While speaking on the latest episode “1 Of A Kind With RVD,” the former WWE/TNA/ECW star spoke about a wide range of topics including his working relationship with Vince McMahon and WWE wanting to give him a big push when he first joined the company. Here are the highlights:
WWE wanting to “strap a rocket to him” in 2001:
“That’s exactly what Steve Austin said to me. Yeah, that’s exactly the way you put it too. He’s like, ‘Oh, kid, they’re fixing to strap a rocket to your back.’
“I was in Pittsburgh at the Mellon Arena. I’m in the bathroom, standing at the urinal. Pat Patterson’s in there and me. We’re the only ones in the bathroom. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I was like trying to roll a doobie or something and I’m like, ‘Oh shit.’
“But I’m new at this point. And anyway, he says, ‘Hey kid, you’re going to make a lot of money here in this business.’ And I, and I said to him, ‘If you say so.’ And he didn’t like the response. I said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘No, if you say so, sounds good. I’ll believe it when I see it.’
“He goes, ‘I don’t like that answer,’ he said, ‘You’re telling me you don’t believe in yourself?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I believe in me, but I don’t know if that’s going to equate to making a lot of money, you know, based on what I’ve been making here so far, I got paid a lot more before I came here.’ And that conversation, now having the bigger picture, I can tie all these events together and see where the office might’ve thought that I was just like, ‘Ehhh,’ where I should have said, ‘A rocket ship!? On my back? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, I’m getting a rocket ship! Oh, I’m going to prove to you this isn’t a mistake! You’re never going to regret doing this! I’m going to be the best rocket ship flyer you’ve ever had,’ You know? But it’s not me. Cause I’m like, ‘Uhhh, like that means more money, right?’
People telling him he needed to build a relationship with Vince McMahon:
“They were coming up to me and telling me I need to build this relationship with Vince and I didn’t know how to take it. And It was everybody. I mean, it was Shane-O, it was Michael Hayes, it was Stephanie. It might have been Trips. I didn’t know how to take it. I was offended by it because Bruce Pritchard, I remember him telling me one time the same thing.”
“Bruce Pritchard comes up to me and he says, ‘Hey Rob, you’re doing really good here and they’re really happy with you.’
‘Oh, cool. That’s awesome. I’m enjoying it.’ He says, ‘Yeah,John Cena is going to be leaving in October. He’s going to be working on “The Marin”e and doing this movie. So it’s going to be gone for a while. And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’
“And he realized I didn’t get what he was saying. And he said, ‘Yeah, so this is a good chance for you to fill that spot, on that next level, put you in that position.’ And I was like, ‘Cool,’ you know? And he was like, ‘Yeah. So it’s a good time for you to really do what it takes to get up there and I got offended and I was like ‘Are you telling me that I don’t work hard enough?…Do you not see me work my ass off in the ring? What else do I have to do?’
And he was like, ‘You need to build a relationship with Vince. Vince needs to know that he can trust you, that you’re the guy that he can invest in, that he can put the belt on and that can lead his company. You need to know he needs to know that. I’m like, ‘Are you saying I have to kiss his ass? Like I I’m out there having great matches, the crowd’s going nuts. I don’t understand what else you want from me?’ That’s one of the things that held me back as well. Oh, interesting. Same conversation happened with Shane and with Stephanie.
“I didn’t get it. You know? I didn’t get it. I thought they were telling me that I had to politic and maybe they were, maybe it was the right thing to do, but I didn’t get it.”