Indmeldt: 12. feb 2005 Indlæg: 5021 Geografisk sted: Back to the old school
Skrevet: Man mar 28, 2005 11:42 pm Emne: RobbieVanDam er vist sur (shoot interview fra The Sun)
Hi Rob - can you tell us about the injury that is currently keeping you out of the ring?
My knee has been bothering me for quite some time, around four years, and has been progressively getting worse.
The final straw came in January when my torn meniscus tissue folded into my knee and became lodged.
I had surgery eight weeks ago to get my meniscus fixed and to get my ACL repaired as well - and it already feels better than it has for two years.
I'm told it will take quite some time until all the work in my knee has settled and get me back to where I'm 100 per cent in shape for competition. I'm looking at about six months down time.
That was hard for me to swallow at first and I had to reach a point where I accepted the fact that it was impossible for me to avoid surgery.
The bright side is I'm happy to be spending time with my wife, which is rare, and in my comic book store.
And when I come back, as corny and clich?d as this sounds, I'll be in better shape than ever before.
Are you upset to be missing WrestleMania 21 in Hollywood?
Missing WrestleMania was definitely a hard one to choke down and one I ran past the big boss when I was trying to make a decision on surgery.
He was very influential and supportive in telling me that I had plenty of WrestleManias ahead of me and it was important to get my injuries taken care of.
It's especially hard this year, as WrestleMania 21 is in my back yard.
The only cool thing is it will be a huge time for my store and we're doing our biggest promotions ever around Mania. We're giving away tickets for the show and in the run up we have Chris Benoit, Kane and Spike Dudley coming in for signings.
Can you tell us a bit about the planned ECW One Night Stand PPV - set to take place on June 12 - and does your injury lay-off mean you'll be missing it?
It definitely looks like I'm not going to be able to wrestle on that show, but I have been known to step out of the box when it comes to physical limits so we'll see what happens.
It's not impossible and, even if I can't have an actual match, I'll definitely be out there in some shape or form giving it everything I've got.
To tell you the truth, missing this event was harder to swallow than WrestleMania.
I've always been very pro-ECW, it was what developed me and my fan base and where I was best showcased. It's what makes my new DVD so awesome.
And the real hard part is that having an ECW reunion show was my idea!
Is One Night Stand going to be a real ECW show or a WWE style event featuring ECW wrestlers?
I haven't talked to anybody officially about the show for the last two months, so I don't know exactly what's happening.
But one thing I do know is sceptical fans who are saying this is going to be a "disappointing, watered down, WWE version of ECW" are absolutely wrong.
The whole idea behind the show is that we have all these wrestlers who are ECW alumni within the WWE.
At the time I came up with this plan we had 26, including guys like Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero as well as the obvious ones who have ECW written all over their faces.
For a lot of us, our heart is still there and if we get the chance to go out and perform ECW style we're not going to hold back!
And we're not going to be told to hold back - because the whole reason behind this PPV is to reach out to those fans who still chant "E-C-W" and sent the DVD sales through the roof.
It's going to be very authentic with no extra games included.
If ECW was still going where do you think you'd be wrestling right now?
If ECW had continued to grow at the rate that it was I still would still be there, for sure.
I don't regret any of the sacrifices I made for ECW but, at the same time, I couldn't have continued to do that at the same rate for the rest of the peak of my career.
ECW was growing so quickly, it had to continue at that pace for all of us to survive.
We went from wrestling in front of 200 people to 5000 people. We got PPVs, action figures and even a national TV deal.
Do you think ECW went under because the people in charge couldn't cope with that growth?
You said it right there.
And the people in charge were, unfortunately, only Paul.
I'm not saying I could run a company better, but that's definitely what happened.
To a lot of us on the inside, who watched it happen, at certain times it seemed almost intentional. Because there were a lot of decisions that could have possibly saved it.
But it wasn't its destiny and now ECW has a different kind of appreciation.
And if this PPV goes off it's really going to rejuvenate that energy people haven't felt for so long.
If it's a success then, at the very least, I expect this to become an annual event.
