Years of research has helped to illuminate how headshots and impact to the head can be destructive to an individual.

On a recent episode of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling, Rob Van Dam addressed the dangers of concussions. He joined them in order to promote his documentary, Headstrong. He claims that the lessons he learned over the course of filming helped to change his life.

“I showed up on day one with symptoms of a concussion that I got two-three days before the tour started, and at first I thought the concussion symptoms would go away and they always, always, always did before, so I wasn’t as concerned but let’s just go ahead forward with what we were going to do,” RVD said.

“The symptoms stayed so long that the documentary takes a major turn and becomes about something else, and we have to go into that. I’m getting my brain checked out with the camera, and I’m talking to the viewers as I’m learning they are learning with me, so I take them on the roller coaster with me to check out what is going on in my head.”

RVD admits he used to have a different stance regarding impactful shots to the head. He used to staunchly believe it showcased how tough he was:

“Throughout my whole career, I had the other view. I thought I am showing how tough I am and I’m showing what a chair shot I can take to my head, and I’ll recover from it. I knew every night when Balls Mahoney was going to whack me with that chair for instance, I knew my bell was going to get rung. I knew it was going to be something and everything was like slow motion for a few seconds, and the sound would go out or sometimes it would just feel like I am sleeping and there were all kinds of different aspects to having your bells rung.”

“What I didn’t realize at the time was that was my brain bouncing against my skull, knocking my senses loose, and that is a concussion. There is minor concussions, and there is major concussions, and I’ve really only had one that I would consider a major concussion—maybe two where I couldn’t remember anything afterwards.”

When he watched the whole documentary, Rob Van Dam became fully aware of how he had mishandled his concussions.

He realized that “[…] I did everything wrong. Your brain needs to rest, and you need to go someplace dark and close your eyes, not stimulate your brain. I did the exact opposite.”

Headstrong is out now, and is available to buy or rent from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and other streaming services.