It was a hard night, but it was a fun one.Wolkenbrod: Would you say that crowd was one of the loudest crowds you’ve performed in front of?Copeland: I'll say yes, and then people who have been at other ones will get offended that I didn't say theirs. I don't know. I know that I can hear them, and I can always tell when it's going to be a fun night. And I knew that night, I was like, okay, this is going to be a blast.Same thing with Arena Mexico. As soon as you hear that initial roar, you know that crowd came to have fun. They came to make noise. They came to do something. And as a performer, you hear that, you go, okay, right, we're going to give them something.Wolkenbrod: Let's go back a bit. When did the Young Bucks first catch your attention in the pro wrestling landscape? Copeland: It was probably the Generation Me stuff with TNA, and I realized, okay, there are some cool ideas. And really, my wrestling viewing, especially when I was out [retired], didn’t take place too much. So it would have to be accidental, almost, if I stumbled across newer talents.But then I saw them by watching everything over the years and seeing clips here and there, and then talking to the guys, meeting the guys and just having an appreciation for what they bring to the table, because we’ve talked about it. It felt like there have been ideas to kind of keep the flame alive.I love watching them and FTR because they're so opposite, and I like that. Back to the Brain Busters versus the Rockers, and I feel like maybe we're the Hart Foundation of that equation, maybe.But yeah, it’s just one that we’re looking forward to. One that we truly thought, if that could ever happen, just imagine. And to be able to do it, especially in Wembley Stadium at the biggest show of the year. I know some people are expecting stipulations, but it's the first match between these two teams. You don't need to start throwing stipulations and stuff and overbooking it. Just let us go. It's the first time ever and a match that I assumed would never happen.Wolkenbrod: You say that about everyone speculating about a stipulation. Is that something that ever really crossed your mind to do for this?Copeland: No, never. Not the first one. I mean, that's just bad booking. There's a lot of that on the internet.Wolkenbrod: What do you feel makes you and Christian against the Young Bucks such an interesting matchup, given the different paths the two teams took through the wrestling business?Copeland: It's just one of those instances where you can see the Steelers from the '70s play the Cowboys from the '90s, or you can see the Patriots during their run against the Chiefs in their run. That's kind of what this is here.Or you can use a hockey analogy. You use the Canadiens from the '70s and the Oilers from the '80s. That's what these two teams represent to their eras, and the fact that we're all somehow in a place to be able to make this match happen, and again, to do it in Wembley Stadium at our biggest show.Sometimes all the dominoes fall in the right place, and this was one of those instances where it’s like, okay, I think this can work. I think we can get to All In with this. Who knows how our styles mesh, anything like that. Again, it’s the first-ever match, so there are so many questions going into it, and that's fun. When you have questions going into a match, you want answers.Wolkenbrod: There's been plenty of speculation about talent potentially making the jump from WWE to AEW. Having made that transition yourself, was there anything about adjusting to AEW that you didn't expect, and what advice would you give someone making that same move?Copeland: I’d say just don’t think too much. Just do your thing. That’s what I’ve always kind of leaned back on. It’s like, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to second-guess myself at this stage. If something doesn’t work, then it didn’t work. Worth a shot.And I’d rather be the guy taking chances than the guy talking about other people taking chances. More than anything, just do the thing that got you here and sort it out as you go, because there are different elements to the audience, for sure.I guess it’s a different audience, but at the same time, come out to Mexico and it’s just like, okay, clearly they watched my entire career.Wolkenbrod: You mentioned taking chances. Of course, coming back from your injuries was a major one, but outside of that, what would you say was the biggest chance you took in your career?Copeland: I guess leaving WWE and leaving what you know and what you’ve known for so long instead of staying in that comfortable, safe spot. But I had faith in myself and faith in what I saw with AEW, that they were doing something cool, and I wanted to be a part of that.I wanted to get in there with a lot of talent that I’d never been in there with and honestly still haven't. I feel like we've only kind of scratched the surface on opponents, so I think that was