Is there a real closeness between the ex-ECW wrestlers backstage in the WWE?
There is and, I'll tell you this, the other guys are jealous of it.
It's because of what we've been through together, where we've gone and where we're at now.
You develop a certain bond with somebody when you're in the ring with them beating the snot out of them and you know you've broken this guy's nose twice and he's busted you up.
Doing that night after night you develop respect and then strong friendships, which don't just drop when you walk out of the door.
The ECW guys all share that common energy and heart - and we're all still proud of what we achieved and how different we were.
Outside of the WWE I'm friends with a lot of the guys like Sabu - who I've known since I was 18 when we were trained by his uncle The Sheik - Kid Kash, Balls Mahoney and Justin Credible.
How would you describe your DVD to people who've only seen you wrestle in the WWE?
It's very important to me that all my fans who haven't seen me in ECW watch my matches from there - as it was a better place for my talents to be showcased.
Everybody knows I'm unique, and one of the ways I'm different is that I'm a lot tougher than most wrestlers. And in ECW the tougher guys got ahead, that's why I was on top.
You can expect every match from those days to last 20 minutes with lots of fan interaction - because I would stop after a really sweet move to high five the whole front row - blood, chairs, tables, cement floors and just real hardcore wrestling.
They did a great job putting the DVD together and I had a hand in picking out some of the matches, which cover the best parts of my career. It's awesome.
There is six hours of RVD action on there and, I believe, 10 of the 16 matches featured are from ECW.
The matches are only half the story - you also get me talking about my career and explaining important parts from my perspective.
Let's face it, the fans know that when they watch WWE they don't see RVD with a microphone in his hand any more. So this is a good chance to hear me talk.
Well, I am still in WWE. But I don't know for sure that I've found a permanent place on the card, because they do shuffle me around quite a bit.
When I first came in, the office was pretty confused on what to do with me.
People were saying I was different, I was reckless, I was going to hurt myself because I was diving out to the floor. And, oh my God, if only they knew that sometimes I even suntanned indoors without wearing goggles!
But they did notice the crowd would go nuts over me.
Sometimes I feel that was kind of denied, because it wasn't in someone's original plans, but the fans have pulled me through everything regardless of any politics.
I came in and I was wrestling against The Rock, and I beat him, and Steve Austin, and I beat him, and a lot of people said I was going to be the next champion.
Then they'd ask me: "Hey, how comes you're on the bottom of the card now. Is it because you wrestled that other guy and hurt him?"
Who knows? Who am I to say? Maybe you've got to ask him.
Recently I've loved working with Rey Mysterio - before we got the tag belts it didn't look like I was going in any definite direction.
But it doesn't matter to me if I'm the main event or the opening match. Just throw me out there, I'll do my thing and my fans are going to be pleased to see it.
The most genuine feeling of truth I get is when I'm out in the ring and the fans are all holding up RVD signs and screaming my name. Nobody can deny that!
Would you like to see the return of the WWE hardcore title that you personally brought a lot of prestige to?
I really wish they'd bring the hardcore title back - I'd take that one over the heavyweight belt any day!
I never wanted it to retire.
And they played my music to hand it over to Cactus Jack - what's up with that?
I made the hardcore title mean a hell of a lot more than anybody planned on, and I think that's why they got rid of it.
My matches were the best representation of what a match with hardcore elements can achieve. Before that the belt just meant that somebody might get a plunger in the face, fight in a toilet or something really stupid like that.
It was a joke to the WWE and I think they were making fun of ECW, which was me at the time.
So when I came in I said: "No, no, no - this is what hardcore is about."
But that was a long time ago now, so I'd recommend everyone buys the DVD and sees what an artist can really do!
The outstanding bouts on your DVD are undoubtedly the hardcore brawls with Sabu and classic contests with Jerry Lynn - where that artistry is very evident - what were they like to work with?
Sabu and I were like brothers in ECW, we travelled everywhere together and had each others' backs in and out of the ring. That's something I've never shared with anyone else in the business.
The first time I wrestled Jerry Lynn was in the ECW Arena in Philadelphia in front of about 800 people before we got our national TV deal.
