Wrestling fans know that Rob Van Dam is one of a kind, and he has a unique personality to say the least. RVD has made a career bringing his cool, calm and laid back personality to TV, but it sounds like some people were unsure about his character when he arrived in WWE.
Recently the former WWE Champion appeared on 2 Scoops Of, and he was asked if Vince McMahon ever wanted to change his character. Van Dam noted that it wasn’t Vince McMahon specifically, but there were other people in WWE who wanted him to make some changes.
“It wasn’t Vince, but I felt like a lot of the other people would try to get me to change a little bit and bend more towards conformity. I always had issues with that. That part was a struggle for me, especially transitioning into the company. There were several times where I felt like they were particularly messing with me with bad intentions, and sometimes I wanted to fight just to defend myself in the industry. There would be weird things they would have me do that I wouldn’t do. It’s weird when you’re in charge of your character because you’re known as this person. It’s not like playing an acting part on a soap opera, people know of me as Rob Van Dam, have for however many years, and now I have someone else writing what I would do, my actions, my conversations, and my thoughts, and they don’t get me. They never understood me and they were always confused because I’m different.”
“One time, Michael Hayes said, ‘The other people don’t get you, but I get you. You’re a surfer dude, right?’ ‘I’m not a surfer, what are you talking about?’ They want me to wear different outfits. They didn’t like the airbrushing, that was a thing at one point. There were a few times where they wanted to pull me aside and work on me with my promos. At the time, I was just too big-headed. ‘Look, you guys hired me because of what I do, just let me do it, let me be me.’ They wanted me to get angry, so angry, grrrr. They thought that’s where the money is. I’m like, ‘You have everyone else than can be angry, I’m sending a message to people, people look up to me. I don’t believe you should let anger get the best of you.’ They would be like, ‘this guy is lost, we’re going to get someone else to talk to him.’ There was a lot of that.”
Luckily for Rob Van Dam he stayed true to himself and went on to have an exciting career that earned him a Hall of Fame induction in 2021. There’s currently no word on when RVD could appear on WWE programming again, but he did return to the ring recently when he challenged Jack Perry for the FTW Championship on AEW Dynamite last month.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4rjr-8UVgY
H/T Fightful