probably, at least on paper, the biggest thing, making that jump.Wolkenbrod: Speaking of those opponents you haven’t faced yet, you recently posted a checklist on social media of venues where you’d like to compete, along with some potential opponents. It looked like Kenny Omega might have been one of the names on there.Copeland: It might have been the Omega kid as well.Wolkenbrod: True! Do you have any opponents in mind right now that you’d still like to face? You also mentioned the Tokyo Dome as one of the venues where you’d like to compete. What would you envision that looking like, whether it’s at Wrestle Kingdom or another event there?Copeland: Not really a vision, per se. It’s just the idea of doing it. And having watched a lot of stuff over the years, it'd be fun to get in and ply my trade because of the historical significance to what we do, to wrestling.I feel like just the chance to do it—opponent, I don't know; when, I don't know—but I'm just throwing ideas out there and basically putting wish lists out there. And if they happen, amazing. And if they don't, well, I wasn't expecting them to anyway because I was also retired for nine years. So there's that.Wolkenbrod: At this point in your career, what makes a match fulfilling for you? Has your definition of a great match changed from what it was 20 years ago?Copeland: I use one test for if it was a good match: Do the people count along with the finish, or do they boo at the finish? That’s the only thing that matters is the reaction that you get, and the reaction in the arena, not the people that are always just complaining because they're always just going to complain.But what do the people who paid the money to be there, to sit in those seats—what are they doing? Those are the people I focus on, and that's always how I gauge it. Whether moves were hit or this or that or any of that stuff, it's like, what did the crowd do? That's the most important thing.And if they count along with that three and the babyface is going over, okay, mission accomplished. That was a good match. And if they boo because the heel went over, and that was the idea, then mission accomplished.I'm not one of these people that will say Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant wasn't a great match. Sure, it was, because it drew however many people and people couldn't take their eyeballs off of it. And so, to me, that's a great match. Technically? No. But who cares? It's all in the eye of the beholder too. It's all subjective, right?Wolkenbrod: With that mindset you just explained, did someone earlier in your career pass that kind of perspective along to you, or did you develop it over your time in the business?Copeland: Really, just through time. I always found that if I was having fun out there, chances were the audience would end up having fun too, in one way or another. Whether that was having fun watching me get tossed around by Batista or whether that was me spearing Alberto Del Rio.I think more than anything, I learned that if I was having fun, chances are the people watching have fun too. And also, why do it if it's not going to be fun?Again, there are going to be days, and there are going to be matches, and there are going to be times, or there’s going to be a bump where you go, "Whoa, okay, that sucked." But for the most part, the reason you got into this is so you didn’t really have to grow up. You can perform and be good. Those are the most important things to me now.Wolkenbrod: You've had multiple points in your career where wrestling was taken away from you, whether through retirement or injury. Has that changed the way you process nights like Wembley now compared with when you were younger?Copeland: Yeah, I think so. I think having lost this once and coming back—and I think you can also see me doing it every time—I make a point to try and soak in that experience.When you’re in your 20s and 30s, you just don't think about the end. That's a ways off. But now you have to think about that, and because of that, I think it's caused me to really just be in the moment and not be anxious about this, that or the other. I just want to go out and have fun doing the only thing I ever wanted to do.Wolkenbrod: When you eventually look back at this AEW chapter of your career, what do you hope it added to your legacy that wasn't there before you arrived?Copeland: I can't get wrapped up in a legacy for something that's predetermined. Do the New England Patriots have a legacy? Yes, because they legitimately won the Super Bowl many times. Okay, but this is entertainment.I know some people look at it that way. I just don't. I look at it like I do a job, and it's a fun job, and that's the extent of it.My legacy is my kids. My legacy is producing good human beings and putting them into the world. My legacy is how I treat my friends. Those are legacies. Those are things that actually matter. What I do in spandex doesn't really matter.