John Cena Recalls Facing Rob Van Dam At ECW One Night Stand, Losing WWE Title

Rob Van Dam won the WWE Championship from John Cena at ECW One Night Stand, and Cena recently looked back at the match. Cena posted a new video to TikTok in which he spoke about the 2006 match, which saw the fans boo Cena heavily against the ECW original. You can check out the highlights below, per Fightful:

On the reaction he drew in the match: “So, here’s a moment that’s probably most talked in my career in WWE; ECW: One Night Stand. Hammerstein Ballroom against Rob Van Dam where I had a championship match against Rob and an additional match against my t-shirt. Now, I knew the crowd was going to be hostile, but hostile does not even describe the atmosphere in the Hammerstein Ballroom. They love Rob and they hate me. This was probably the peak of polarization that would leak into the WWE for years when you hear the name John Cena. It was either ‘he sucks’ or ‘he’s my guy.’ There was no one in this building saying ‘he’s my guy.'”

On the match itself: “Rob and I went back and forth and you can see kind of a non virtuous side where I begin to push the boundaries of good and evil because I was trying everything and it seemed like the world was against me. Indeed, it was. Rob’s talent absolutely shows in this match, but the world right here is against me as I’m speared through a table by Darth Vader aka my arch-nemesis Edge. Rob gets a championship moment, which is fantastic and Edge and I go on to do some incredible things in the WWE. What a night at the Hammerstein Ballroom. No one would ever call this to happen.”

@johncena #ECW: One Night Stand June 11, 2006 #wwe ♬ original sound – John Cena