Inducted by LWO4Life
Reading the magazines and dirt sheets, I personally got severe FOMO over ECW. Names like Tazmaniac, Sabu, Sandman, and Raven all seemed like an underground world, which I was for sure going to see the most amazing action in wrestling history. (Boy, was I disappointed when I finally saw Raven, and it turned out he was just Johnny Polo.) Eventually, my dad got a satellite dish, and one of the channels carried ECW at 2 AM every Saturday. I was excited. I stayed up late just to watch it. But what I saw was not what I expected.
By the time I started watching the show, a new name had emerged. And boy was I in for a treat. I started watching around the time Bill Alfonso turned on Taz and joined Sabu, and this guy named… Rob… Van… Dam! At the time, Rob Van Dam, or RVD, was calling himself Mr. Monday Night, talking about how he’s too good to be in ECW. Okay, I like this. But what impressed me the most was how it seemed the weekly show was basically the last 30 minutes; they had RVD get out there and defend his mid-card (TV) title in a 30-minute match, and each week you felt like you watched the greatest wrestler of all time.
The Style
I had a hard time in 2001 imagining RVD in WWE full-time. Yes, I know he was on Raw in 1997. But by the end of his ECW run, RVD operated with a leave of creative freedom that it was hard to imagine any other promotion giving him. From the use of weapons, which ECW was known for, to the ability to leap high off the turnbuckle and crash land right on the opponent’s core, RVD was ECW personified. When people talked about him leaving ECW, even though that was his whole gimmick of being Mr. Monday Night, I couldn’t see it at all. Neither WCW nor WWE would ever allow him to be the RVD in ECW.
Of course, like all great things, ECW couldn’t last forever, and RVD would be left without a wrestling home. In the spring of 2001, ECW would go out of business. To make matters worse, WWF would buy WCW, meaning there was only one place to work for RVD. And this is where RVD’s career met a huge crossroads. This was like your favorite indie artist signing with a big record label and being forced to sing radio-friendly songs. You see, RVD’s high-flying style was welcomed in the now WWE. You can easily feature him with Jeff Hardy in a ladder match, or give him the Intercontinental Title and boost the mid-card, but you started to lose the weapons and limitless creativity that RVD had.
One of a Kind
It’s not a stretch to say RVD was always at constant odds with Vince McMahon. Paul Heyman once said booking ECW was easy: you do a bunch of things, then you put RVD out there for the last 30 minutes and let him work. There was even a point where RVD won the WWE title from John Cena, as his connection and popularity with the audience had hit an all-time high. But just as quickly as he won the title, the title had to come off him as he was caught with weed by a cop car with Sabu. It brought back memories of Jim Duggan and the Iron Sheik getting caught with drugs in the 80’s. This time, instead of firing both wrestlers, WWE depushed them, and RVD lost his WWE title just as quickly as he won it.
With that said, RVD didn’t live by the rules. Sure, we’d mainly think of him as a mid-carder. In ECW, he “only” won the TV title, in WWE, he held the IC title 6 times; and in TNA, while he did hold the world title, he did hold the X-Division title as well. In many ways, he was the perfect secondary champion. He was such an attraction that you could sell out arenas across the country with him on top of a B-card. He was dependable, even if he was clashing with management in the back. Of course, clashing with management is really an old school wrestler thing, so even a promoter like Vince McMahon wasn’t going to take it that personally. RVD brought his indie style out of the bingo halls and into the well-lit, fully sold-out arenas. And while he had to compromise, he was going to fight for every bit of creative freedom he had.
Timeless
It’s a testament to RVD that his career lasted so long. So many wrestlers with his style can only go so far before their bodies break down. RVD took care of his body, and because of that, his career spans 3 decades. And well he spent his career trying not to change his style of wrestling; he, in turn, changed wrestling as a whole. Many who do high-flying can learn a lot from watching RVD in ECW. Each opening spot of his matches with Jerry Lynn is often copied, but what people miss is that it never looked rehearsed. They looked like two opponents who knows the others every move, and they are trying to counter it. It showed in their movement, not just the sequence of moves. The hardest thing to do is tell a story without saying a word, but they managed to do that.
There are very few more deserving of this honor than RVD. So I would like to induct Rob Van Dam to the LOP/WrestlingHeadlines Hall of Fame class of 2026.
