Rob Van Dam (@therealrvd) is a professional wrestler and a WWE Hall of Famer known for his time in ECW, WWE, Impact Wrestling and AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios in Las Vegas to talk about his new podcast called “1 Of A Kind” on the Premier Streaming Network, his recent appearances on AEW, using his ECW theme music “Walk” by Pantera, the story of losing his WWE Hall of Fame ring and getting it back, his viral segment with Matt Riddle, the chemistry he had in the ring with Jeff Hardy, his thoughts on Brock Lesnar, people thinking he is related to Jean-Claude Van Damme, Shane McMahon using the Van Terminator and calling it Coast-To-Coast, why he wishes he didn’t impersonate Shawn Michaels, his favorite ECW memories and much more!
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Quote I’m thinking about:
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill
On losing his Hall of Fame ring:
“So the very first week that I got it, I did a show in Wisconsin, and I wasn’t used to having it. I left it in the hotel room, went back to Las Vegas. And so it took an honest maid, and an honest front desk person and an honest wrestling promoter. Thank you, Ben McCoy for calling me and saying, Did you forget something dude? I didn’t even know yet. I just got home the next day and wow, I had it for I don’t know. I think it was it was the same week, so I didn’t have a very long, I lost it already.”
On a second AEW appearance:
“I was at a convention in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. Legends Fest and I got the message, you know? Hey, can you do the 23rd in Grand Rapids? Interestingly enough, last year, at this exact same time, they messaged me with that, September 5th, actually. And that’s when I got, you know, the okay to do it. It was like a year ago, and then I did it. But some time had passed then. But that day was, you know, near Battle Creek. Yeah, from Battle Creek hometown boys was so obviously, same idea. Again, that’ll be cool. It’s one, it’s one week before, I’m going to be doing my show in Battle Creek, which those guys have been working on that for like a year, you know, promoting it. And it’s a big full circle return home and then just the week before they put me in Grand Rapids, which is just right down the street.”
Why didn’t RVD debut for AEW in 2022?
“Communication dropped. So that’s it. Sometimes that would happen. Sometimes. Both of the companies over the years, every once in a while, would call, just to check out my schedule. I don’t hold it [the date]. I hold it in mind sceptically as a possibility. And that’s all because I know how it works. But that’s how it works, never hear from them again. And then it’s like, well, all right, whatever, I can hypothesise. You know, I wonder what did I do? But you know, I’m very stoic and in part of stoicism is really being able to accept things as they are and just let it roll right off my shoulder.”
On the first AEW appearance:
“Well, they reached out to me so long ago, like towards the beginning of the year, it was kind of hypothetical checking my interest and availability, and the dates that they mentioned, even though it was way back then and ended up being the exact same dates, August 2 and August 9. And I couldn’t believe that how could you be that far planned ahead? It was like, January maybe, or, you know, maybe February. It was a long, long time ago that they first brought it up. So that was one of those things where every once in a while, I’d be talking to a fan at a con. And they’d say, you know, are we’re gonna see you show up on WWE. It’s real, you know, and I’d be like, maybe you might see me pop up on the other show, too. I don’t know. But I didn’t really expect much of it until it was like, boom, alright cool, we’re going through with it. So I would have thought, based on that, if I was going to return again and they hadn’t planned it yet that it would be a year from now, you know what I mean? But apparently, that’s not always the case, as Matt Hardy and Jeff told me when I had this conversation saying that exact same thing. And he said, No, it’s not always like that, you know, sometimes, you know, boom, something changes, you know, the day before.”
On planting the seed for Walk by Pantera:
“I did, but it was already planted. So I wasn’t the first one. I reached out to them and it was very shortly before my trip happened. You know, I don’t remember, it was just right before and I was just like, man, you know, that’d be so awesome if we could get Walk, it would really add a lot. And the producer I was talking to said, yeah, Tony tried and he couldn’t get it and I was like, oh, okay, that was the day of the show. [Then] They told me, boom, we got Walk. And it was a few hours before I’m at the arena. And I was like, wow are you serious dude? That changes everything about because otherwise they’re gonna have to look at the monitor and you know, be like, okay, yeah, that’s RVD. What song would they use? [They would make a song for you?] They would make it and then that wouldn’t get over nearly as much so, so super cool. And does that mean that they’re gonna have it this week? I don’t know. I hope so.”
