Rob Van Dam says a contract offer from World Championship Wrestling (WCW) being leaked online back in the day resulted in him deciding to stay with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW).
Speaking on a recent edition of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast, the 21-time ECW, WWE and TNA/Impact Wrestling Champion revealed that he was offered a WCW contract during a time where he wasn’t booked for ECW’s ‘Barely Legal’ pay-per-view event. While a WCW contract was on the table, RVD says Eric Bischoff leaked it to the media and he thought otherwise about “jumping ship.”
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his WCW offer being leaked: “Paul said, ‘Is there anything I can do to make you want to stay?’ That’s not a bad way to start negotiations, especially since I really didn’t want to go. I loved the ECW style, it was my favorite and the most fun that I’d ever had. I appreciated how my efforts were making a difference, not just in ECW, but also, you know, in an outer wave [in] the whole industry, because everyone’s watching ECW and is influenced by it. The company is growing so much, we’re hot, and the crowds are doubling. I’m like, ‘Man, I would rather stay and be the whole F’N show than be a cog in the wheel [in WCW].’”
On Heyman promising to get RVD booked on WWE TV: “I said, ‘How are you going to do that?’ He goes, ‘Let’s just say Vince owes me some favors. If I could do that, if I could put you on Raw just for a few weeks … and you would be on ECW here. You will be in the spotlight. The business would be around you. You’d be the center point, plus all the money and s–t.’ And that’s how we worked it out. I was like, ‘You really can do that?’ I had no idea about his relationship, none of us did, with WWE. We didn’t know he was working for them. I sure didn’t know that he was selling me to them without me knowing which ended up being the case.”