Former WWE champion was forced to change his appearance due to resemblance with Edge
WWE Hall of Famer Edge (aka Cope) is among the most popular names in professional wrestling. A former superstar of the Stamford-based promotion recently claimed he was forced to change his appearance because of similarities with The Rated R Superstar.
In a recent conversation with Kenny McIntosh for Issue 55 of Inside The Ropes Magazine, former WWE 24/7 Champion Heath Slater stated that before his appearance on NXT, he was told that his long hair and gear resembled Edge. He was told to cut his hair shorter and ditch his long tights with emblems on the side for trunks.
"Dr. Tom [Prichard] pulled eight of us in the room, and he had an email saying, 'We need your eight best down there that are ready for TV.' I was one of the eight. Next thing I know, they thought that I looked too much like Edge. My hair was long, I had the long coat, I had long tights with emblems on the side that resembled, but didn't look like [Edge's]. But they told me before I got called up to go to NXT that I need to cut my hair off, gotta go to trunks and all this stuff to where I'm like, 'Are you just changing everything about me?'" Slater said.
The 41-year-old former Nexus member added that he was a heel in his developmental stage, but the Stamford-based promotion wanted him to debut as a babyface in NXT.
"I was a bad guy in developmental. They wanted me to be a good guy on television to the point that they were stripping from us everything that we'd done, and now we were going on this game show and being people that we don’t know how to be," Slater added. [H/T: WrestleZone]
Heath Slater was one of the eight rookie contestants in the inaugural season of NXT. The rookies later joined forces to form a heel group named The Nexus, which wreaked havoc on the main roster.
Heath Slater continues to follow the example set by Edge outside WWE
Like former World Heavyweight Champion Edge, Heath Slater has been wrestling regularly despite no longer being associated with the Stamford-based company. He was released from his WWE contract in 2020.
Slater inked a deal with TNA/IMPACT Wrestling following his departure from WWE. However, he left the company in 2023 and has since continued to wrestle on the independent circuit. The 41-year-old currently holds the Asylum Heavyweight Championship.
Heath Slater was offered a contract by World Wrestling Entertainment following his release. However, he passed it up to sign with TNA instead. It will be interesting to see if he ever returns to WWE