Do you know how much it costs to get the rights to Walk?
“No. But Tony did tell me when I left after my match with, Jack Perry that I got the rights to use your song just for these two shows. Hopefully, if we can work together in the future, hopefully I can get it again. So I was like, awesome dude.”
On thinking about if it is time to wind down:
“Not really. I mean, you know, sometimes the thought goes through my head. If I’m having a bad travel day, for instance, I’m done, I hate this, I just want to be home, travelling sucks. I’ll have those moments inside my head. But they usually don’t last that long. And I used to think I was gonna retire, that was like several years ago, and I thought I was probably close to hanging the boots up. And now I just don’t even think I will. I think I’ll be like Dory Funk Jr. And just [keep going], and I may quit taking bookings. But I don’t think I’m gonna make a big deal out of being retired because the credibility of wrestlers retiring is so broad anyway. You know, so I don’t [know]. Sabu used to say, it’d be cool if we did a retirement tour. And we went around the world and wrestled for all the companies that we’ve wrestled for. But the timing of that didn’t work out too well, because he finished up before me.”
On still being able to do the RVD chair stretch:
“Yeah, I just filmed that recently. When I say haters or doubters will be held accountable. You saw that video, right? And so that was just a few weeks ago, that was before my match with Jack Perry. But I still stretch and still keep in condition. You know, my pre-match stretch is something that I don’t do as often because I don’t wrestle as often. And that really is the best stretch where I’m stretching for a full hour going through every muscle in three or four different positions, you know, complete body check and test. And it’s a real self-learning experience. You know for years, I’ve thought on and off about trying to have a platform where I could share my stretch, and I filmed it lots of times and even at one time. I was at DDP studios and he was going to distribute it which is a shoo in right? So yeah, winner. But I can’t really translate what’s going on in my head when I’m stretching in a way that I’m comfortable with. I tried walking Stevie Richards through it at DDP studio one time, and we got like, halfway through and he said that he understood what I was saying, but it’s just such an inner experience for me that I’ve come to believe that maybe it’s just for me, and it’s not something to share. There’s so much. It’s not just positional, but it’s like it’s balance, it’s where you hold your weight, it’s pressure, it’s breathing. And then it could be like twisting your hips this way, it could be like bending back and looking up. And there’s just first you have to teach your muscles to trust you to relax so that they don’t contract against your stretches because that’s counterproductive. And that takes a long time of being inside yourself because your muscles don’t want to be injured. So they’re protecting themselves. So when people are grunting and groaning, and they’re fighting their own stretch, that’s the opposite of what you need to do. You need to have that muscle go to sleep, and then trust you to elongate just past, you know, the comfort zone there. And it’s like, there’s so much going on. I don’t know how to do it.”
On having great chemistry with Jeff Hardy:
“Well, we are like-minded in what we think is cool about a match. And that has a lot to do with it. You know, when you think about what inspires you as a fan, because certain fans, there were four of us as kids that decided we were all going to be wrestlers, me and my best friend Dango. And then we had Robert and Eddie, and we would always have these tag matches, and we learned way back then. But when you’re a kid, you’re so judgmental. You know, we would tell Robert, he was so stupid for the things that he liked, and the wrestlers that he liked. What do you like him for? He’s fat, he doesn’t do any moves, you know? And he’s got the best chops. Oh my god, that’s so stupid, chops? So it’s really cool, Robert, because kids are stupid. But we, you know, we’d be like, Okay, we want to get these big moves that we’re going to put in the mats. And he’d say, like, he wants to, like when he gets hit spit, like One Man Gang used to get hit. And he spits way in the crowd, and we would just make fun of him because we didn’t understand everyone’s got their own values, they’re drawn towards different things, you know. So that’s something that me and Jeff I think had in common, is what we think is cool. Because whenever we talk about an idea like, what if? You know what if I’m doing the split, and I roll back to give you the reverse monkey flip, can you like, grab my feet? And like, you know, boom, do that. I don’t know why, but I call it the trash compactor. I don’t know what the name is. He puts his legs down and crunches me. Oh sweet, that’d be awesome! Like that. That has a lot to do with the outcome of the match and the kind of energy going into it. As opposed to Yeah, yeah, we could do that.”
