03:27:01
Rob Van Dam
THE
STRANGLEHOLD : If you talk with a lot of people that
have worked with you recently in ECW, or have known you,
and they say 'hey, RVD is a great guy in the locker room...I
love having matches with him...he's fine to hang out with...all
these attitude knocks are incorrect,' yet there are still
some people out there, I don't know if there harboring stories
from years ago or what, but they say 'Rob VanDam wouldn't
be able to adapt...he wouldn't be happy if he couldn't have
the 30 minute intro...if he couldn't be the whole F'n show'.
Does that bother you, do you think it's even accurate, or
do you think it's a case of some people from the past that
can't let bygones be bygones and see how Rob VanDam has
grown??
RVD:
I think that everyone just wants to state their opinions
and take a stab at this big pinata, and that's the way that
it comes out. Obviously, most of those comments are very
silly, whereas a lot of the wrestlers started in ECW and
I always said they probably planned on leaving ECW someday
to try and go somewhere else.
They
were probably just building up their value, hoping to move
on someday--and they have, many of them. But in 1996, when
I came to ECW, I had already spent many years on the independent
scene all over from the Midwest to Tennessee to the Carolina's,
Florida, all that. I had been wrestling for Japan for three
years, I wrestled for WCW-- I definitely had a lot of experience
and was no new kid on the block when I came into ECW as
far as being in the ring.
And
I grew to a point where I really preferred ECW out of everywhere
I've been and I actually came to a point where I didn't
want to leave ECW, and where I could've imagined ECW was
going to be big enough and take off to be a comfortable
place for a lot of people to work in.
And
I saw myself being different from everyone else in that
fashion. So for those guys to say I wouldn't be able to
adapt or I wouldn't be happy, this or that, I guess they're
forgetting all the other places I've been besides ECW. Because
what stands out most in everybody's memory, which I'm thankful
for, is the product that we got to see in Extreme Championship
Wrestling when I've been in the ring.
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