Rob Van Dam Looks Back On Hitting Fan During Incident At 1996 Wrestling Show

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 an incident that saw a fan pull his ponytail during a match at an indie event in North Carolina and how he ended up hitting the fan.

RVD said, “You know what, one time comes to mind. Well, a couple of times came to mind, and one of them ended up being a lawsuit in Allentown. And he was just paid without even — oh no, we actually did the deposition, that’s right. He was paid the ‘f**k off fee,’ and then [he] pursued anyway. And I had to go there and do the f***ing deposition, and ECW took care of everything. There were two lawsuits when I was on ECW that they had to pay involving fans. But one time that I think about was an indie show. I was wrestling Billy Kidman, I think in North Carolina. It was a Greg Price show. And I was a heel. So this is like, ’96-ish. I was trying to find my inner heel because I wrestling with ECW, and they hated me up there when I was wrestling Sabu because he was their god. So I was really in cocky heel perspective. And I was in a crowd after doing a dive or something? And I felt somebody yank my ponytail really hard, boom! Behind me. And I turned around real quick, and all I could see was a body retreating backwards, and then two other bodies closing in the gap, so that I couldn’t get to him.”

On his reaction:

“It was happening so quick. I turned, and as he was receding and they were trying to close, I dove between them and reached between him. And bam! I punched him in his face, boom! And then I end up with both of these guys holding me. And then they go, ‘Wait, wait, wait, don’t, he’s special!’ I looked, and I was like, ‘Oh!’ I went over and got Kidman, you know, threw him back in the ring and just went on with the match. And I was like, ‘Holy s**t, here it comes. Here it comes.’ But it ended up just being, like, a few t-shirts or something.”

You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.

(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)