RVD Interview

[stjames]

Last time we spoke was in June 2006, just before the second WWE One Night Stand PPV. You were about to beat Cena for the title and ECW was being brought back full time. You were the happiest man I've ever seen! But how do you feel it panned out?

That was definitely a crowning moment in my career.

Not just because I had the gold, but because I changed the entire playing field to make that happen.

RVD wasn't going to be WWE champ, but I brought ECW back because that was my spirit and the spirit of the fans. I knew they wanted to see it and I was feeding off that energy.

Winning the world title meant a lot. It gave creditability to ECW. At least for the moment...so we thought!

But very shortly afterwards Vince McMahon's long-term plans started to unfold.

We were faced with the fact that he would give ECW no credit for anything up until that point and wanted to create this new brand of wrestling that would be a global product and mainstream in every way, with Extreme Rules only as a stipulation every once in a while.

Our hearts were ripped out of our chests and stomped on.

Vince said: "Nobody remembers the old ECW anyway, Rob. This is something new."

So it was a fun moment, it was short-lived and it's definitely gone now.

Did you have your doubts about the new ECW from the start?

When I first came up with the idea of One Night Stand, I never really thought about it being more than a single special night.

But since it was such a success they were talking about doing part two and then creating a third brand, ECW, to continue the momentum.

I first thought there was no way it was going to work. A lot of the original ECW wrestlers didn't wrestle anymore, were in horrible shape and some of them were dead.

Besides, the WWE introduced the ECW wrestlers that were left as heels. As if we didn't have enough problems swimming upstream they wanted me, Balls, Dreamer, Sandman and Sabu to do stupid stupid s*** like come out and attack John Cena.

They wanted to turn the fans against us, learn to hate us and then give us our own show!

But it was Paul Heyman who said: "What if we get the original players who can still wrestle and we recruit new young talent who could adapt to the Extreme style like Matt Striker."

I knew that Paul was great at making superstars out of wrestlers who are otherwise overlooked, capitalising on their strengths and hiding their weaknesses. If he likes somebody it means they have talent, whether WWE sees it or not.

At that point I thought if this was going to be anything goes ? as WWE said it would be ? and an Extreme alternative to Raw and Smackdown then it could be really cool and the preferred show for a lot of likeminded fans.

So I was really excited and got fully behind it.

How long did it take that dream to die? Do you remember when you lost faith?

I had some great matches with Test, Bob Holly and Big Show.

But almost right away they added "credibility" ? as Vince put it ? to the show, by adding rules.

So then it became that Extreme Rules would be one match out of the night, like a lottery drawing. It watered down the rest of the card.

I lost faith at a very precise moment, when I lost an argument with Vince over it.

I told him: "In ECW you have a product that is different, you should capitalise on that difference. That's why the fans like it and are attracted to it."

That's when Vince told me that nobody remembered the old ECW and he created this enthusiasm for this new ECW.

I said: "Wait a second, didn't we bring it back because of the success of the DVD and One Night Stand. Didn't that tell us there's a lot of support still."

He said: "Well Rob, there's a lot of support because they're watching WWE promote ECW. They weren't around back then. People grow up, have kids, things change."

I replied: "That doesn't make sense. Come on Vince, why do you think they chant 'ECW' when we're doing something out there."

He said: "Well, because I spent the last five years training them to chant 'ECW'. We've got to have credibility Rob and that means we have to listen to the referees."

I realised I can't tell Vince McMahon what is best for a global product. You have to dumb things down to hit the mainstream, and if you only target the hardcore then you're going to have a much smaller cult following. That wasn't what he wanted.

I even put it like that, and he agreed!

That was the moment I thought: "OK, bye bye old ECW. At least we still have the DVDs and the memories."

Despite hating the rules and the storylines, a lot of fans like myself stuck with ECW right up until the disastrous December to Dismember at the end of 2006. How bad was that PPV to be involved with?

It was funny, because in that period there were so many times Dreamer, Sandman, Sabu and myself would say: "OK, now ECW is really done."

One of the biggest moments we thought that was at Dismember to Dismember.

They beat RVD on that show because they knew I stood for that Extreme style and fought for it.

They wanted to squash that whole idea and make Bobby Lashley the new face of ECW.

That was a changeover moment where we all agreed: "If we thought ECW was dead before, then f*** that, it is definitely dead now."

What was Paul Heyman like at this point? Did he show his true feelings or try to keep everyone pumped up?

He was usually the first to really get angry.

When we brought ECW back as a brand, Paul would come out of the agents' and writers' meetings very sceptical.

Every week Paul would have a list of 15 things the others wanted to do that he would have problems with. Meeting after meeting after meeting, he would try and get it down to only three things that really bothered him that they would go ahead and do.

Part of his job was to hold on to the integrity of ECW and shoot down all these ridiculous ideas that they were always offering.

Eventually they won and when they did Paul was very offended.

He would come to work and just tell me how much disdain and loathing he had for Vince.

I remember him saying it was like Vince had raped his wife, because ECW was so close to his heart and Vince f***ed it.

He felt Vince enjoyed watching him suffer, while ripping apart the fabric of ECW week by week.

But Paul has no resentment now and no desire to get back at Vince. He has made balance and is in a peaceful stage, like I am.

It's just something we laugh about.

What do you think Vince's motivation was? A desire to destroy a previous competitor or just a truly held belief that his way is best? He even became ECW champion himself in April 2007.

I think it's both.

By wearing the ECW belt, that was definitely Vince saying: "I own ECW. I won!"

But in the long run he's a businessman and I don't think he wasted a bunch of money without thinking it was going to come back.

Then again, he's got the kind of money and hunger to conquer to do that if he wants to.

Do you even watch the ECW show anymore now you've left WWE?

I don't watch it but I'm sure I'm not missing much.

People do still talk to me about it, but mostly as if it's something going on that they don't know about.

I still have fans come up to me and say, "Rob, are you still with the ECW?"

ECW is like the b*****d stepchild and always has been.