Adam Copeland knows there’s a timeline on how much longer he’ll be an active professional wrestler.

All Elite Wrestling‘s Adam Copeland was a recent guest on Mostly Sports. When asked what’s different from the performer we’re seeing now, compared to who he was when he had to retire in 2011, Copeland said it really comes down to having lived a lot more life.

“I’ve lived a lot more life,” Adam Copeland said. “And as strange as that sounds, it actually does add to your utility belt out there. As a performer, any kind of performer, whether it’s a musician writing music, whether it’s an actor, and they got to dip into some place of their actual self to pull the character off. It’s the same with wrestling.

“And I think that, more than anything, is what I’ve noticed in coming back and some of the skill sets that I got in the acting that I did in those nine years off. I think I did over 100 episodes of television in that time that I was retired so you kind of try and pull those things back with you. And I feel like that’s the biggest difference.”

Adam Copeland understands why Tom Brady keeps pondering a return to the NFL

Copeland would go on to admit that mentally, he believes he’s better than he’s ever been. But that doesn’t mean his body agrees with him at his age, which puts his in-ring career on a specific timetable.

“I might not be as fast as I used to be. But I feel like mentally, I’m better than I’ve ever been,” Adam Copeland continued. “I think that’s why a guy like Tom Brady keeps going, ‘Yeah, well, mentally, I’m better than I’ve ever been. And I see the game better than I’ve ever seen it.’ I think that’s the struggle. And that’s kind of how I feel.

“But I’m also a realist, and I don’t want to be that guy who sticks around to the point where a young guy looks at the sheet and goes, ‘Aww, okay, I gotta wrestle him tonight.’ I don’t want to be that guy, right? I want young guys to still be excited if they’re gonna hop in there with me. So I figure maybe I got a year and a half left, you know, give or take. And hopefully, I’ve gotten all the yayas out by that point.”

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