Rob Van Dam Regrets That Sid Vicious Match Never Happened

On the latest episode of 1 Of A Kind, Rob Van Dam told the story of a dream match against Sid Vicious that never came to fruition during a tour for the AWR promotion in Europe. You can check out some highlights below:

On wrestling Sid: “Someone that comes to mind is… Sid Vicious. So I did wrestle him once as Matt Burns. A lot of people know this. Me and — I believe the dude was Scott Casey? Or was it Casey Thompson? Casey Thompson, I think. I think Scott Casey was Eddie Mansfield’s friend from back in the day. I think Casey Thompson was the guy that got squashed with me against Sid. That match was nothing. We were there for the payday, whatever.

“not counting that, I was going to wrestle him in — I don’t know if it was Paris. Somewhere for AWR, when they were over there. We had great tours over there in AWR. Sid was on a tour, and the first night in he hurt himself. Clotheslined X-Pac so stiff in the face that his whole bicep was blue. I don’t know if it was torn or just bruised. It was completely purple and blue for the whole tour. So he was babying it and stuff. He was supposed to wrestle me at the end of it, towards the end of it. I was really looking forward to that match at that time. He wasn’t.”

On Sid not being excited to wrestle him: “He was like, ‘Man, I don’t think I can do it. Man, I don’t know.’ I’m like, ‘No! Bro, trust me, it’s gonna be the best match you’ve ever had.’ I felt like that. I’m wrestling Bam Bam Bigelow not that long before, One Man Gang, all these giants and stuff. And I really liked Sid as the monster of intensity that he was. And I was thinking, ‘This is–‘ you know, and at that point, I had that competitive spirit in me, that fight in me to where I just knew, ‘Bam, this was going to be a great match.’ I was looking forward to it, not even knowing what I was going to do. I just knew that about it. Our chemistry was going to be fantastic.

“And he kept saying, ‘I don’t know, man,  I don’t know if I’m up for it.’ When it comes down to the showtime, he went to the boss, said he wasn’t feeling up to working with me. Got the match switched back to X-Pac. And then all the match was, much to X-Pac’s surprise, which he found out live in action. The bell rings. Sid went over, kicked him in the gut, powerbombed him and held him down for a three count. That was the whole match. And Sid went home. I’m not talking bad about Sid. I was just really gonna take care of him. We were gonna have a great match.”

On his reaction to it: “But hey, you know. When you don’t feel like you’re 100% that can really do a lot to you mentally. Which then in turn, you feel physically and your spirit feels that he didn’t have the spirit in him to do that. But I always regretted that, so that just pops in my mind when you ask who would I like to have a match with? I still think that match would have been pretty awesome. So, I think that’s my answer. If we can count him as an ’80s wrestler.”

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.