Rob Van Dam reflects on one of the biggest moments of his pro wrestling career.
The Whole F’N Show spoke about his world title victory over John Cena at ECW One Night Stand 2006 during the latest edition of his “1 Of A Kind With RVD” podcast. Highlights from the show can be found below.
Whether Cena knew he was going to receive the kind of heel heat that he did:
John knew he knew what he was in for. Like, he knew that that crowd was gonna be roasting him. I don’t think either of us could have known how hot it would get in there to that level. He knew that they were all gonna be against him and wanna see him get his ass beat and I just remember him being so cool with it, being such a good sport about it.
How it felt for him to wrestle that night at One Night Stand:
That’s what it felt like, like I was back. It’s amazing how your mind and body and spirit are all connected. When you really feel good about something, boom. You feel good all the way through everything like follows it. And that’s always so true. And at that point it was, I just felt like I was absolutely at my best fighting for all the right reasons. The most passionate and the most I could possibly care about the business. It was my business, you know? And it was my fans and it was going down the way I thought it should go down. Although I never really felt like until the very end that I knew what was gonna happen.
His immediate thoughts on winning the world title:
So what I remember about that like ‘1, 2, 3!’ Like, ‘Oh my God, that really just happened.’ That’s how I felt. Like just, ‘Boom,’ like ‘I’m on top of the world right now.’ It’s the coveted top seat in the industry and I did it my way, which meant so much more to me than winning it 20 times doing it their way. I remember dropping down to my knees, you know, and just like soaking up the crowd and like taking all that energy in and [I] guess that’s the only time I felt that particular energy. Maybe that’s why it’s hit me so hard.
Elsewhere on the podcast, RVD shared some fun memories about the Iron Sheik, including how the Iranian legend would pay for stuff with his autographed headshots. You can read about that here.
(Special thanks to Dominic DeAngelo for sending over quotes)