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 Ultimate Warrior’s passing right after he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
RVD said, “I think it was just incredible, as far as the timing of his last appearance. The full circle of him making amends, where some torn material needed to be sewn back together in the fabric of spirituality. And he is a spiritual guy too, or was. And I know that was really important to him. You know, he talked a lot. A lot of people do. He grew a lot; a lot of people don’t unfortunately. I find that a lot of times through my growth, it distances me from people that I used to be with, because they don’t grow and I do. And that’s okay. That’s just part of the process, what are you going to do? F**king stunt your own growth just to be compatible with people that go through life with basic thinking and not growing?”
On Warrior’s impact on the business:
“Warrior — you know, he had some heat with certain guys. And he was able to meet them, shake their hand and [be] able to see and experience what an impact he had on the industry, regardless of the DVD that was insulting to him and WWE trying to possibly damage his legacy, that’s how he saw it. Regardless of any of that, man, he really touched a lot of us, impacted us, inspired us. And it was about his intensity, the character. He charged us up, you know? So a lot of the people that say he wasn’t — some people say that he wasn’t the favorite guy to wrestle with or whatever. And I get that, but that’s the way that it works. A lot of those guys, they may be limited but what they got is enough to sell tickets, and that’s where the priority usually is.”
“So Warrior is gonna always go down as a legend, and as a guy that — I think we all believe he deserves to be at the top of the food chain. I mean, when he wrestled Hulk Hogan and I was a fan, I was behind him like so much. It wasn’t just like, ‘Okay, let’s go through the rotation and get the next competitor up. Put him over with jobbers for three weeks on TV, then Saturday night’s Main Event he’s gonna wrestle Hulk Hogan.’ I would see that, and ‘If Bobby Heenan is going to manage him, he’s gonna get the next title shot,’ a la Ron Bass, Hercules. Some of those guys that for them. It’s their really big moment. But for Warrior, man I think we all saw him as neck and neck — like I said, I used to think he was Achilles reincarnated from the Trojan War. I believed that as a kid when I saw him. And I thought that it was believable that he could beat anybody. Anyway, the timing and when I think about him dying, you know, it was it was tragic. And man, I’m glad it didn’t happen a couple of days before.”
On it seeming like Warrior knew it was his time:
“It almost seemed like he knew he was gonna go. When you watch the speech after he died, and you have that in mind. And he’s talking about what he’s gonna leave behind. And after he’s gone, how the Warrior spirit is going to carry on. Everything that he was saying it was like, it was foreshadowing to say the least. And that made it really special. I’m into the synchronicity of the universe. I study and follow the patterns, have for many years now. And I think all the answers are right there, although they’re not for all of us to comprehend. And they’re not for us to comprehend at the same time. Sometimes we understand something now, years later. That’s because we had to get more of the pictures and more of the equation to be able to put it together. That’s just the way that that’s just the way that life is.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
