wrestling / News
Rob Van Dam Recalls How His WCW Offer Being Leaked Got Him To Stay In ECW
Rob Van Dam had an offer from WCW back in the Monday Night Wars era, and he recently revealed how that got him to stay in ECW. RVD talked about the situation on the latest episode of 1 Of a Kind, noting that he was offended at how he wasn’t booked for Barely Legal and nearly left ECW before he got an offer from Eric Bischoff, which was leaked to news outlets. You can see highlights below, courtesy of Wrestling Inc:
On his WCW offer being leaked: “Paul said, ‘Is there anything I can do to make you want to stay?’ That’s not a bad way to start negotiations, especially since I really didn’t want to go. I loved the ECW style, it was my favorite and the most fun that I’d ever had. I appreciated how my efforts were making a difference, not just in ECW, but also, you know, in an outer wave [in] the whole industry, because everyone’s watching ECW and is influenced by it. The company is growing so much, we’re hot, and the crowds are doubling. I’m like, ‘Man, I would rather stay and be the whole F’N show than be a cog in the wheel [in WCW].'”
On Heyman promising to get RVD booked on WWE TV: “I said, ‘How are you going to do that?’ He goes, ‘Let’s just say Vince owes me some favors. If I could do that, if I could put you on Raw just for a few weeks … and you would be on ECW here. You will be in the spotlight. The business would be around you. You’d be the center point, plus all the money and s–t.’ And that’s how we worked it out. I was like, ‘You really can do that?’ I had no idea about his relationship, none of us did, with WWE. We didn’t know he was working for them. I sure didn’t know that he was selling me to them without me knowing which ended up being the case.”