Rob Van Dam On How Certain Moves Have Lost Their Shine In Today’s Wrestling

On the latest episode of 1 Of A Kind, Rob Van Dam talked about certain moves that do not matter anymore in pro wrestling, Dean Malenko, and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On Dean Malenko: “It’s so funny to think of him being serious, but he is in the ring. His character’s serious, but yeah. He’s a nonstop walking joke box, always trying to make people laugh. With silly one-liners and stuff, you know, not pointing out like, ‘Dude, look, he’s got toilet paper hanging from his–‘ For him, it’s more like, ‘Hey, you know how to make a handkerchief dance? But a little boogie in it.’ You know, just real stupid and dry and it’s — I appreciate him [and] always have.”

On certain moves not mattering anymore: “We’re not diving into the crowd and fighting with chairs, and weapons and swearing, and bleeding, and busting through tables. Now I think they do it too much. Because whenever I see an announcer table getting broke, I’m like, ‘Does that even mean anything anymore?’ It’s the same thing with the dives, same thing with the Stone Cold Stunner. Same thing with the the Canadian Destroyer. It’s like, every single match had to have all of these elements in it, it seemed like for a long time.

“But I feel like they’re busting out of that now. And it’s awesome. It’s good to see them busting out of that, because for a while it was hard for me to fathom what they’re doing or why they’re doing that, why it’s changed in that way. Why does everybody want to do moves that other wrestlers got over? I don’t know, but I think that we’re getting out of it and back a little bit to the way that the wrestling was before. And maybe not with every company, but that offers them a good chance to be different if they go different directions.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 1 Of A Kind an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.