During a recent appearance on “The Ten Count with Steve Fall” podcast, Rob Van Dam discussed multiple topics, including WWE’s reformation of ECW, Vince McMahon’s character during that time period, his in-ring style, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
RVD on WWE’s revival of the ECW brand: “I have a very balanced feeling on that because I have pros and cons that I feel. At the time, especially when I was in that competitive state of mind of being in the dressing room and feeling like the writers are just, you know, fu**ing with me. You got through all this stuff when you’re right in there. For me, totally different state of mind that I have now with this happy time in my life.”
“So at the time, I really looked at it defensively from ECW. You know, I thought he’s making a mockery of ECW. I thought he might have even brought ECW back just to destroy it because he didn’t like the fans chanting EC Dub. He took credit for it, so he trained them to chant EC Dub during the shows by putting out the ECW DVD. Then I was like, Wow, man, this dude’s crazy.”
“Maybe he brought it back just to completely wipe out the extreme theme to it, and they did completely wipe out the extreme theme to it. So it was like, you know, just like any other show except they put way less into it. Way less budget, way less advertising. The house shows at that time, you know, we’re just the old ECW crappy arenas from the mid 90s. We would sometimes film after SmackDown on the SmackDown night, and there was some kind of weird way that we were getting paid off a split of their gate which really wasn’t fair. In the end, you know, supposedly all the numbers ironed out, whatever.”
Rob Van Dam on Vince McMahon wearing a durag: “I thought Vince looked really cool in durag. I loved it. I thought that was cool because he’s all buff in the black sweater shirt with the sleeves. I loved working with him. I had a match that was three against one. So that was pretty cool. I mean, something like that when I think back makes me think maybe I was considered in a much higher position then it felt like at the time because that wouldn’t normally be something they would do with like, a mid-carder, or whatever. Sometimes I think of it like that, like, well, that’s really cool that I got to work with Vince and Shane and Umaga.”
Rob Van Dam on his in-ring style: “It’s because I’m the real deal. I don’t get in the ring and then pretend that I’m some character. I mean, obviously, there’s an exaggeration to it, especially to my ego and extra brutality. But I didn’t learn to do a sidekick and a spin kick from imitating other wrestlers that did it. You know, I was a kickboxer and I learned from kickboxing and martial arts instructors and I brought those moves into wrestling because that was part of me. That was what I did for fun when I’m showing off at some stupid party in high school, you know, backflips, running up a tree and doing a backflip, because I saw it on Chopsocky theater.”
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