Sabu had wrestled Jerry a few times and actually told me to squash him, he said: "You should beat this guy in seven minutes."
I was like: "I don't know though, I've watched Jerry and he's pretty good."
I went out there and we really clicked, we tested and stretched each other in ways no other wrestlers could.
The first match I had with Jerry was 25 minutes and we fought all over the crowd, went through tables and I ended up looking like I'd been through a battlefield.
At the point of victory I felt like I'd earned it and wanted to have that sort of match every week.
So we had a series of great matches and you couldn't see anything like that anywhere, at the time or today.
We would just go and go and go. We wrestled so much and the fans studied us so much, that they understood Jerry had a counter to my counter of his counter of my original move. So the next time we wrestled we would put a counter on top of that!
Those matches with Jerry were the favourite bouts of my career.
They all kind of blend together in my mind, but I will say the last match we had in ECW at the Hammerstein Ballroom stands out as being one of the best.
When I watch that now, I'm like: "Oh my God, I forgot I used to do that move!"
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Are you upset that you can't let it all hang out in the WWE like you did in those bouts?
When I first came into the WWE, that was part of the adjusting I had to do. And I held onto, and still hold onto, as much of my hardcore style as I can.
So you'll still see me do my 360 leg drop from the apron to the guardrail and, when I can get it in, I'll bring a chair in and hit a Van Daminator.
Obviously the whole style isn't going to fit in, because it's a piece to a different puzzle, but I'm still connecting with the fans and receiving their positive energy.
My favourite WWE match was against Jeff Hardy at Invasion, when I first came in and was reeking of ECW.
Since then I'd also add my ladder matches with Christian and Eddie Guerrero. Because any time you can bring a ladder or chair in the ring it means much more to me.
You were traded from Raw to Smackdown last year - how has that worked out for you?
I think it's worked out pretty well.
I enjoyed Raw as it's taped live in the US on Mondays, so straight after my match people could call me and say "hey, you were good tonight" whereas now they've got to wait a couple of days to see me.
I didn't want to switch but since I did I was glad that Booker T came over too, because he's my best friend in the company.
Also the Smackdown dressing room seems to be a little fresher, as a higher percentage of the wrestlers are not established and are working harder to show what they've got. I can have better matches with guys with attitudes like that.
Have you ever considered leaving the WWE and maybe going to Japan or a US federation like NWA:TNA or Ring Of Honor where you could wrestle a more hardcore style and be higher up the card?
There was a brief moment between the end of my last contract and us renewing it when I looked around at the other options.
But it would be very foolish to leave what I've got to go anywhere else.
To quit the WWE would be such a huge step backwards in money, prestige, exposure and everything that's important about being an entertainer.
The WWE is the top sports entertainment company in the world and I'm reminded of that every time I come to a place like the UK and see all these little kids pointing their thumbs, going "R-V-D".
When you're on the inside you get a little bit out of perspective, but then you get out there and it's like "I didn't know there's an RVD flashlight, where did you get that from?"
It reminds you that the WWE is such a huge part of world culture, almost like Coke or Pepsi.
Indmeldt: 18. jan 2005 Indlæg: 31 Geografisk sted: Fyn
Skrevet: Tirs mar 29, 2005 7:23 pm Emne:
Ah synes nu godt man kan lugte lidt bitterhed over WWEs mangel p? lyst til at bruge ham til noget fornuftigt.
Det er sgu ogs? en skam at han ikke har f?et et ordentligt push!!
Indmeldt: 19. okt 2004 Indlæg: 894 Geografisk sted: The Underworld
Skrevet: Tirs mar 29, 2005 8:21 pm Emne:
9t5Nasty skrev:
Ah synes nu godt man kan lugte lidt bitterhed over WWEs mangel p? lyst til at bruge ham til noget fornuftigt.
Det er sgu ogs? en skam at han ikke har f?et et ordentligt push!!
kan ik v?re mere enig... jeg kan lige se for mig at han sidder og bander af vince (selvf?lgelig ik n?r vince er der)
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