ECW legend Rob Van Dam recently spoke with the French publication Thibaud Choplin to discuss all things pro-wrestling, including whether the former world champion wants to go out on a retirement match similar to Ric Flair or Shawn Michaels. Highlights are below.
How he’s all about making money:
I’m all about the money. You know, people don’t understand. Some fans are ignorants. They don’t understand it’s a business. Some people think that when I had the WWE belt and the ECW belt, I was in my prime, and they probably think that I wish I was still there. But now I make 20 to 30 times in one match what WWE was paying me in the lowest. I could make that much more money in 1 match than in 20 matches. Why would you want work 30 matches to make the same money that you can work one match and make money? That’s something fans can’t understand cause they think we just love to be in the ring 24/7.
Whether he wants a retirement match the same way Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels did:
I could see it going either way. I don’t think I have a preference. You know, the one thing about having a retirement match that would be appearing with me if it was built up and it was a great payday. Otherwise, I don’t give a fuck.
Says he would vote for The Rock to become President of the United States:
Absolutely. I think if he wanted to do that, he would get so much support. And, uh, he gets so much respect anyway. And he’s in a leadership position, you know ? He’s on top of the world, and he does rub elbows with the most famous people that we ever hear about. He has a lot of support. I support him. I would vote for him, probably yeah.
On his health with concussions and the documentary Headstrong:
I’m feeling much better. This was blown out of proportion. If you think that you read a quote for me yet saying I can’t go back that’s bullshit. People think that they actually read from me the WWE said I couldn’t go back there because of my visual impairment. That didn’t come from me. It was quote out on the Internet and then everybody, everybody thinks that whatever they read is true on the Internet.
I feel like correcting people when they’re wrong about me. Less than10% of the time people say things that are not true about me all the time. It’s in articles, whether it’s in magazines or on the Internet, and I usually don’t feel like correcting that people. This was one time I didn’t feel like correcting anybody.
Truth is that I I’ve never talked with WWE my concussion over doing.
I can wrestle. My eye-test is normal with reactionary time and visibility. But my eye sight is a littledifferent than it was before this particular match that I had in 2016 gave me double vision and now sometimes when I’m tired and I turned my head a certain way, I can trigger that double vision still. If you haven’t seen my documentary Headstrong it covers all of this. It covers the whole conversation because we had cameras rolling when I was doing a stand up comedy tour, and, we had cameras for that. But I had double vision, and we had to start talking about concussion because it wasn’t going away. That became a much bigger part of my life : going to neurologist CAT scan. MRI’s, vision therapy. The movie Headstrong ended up being much bigger, really good. And it’s important because I’m trying to keep the conversation about concussions going so we can learn more.