WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam (RVD) recently appeared on an episode of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast. He discussed several topics, including why wrestling has more injuries today.
RVD said, “I would say that because the style is so much different. You know, everybody’s a Rob Van Dam now. So everyone’s doing the dives and trying to outcrash each other. If they’re not fighting the glass or doing death matches — not everyone is doing a Darby Allin and going out there and trying to prove that they can’t die. But you know, they’re taking bumps on the steps, on the cinder blocks, f***ing — it’s rough, and it’s an athletic style. The guys are smaller now. You know, a lot of the bigger guys back when I broke in, well they weren’t doing Rolling Thunders and moonsaults to the floor, you know. And that s**t wasn’t really being done, and those really big guys shouldn’t be doing that anyway. But now it’s more athletic, high-risk stunt moves. It’s — you know, Katie was saying yesterday that it’s a wonder more people don’t get their necks broken. And we’ll get to that. And I will say not only just that, but even injured. You know, like on this show before, somebody asked me if I thought that CM Punk was — I don’t know if it was weak or accident-prone. Because he got hurt, and then I think soon as he came back and got hurt again or something. I was saying ‘No.’ I mean, the odds are very high that you’re going to get injured. It’s amazing that a lot of more serious injuries don’t happen more often. And when I think about when I was working full time — man, I was beat up a lot. And I think that a lot of people that weren’t me might have called themselves injured sometimes. But I felt like, ‘You know what, if I can get in there tonight and work then I’m not hurt.’ And that was my personal policy, even if I had to hide that I was limping because either a groin muscle in my knee or my ankle or whatever. Always ribs, bruised ribs? Oh so painful. It wasn’t part of the show, though. You know, they’re not paying to see an injured RVD tonight. That’s not part of it.”
On which talent he hated to see leave ECW:
“Yeah, all of them. I felt like each time they they did [leave ECW] that it made us weaker. And the guys I remember that were jumping were pretty important for us. I don’t remember what order it was, but I remember Raven, and then I remember when Sandman was gone. Of course Taz, Mike Awesome. You know, that hurt. Those were some major holes in our f**king company. So it wasn’t like they were just some undercard guys, you know. ‘F**k them, they don’t belong here.’ So, yeah, it sucked. I personally did not like it. I don’t remember being angry or anything like that. I was like, ‘Alright, man, more on my shoulders. I’ll f**king do my best to carry on and keep us going.’ And that’s kind of how I looked at it. Anytime I talked to one of those guys I’d be like, ‘Dude, don’t go!’ Because I thought we were going to blow up here which, you know, never was even possible, I guess. To an extent anyway, it would be impossible to for it to get mainstream because of its very nature.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
