Christian On How Needing To Stand Out In WWE Led To Career-Changing Ladder Match

After the original Brood parted ways, Edge and Christian pivoted their focus to Jeff and Matt Hardy. Though their WWE feud began with "just a couple throwaway matches," their chemistry was undeniable. Looking around the locker room though, Edge and Christian realized they'd need to find a way to elevate themselves even more if they truly wanted to stand out against the company's top stars, which then included the likes of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, and The Undertaker.

On the "Swerve City Podcast," Christian recalled how their drive to steal the show led to a career-changing moment at No Mercy 1999. "From talking with [The Hardy Boyz], we had all realized we were all fans of the Shawn Michaels-Razor Ramon ladder matches, and what an impression those had on us as far as getting into the business and as fans and things like that. So we started toying with the concept of 'maybe can we do this in a tag team setting?' This was like the first thing we ever really pitched as an idea," Christian said.

"We came up with the concept of the best of seven because we were basically wrestling every week against these guys on TV anyway. So it was like, 'Let's do this best of seven series. We'll do a different stipulation for every match. It'll end up going to the seventh match and we'll do a ladder match for that final match, which would be at the No Mercy pay-per-view.'"

The idea was eventually approved, with some small modifications. Instead of a best-of-seven series, WWE scaled it back to a five-match series, which would later be called the Terri Invitational Tournament as the two teams competed for the managerial services of Terri Runnels. After the teams went 2-2 in the tournament, Christian and Edge met The Hardy Boyz in a ladder match at No Mercy in October 1999. To up the stakes, WWE also hung a bag of money — $100,000 to be exact — over the ring for this fifth, and final, match.

Edge and Christian came within an arm's reach of the money toward the conclusion of the match, but their efforts were soon thwarted by The Hardy Boyz. After Edge and Christian were sent crashing down to the mat, Jeff seized the opening, climbing the ladder to retrieve the cash prize and secure the victory.

Despite their loss, Edge and Christian know that their career trajectories were forever changed that night. "We just knew that was our moment," Christian said. "We're like, 'We've got this match. Our first idea that we've pitched got pushed through and we have a chance to do something special here with this match.' We just didn't realize how special it was going to be. We had lightning in a bottle that night, and it just changed the course of all of our careers."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Swerve City Podcast" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.