WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam recently appeared on Busted Open Radio to discuss a number of different topics, which included the ECW legend sharing the conversation he had with John Laurinaitis regarding his induction, and how WWE Chairman Vince McMahon already thought he was in. Highlights from the interview are below.
Recalls the conversation he had with John Laurinaitis about going into the WWE Hall Of Fame:
“You know, whenever that 203 area code shows up on my cellphone, I try not to identify my feelings about it, you know. It was Johnny Ace [John Laurinaitis] and he just said, ‘hey, Vince wanted me to call you and see if you’d be interested in being inducted into the Hall of Fame this year?’ Of course, I was like, ‘yeah, it’d be an honor. Absolutely.’ And I learned that – I think it was Michael Hayes that told me, that they were sitting around the table, like they do, when it came up, and I guess Vince said something to the effect of, ‘too bad RVD is already in the Hall of Fame, or he’d be a good candidate for this year.’ And someone said, and I think it was Michael Hayes, ‘Vince, RVD is not in the Hall of Fame.’ He thought I was. They kept coming by me, saying, ‘let me know if you need help or whatever.’ ‘OK, yeah, yeah, I’m still trying to put my thoughts together.’ I always plan on planning, but I never really make it to the planned spot. I’m gonna spend a couple of minutes later, but I don’t. So finally, I said, you know what, I’m just going to go out there and just say what comes to my mind. Everyone seemed to like the speech, but I didn’t realize until later, they had said go three to five minutes, and Molly Holly was really upset because she had taken this – she had a really long speech prepared, you know, with help, and she was like really hurt. For me, I was like, ‘well, I don’t know what I’m gonna say anyway. It sucks, though, three to five minutes.”
On the length of his speech:
“My whole life I’ve learned and stayed and listened to these great, long speeches by all these legends, and now I’m going to be in front of an empty arena and in three minutes I’m gonna say thanks.’ But I figured I was gonna go a little bit longer, you know, maybe five or six minutes and give them stuff to edit. I went 26 minutes. Didn’t even realize it, I think because there was nobody there, it was weird. I would say something, and they would turn up the applause and turn it down, so I’d have an idea. Then I’d say something else. I had no idea I went that long.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)