On the Five Star Frog Splash being painful:
Of course [it hurts]. And there are a lot of moments that people don’t know about where you’re already hurt before the match. As a matter of fact, probably, maybe most moments, sometimes at least half the moments, like when you get to the building, I was like, Hey, how you feeling today? Anything bothered me, it was like you know, my shoulder bothers me a little bit you know. And if you’re Tommy Dreamer then you say, Tommy would say like, you know, my back hurts. I’m good, except I can’t take a backdrop or Body Slam or a suplex or a forearm… But, man, have you ever had bruised ribs? It’s so painful to have bruised ribs, and it can last for a really long time. So that very famous match that I had with Eddie Guerrero, the ladder match, he goes over the ladder does a senton and landed on me, that moved my rib, where my rib connects to my spine. And that bothered me for four years. In fact, that was the source of the back problem that I was telling you just recently went away. And that was that. He died in 2005, and that was just like two years ago, that’s not bothering me. What I was gonna say though, was while that was it would come on and off it will come on maybe for like four months where it just hurts so bad. There was nothing I could do. I go to chiropractors, I go to all these physicians that have like a pile drive around my back trying to loosen it up and I just had like this knot where my last rib connects into my spine like I say, bulging discs compressed, blah, blah, blah. But it was that one bump that started it and afterwards. Every time I go out to the ring, I’m already sore, but I have to give 100% RVD to the fans. They’ve been waiting two months to see me. They don’t know that my ribs are hurting. So when I go out there, you know, I got to present that image that they want. And sometimes I remember Randy Orton just covering me and it hurts so bad. I was like, I was just waiting for the two count to kick out because his weight was on and I was like, oh my god, kicked them off. I was like, Oh, holy crap, I’m in a lot of pain. And in those times, you know that lasted through my TNA run too. I remember when I was with TNA in 2010, 2011 and 2012. My back was messed up through all of that there were times when I couldn’t even reach my boots earlier in the day and I’m like, how am I going to be doing the Rolling Thunder tonight? Holy crap. But with enough stretching and drugs and warming up and whatever I could do you know, I sucked it up and went through.”
On Brock Lesnar:
“Yeah, I’m a fan. I always have been. Definitely, you know, like, what’s not to love? He’s good for the business and the fact that he can back it up and has backed it up. When he was UFC World Champion that was, like, there’s nothing else that would legitimise. If you want to go that far. What we do doesn’t get enough respect. Because every fan thinks they can do it. And that seems to be more and more what they’re after. You know, like with that all-inclusive, whatever it is, it seems like they’re reaching out to get normal people like to get a skateboarder and a basketball player, it seems like athletes that are normal kids or whatever, so that people do relate more, and then people do think it’s easier, and then everybody can do it. At least that’s one observation I’ve had looking at where it seems to be going, you know, when I grew up, someone had to tell me that they could get me in, you know if I started lifting weights and stuff, they’d get me in. Otherwise, I don’t think I ever would have had the idea. These guys were just larger than life. Don’t you have to be born a pro wrestler? You know, you think I could do that.”
On being one of the few ECW to WWE success stories:
“I think just the package that I had. I think, prior to coming to WWE, when I was wrestling in ECW, from 1996 to 2001, I had a lot of eyes on me. And as I got better, I was already a viable product that would already be you know, a commodity in one of the other companies. So it wasn’t like I had to start adjusting as soon as I got in the door. I did, but not completely from zero. I was already while I was in ECW in 98, 99, 2000 2001 In those years, when we were really crushing it, and I was really, really crushing it with the TV championship and you know, having a really good showcasing matches. I was already at that point, somebody who could have fit into a good position in WCW or WWE if they knew what to do with me. I feel like.”
What is RVD grateful for?
“My health, my wife and all the love.”
