WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam (RVD) recently appeared on an episode of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast, where he discussed a number of topics including the NXT women’s roster.
RVD said, “They’re pretty strong with the women. I know they had the ten women tag match at the end [of the 2300 Arena episode] that you’re talking about, which is like five on five. And man, there’s a lot of room to show skill in a match like that and there’s a lot of room to show vulnerabilities or weak spots in a match like that, too. And I don’t know, I think they pulled it off. And I didn’t see the whole thing. But you know, sometimes in a match like that, I’m afraid maybe if it was like in the other company, there might be a lot of spots on there that I would say, ‘You know what, they shouldn’t do that. If they’re not good at it, they shouldn’t do that.’ You know, if you’re not good at punches, don’t throw punches… what I’m saying is, I’m impressed with the standards, the workmanship, and the level that everyone is at in NXT in comparison with other wrestling products that are on TV. And there are a few — now that I think about, and there are a few that I nitpick specifically. There are — you know, one of the girls specifically, I’m always telling Katie, ‘Look at this. Look what she just did here, look what she did here.’ And I’m always pointing out. But maybe I’ll, maybe I’ll tell her, and then she’ll get better.”
On being given freedom by Paul Heyman to do crowd dives in ECW:
“I don’t know that freedom was given to me. I feel like we always had it, so it was just a matter of learning what our freedoms were, what the boundaries were. Boundaries of freedom, and of what I’d be willing to do and wanting to do. And you know, it was just always growing there. It was always one-upping whatever happened last week. And that’s what led to me doing those dives. The very three people that he mentioned, there are the only guys in ECW that I would do that dive too [Bam Bam Bigelow, Balls Mahoney, and Bubba Ray Dudley], because they’re all were big guys and I knew that they could catch me. Because it was a — you know, Balls Mahoney, Bubba Dudley, Bam Bam Bigelow. I was pretty heavy. You know, 235, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Ass heavy, too, and when I dive out and do the somersault punch in the air and my ass comes down, a lot of people didn’t want to catch that. Even right outside of the ring, certain people — like Lance Storm, for example — would rather sidestep me. And I think that he thought eventually I would just quit doing it with him if I learned that he wasn’t going to catch me. I think that was his idea, and I don’t know, but I could count on it… I wouldn’t want someone to sidestep me, and me just take the bump on my tailbone in a situation like that. So I trusted those three guys.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
