WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam (RVD) recently took to an episode of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including comments made by Vince McMahon and Steve Austin that they don’t believe in CTE.
RVD said, “I was surprised, and it made me wonder if that footage was outdated. Because at first, the whole idea did get nothing but pushback, you know? And also, we hear Vince even saying after they described — you know, Chris Nowinski went to Chris Benoit’s dad and had to talk him into giving his brain, Chris Benoit’s brain to Chris Nowinski so they could study it up there in Boston. And that alone was like a really big deal. And then for the perception from the WWE to be, ‘Oh, they were talking about this bulls**t.’ And I get it that the dad has to be able to point the finger or something so he can feel better about what happened, but come on. And then even the way that they told that story, even made it seem as if when Vince reached out to Chris Nowinski that he was like, ‘If you’re going to do something, let’s at least do it right and not just put this bulls**t out there.’ Like that’s the way it came across. But that might have been a little bit of what you were asking about with the editing and stuff, maybe. I just find it hard to believe [that] with everything we’ve learned over the last several years, that his thoughts — meaning Vince’s. And also, I find it hard to believe that Steve Austin’s thoughts would still be the same now as they were back then. Because that was the thing back then, was to just deny it. ‘Ah, it’s bulls**t,’ you know. And that’s — change always gets pushed back. Everyone always wants to say it was better in the good old days, you know? That’s why you hear parents say, ‘Oh, we never wore a seat belt in the car when we were younger. And our parents used to smoke cigarettes with the windows up.’ And yeah, I went through all that too. But again, ‘Look at us. We’re fine.’ That’s where we differ. And so, you’re not fine, you know what I mean. You gotta — what’s making you unhealthy? You don’t even know. And you know, maybe it could have been this. So anyway, the fact that his brain was deteriorated, Chris Benoit’s. And yeah the Alzheimer’s is — what, that’s just a coincidence? Like he happened to also — besides having Alzheimer’s like a 70-some year old — besides that, he also happened to act unlike the guy that I knew, or a lot of us knew and respected, and spent the weekend doing this f**king familycide? I don’t know. I mean I really don’t believe in coincidences, because of synchronicity. I know that everything has its meaning and its place, and that one seems like it’s written right there for us.”
On whether WWE should have ended Over The Edge after Owen Hart’s passing:
“Now most fans say, ‘Yeah, I can’t believe he went on with that show. That shows you that he’s the devil.’ I’ve always had the opposite opinion on that as well. You know, I get that. I totally get that. But then when I think about it, I think — just like Vince said, I think if it was me, I think I would want the show to go on. So how can I feel that way, not knowing how Owen felt?”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
