RVD shoots over failure, discusses WWE, HHH, TNA, Benoit and more.
RVD shoots over failure of ECW & who killed it, WWE, HHH, TNA and more.
Rob Van Dam did a long audio interview with the BBC's Bret Birks several days ago while he was in Great Britain for a convention appearance, which you can listen to at this link. It's an excellent interview covering Van Dam's departure from WWE, his thoughts on the ECW brand, the Benoit tragedy, the WWE Wellness Policy, his personal love of comic books, Sabu, John Cena, John Laurinaitis and more.
BENOIT TRAGEDY & THE WELLNESS PROGRAM
When discussing the Benoit tragedy, Van Dam said he was as shocked and horrified as everyone else. He said a lot of people are too quick to accept what they hear. Part of him still can't believe that Benoit was capable of doing it. He said, "What a minute? OJ didn't do it but Chris Benoit did? They never found any reason to believe it was anyone besides OJ and he had everything stacked against him and they said he didn't do it. With Chris Benoit, you have a guy that everybody speaks so highly of. " He said Benoit was the person he looked up to the most in the locker room and wishes he could call and tell him that too. Van Dam said, "No one saw this coming and after the fact, no one can believe it happened." Van Dam said he read tabloid coverage of the incident on the airplane to Great Britain and it's just starting to sink in that Benoit is gone.
"The way this whole thing went down is so bizarre. I think everyone is jumping all over the lifestyle, which of course is so challenging and I needed a break from the traveling, but it doesn't make us kill our families. Now we are hearing steroids. People are automatically, when they hear the word steroids, they're trained, because the word's been demonized to think - 'BAD! BAD! Well, obviously that's what happened.' No, unless there was some crazy amount in his system that we've never heard of, which could be the case. Honestly, anything could be the case because if this could happen, anything could happen and anything is as believable as anything else at this point. You are talking about a man that bound his wife's limbs, strangled her, allegedly, choked his son out and hung himself. We don't have things like this going on. This isn't something associated with or common to people taking steroids, it's not, it's unheard of."
"The Wellness Program, a lot of people want to say that Vince McMahon just came out with the Wellness Program to pacify those who were putting pressure on him after Eddie Guerrero's death. I can say that I do know for a fact, that I've seen the Wellness Program help some athletes who were going down a self-destructive path and that's overlooked quite a bit. The guys who do have problems and don't realize how recreational and destructive they are being. A lot of times, you know who they are without taking a cup of their urine and they could be taken care of without everyone in the entire locker room, and those of us who know how to take care of ourselves and are professional, I don't think you need to get everybody be part of this, but that's the system. The majority is always affected by rules that are set for the minority with the problems. The Wellness Program is something I've been a part of. I think I've been tested 4, 5, 6 times since it started.
"I think it's ironic that everyone is jumping all over steroids because when Eddie Guerrero passed, it was heart failure. They said he had an enlarged heart and he had heart disease and that's what killed him. The heart disease, they said, could have been prevented if they knew about it and they said his addiction to painkillers was a large contributor, even though it had been four years since he had, allegedly, been off of them before he passed."
Van Dam said after Guerrero passed away, he's been regularly seen by multiple doctors including having his heart measured and getting full physicals and exams beyond what WWE requires for the Wellness Program. Van Dam said that the Policy isn't a complete, absolute answer to problems, but "it has helped some people."
THE ECW RELAUNCH
Van Dam, who comments earlier in the interview about his personal burnout and needing time away from wrestling, said one of the factors in that burnout was the weight of responsibility for the ECW re-launch on his shoulders. He noted that he was concerned about bringing back ECW because the original players were the only ones who could do it and they were "limited" at that point, but quickly got excited about the idea of finding younger stars to become a new, modernized version of ECW.
He noted that all eyes were on him because his entire WWE run, he was "bitching he missed ECW" and it was on his shoulders to carry the re-launch.
Van Dam said the "new ECW sucked." Van Dam said that when the brand was re-launched last summer, they were struggling to bring up the live crowds but the advertising and budgeting for the live shows were "reduced to an offensive level. Paul Heyman and myself were so disgusted by it that we would both talk about quitting. Paul left before I did and I knew I only had a matter of time before my contract was up."
Van Dam said he would have liked to have seen WWE "utilize the phenomenon that was ECW" and that fans would stop him to tell him they loved the old ECW but didn't like the new version. Van Dam said that he went to Vince McMahon "on a few occasions and told him this isn't going to work and the ECW crowd isn't going to like that. To my dissatisfaction, I learned that his vision of this new ECW was nothing at all like my vision. Nothing at all like the original ECW fans wanted or expected. It was also something that he wasn't going to be able to force the original ECW fans to expect, so his reaction was, 'Screw them, I own the world, here's this new ECW. I'm going to get a whole new audience of new kids and new adults and they're going to like this new ECW like they like Raw and Smackdown because it's a new alternative.' In the long run, as we all know, it's looked at as a lesser product. It never should have been that way. I saw it coming, I saw it happening and now I see that it did happen. Now that it's still happening."
Van Dam also noted that as his contract expired, "I honestly felt like I was abandoning the ECW project. Sabu left. I feel that he left because he knew I only had a few weeks left and he didn't want to be there anymore. I'm concerned about Sandman. The Originals being put back together - me, Tommy Dreamer, Sabu, Sandman - was that like being thrown a bone, to me and to the ECW fans saying, 'We know the new ECW sucks compared to the old ECW, but here's a little something for you guys that want to hold onto the past.' It works. They know how to throw me a bone every once and a while to get me to give that much more and I kept giving and giving but the fact is, they killed ECW. They being WWE, way before I did. I walked out with a clear conscience on that."
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In regard to the possibility of going to TNA, Van Dam said that there was a time where he weighed the options and "TNA sounded incredibly appealing" due to the benefits it provides compared to WWE. Van Dam said that by the time June came around and his WWE deal expired, he was so burnt out that he needed to take an "indefinite hiatus." Van Dam said that he can't tell anyone how long it will be before he returns to the ring because he needs to have piece of mind from being away from the ring and having "a calmness" that he's trying to find.
On Paul Heyman: "The whole time I was in WWE and he was in the office, he was the only guy that I felt looked out for my better interest. The only guy I could talk to and the only guy I could trust. Part of trusting Paul is letting him be what he is. You have to take that into consideration. You have to say, 'he's good at lying but that's just part of what makes him Paul.'
On Triple H: "He's always been, to me, a self-crowned king. What I mean is he's got the most important team members behind him. The people who sit there at the table, at the meetings, that make the plans and he quite probably has plans to run the WWE one day. As far as being one of the boys, I would guess that he would be one of the last people that you would see riding in a car with RVD."
On Stephanie McMahon: "Could be my favorite McMahon possibly. She's a sweetheart and I can relate to her on a compassionate level of just being a good person. She's definitely all business. I think all the McMahons are capable of only thinking from inside the box and I don't know if they are aware there is world outside of WWE. Not her particularly, but all of the McMahons."
There is a lot more that is covered in the interview and it's worth taking a chance to listen to.
Source: PWInsider.com
