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 which promotion he liked to work for the most.
RVD said, “I get asked, what was my favorite wrestling organization to work for? I always say that ECW was the most fun, overall. You know, WWE was more money, reached bigger heights of stardom. You know, they pump you out to almost 200 different countries, and put me into societies where the kids look up to me, and I’ll never even know the name of their country. It’s amazingly huge on a totally different scale. TNA was easier. You know, it was like, working way less for the same contract. So I always take a standard.”
“But ECW was so fun. Part of that fun was being hungry, because on your way up you’re building yourself and all of your efforts paying off attribute to that. And it’s an accumulative victory of all your hard work, trying to reach more and more people, trying to not f**k up and get more consistency, getting your game up, and seeing all of that go towards the bigger picture of helping the entire organization grow. You know, it was all really fun. But you know, I wouldn’t want to be hungry again. I wouldn’t want to be under those conditions again, working that much for that little or whatever. But as far as being creative, and as far as just really being plugged into the moment during those matches and having the biggest energy payoff, it’s always gonna be ECW I think. In that way anyway. Everyone knows, there was nothing to compare to that.”
On Psycho Sid being an opponent he wishes he could’ve wrestled:
“That’s true. But yeah, that was something where the promoter put it together. I was looking forward to it, it would have been awesome. I was disappointed it didn’t happen. And that’s true.”
On never wrestling Mike Awesome in ECW despite there being plans for it:
“With Mike Awesome, that was a lot more long-term thinking. And it was for the betterment of the company. And it was more like — you know, one of the only long-term storylines if you want to call it that, that I feel like I was really invested in. Because while I was having the best matches — in my opinion and some of the fans opinions — of the night, every night with the TV Championship, that wasn’t done before. The TV Championship was supposed to be more of a secondary belt when it came to importance. But here I am, the Whole F’N Show, people were cheering for me throughout the whole show till I would come in at the end. And I was doing that in a way that was good for me, obviously, but good for the company, good for the story. And while Mike was an awesome, no pun intended, heavyweight extreme champion, you know, I wanted to pout that off as long as we were growing Because ECW’s crowds were growing, our opportunities were growing. With everything, you know, just getting our name out there. So I wanted to make it to a stage where we’re at our absolute biggest and then collide. And I’m sure those would have been some of the best matches I had in ECW. I’m sure.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
