By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Rob Van Dam
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On how the AEW debut came about: “Well, they reached out to me so long ago, like towards the beginning of the year, it was kind of hypothetical checking my interest and availability, and the dates that they mentioned, even though it was way back then and ended up being the exact same dates, August 2 and August 9. And I couldn’t believe that how could you be that far planned ahead? It was like, January maybe, or, you know, maybe February. It was a long, long time ago that they first brought it up. So that was one of those things where every once in a while, I’d be talking to a fan at a con. And they’d say, you know, are we’re gonna see you show up on WWE. It’s real, you know, and I’d be like, maybe you might see me pop up on the other show, too. I don’t know. But I didn’t really expect much of it until it was like, boom, alright cool, we’re going through with it. So I would have thought, based on that, if I was going to return again and they hadn’t planned it yet that it would be a year from now, you know what I mean? But apparently, that’s not always the case, as Matt Hardy and Jeff told me when I had this conversation saying that exact same thing. And he said, No, it’s not always like that, you know, sometimes, you know, boom, something changes, you know, the day before.”
On planting the seed to get “Walk” by Pantera as his entrance music: “I did, but it was already planted. So I wasn’t the first one. I reached out to them and it was very shortly before my trip happened. You know, I don’t remember, it was just right before and I was just like, man, you know, that’d be so awesome if we could get Walk, it would really add a lot. And the producer I was talking to said, yeah, Tony tried and he couldn’t get it and I was like, oh, okay, that was the day of the show. [Then] They told me, boom, we got Walk. And it was a few hours before I’m at the arena. And I was like, wow are you serious dude? That changes everything about because otherwise they’re gonna have to look at the monitor and you know, be like, okay, yeah, that’s RVD. What song would they use? [They would make a song for you?] They would make it and then that wouldn’t get over nearly as much so, so super cool. And does that mean that they’re gonna have it this week? I don’t know. I hope so.”
On losing his Hall of Fame ring: “So the very first week that I got it, I did a show in Wisconsin, and I wasn’t used to having it. I left it in the hotel room, went back to Las Vegas. And so it took an honest maid, and an honest front desk person and an honest wrestling promoter. Thank you, Ben McCoy, for calling me and saying, Did you forget something dude? I didn’t even know yet. I just got home the next day and wow, I had it for I don’t know. I think it was it was the same week, so I didn’t have a very long, I lost it already.”
On possibly thinking about winding down his in-ring career: “Not really. I mean, you know, sometimes the thought goes through my head. If I’m having a bad travel day, for instance, I’m done, I hate this, I just want to be home, traveling sucks. I’ll have those moments inside my head. But they usually don’t last that long. And I used to think I was gonna retire, that was like several years ago, and I thought I was probably close to hanging the boots up. And now I just don’t even think I will. I think I’ll be like Dory Funk Jr. And just [keep going], and I may quit taking bookings. But I don’t think I’m gonna make a big deal out of being retired because the credibility of wrestlers retiring is so broad anyway. You know, so I don’t [know]. Sabu used to say, it’d be cool if we did a retirement tour. And we went around the world and wrestled for all the companies that we’ve wrestled for. But the timing of that didn’t work out too well, because he finished up before me.”
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