Rob Van Dam Recalls Training With The Ultimate Warrior

On the latest episode of 1 Of A Kind, Rob Van Dam shared the details of his only training session with the late Ultimate Warrior as he prepared for a comeback match. You can check out some highlights below:

Rob Van Dam on his connection to The Ultimate Warrior: “Well, that happened through a mutual associate friend. Yeah, so this dude, his name is Mr. Andrew Wright. He’s the author of Booker T’s first book. And I think he did Road Warrior Animal’s book. And anyway, I met him in England at this convention, and he was there with the Hardy Boys — at least Matt. I’m not sure if Jeff was there. But either way — man, it’s a long time ago too. But he was filming Matt and the Hardy Boys because they had their own reality show online. So he pitched it to me and said, ‘You know, they charge memberships, and they got this many thousand people paying every month. And they f**k around at their house on the property, and they do this and that.’ And I was like, ‘f**k yeah, I want to try that. That sounds cool.’ And that thereby started RVD TV. Which, at first, he was editing — or no, someone else was editing, his partner. And then I ended up taking over and editing it myself, and we were always trying to improve the website and trying to keep up with technology, to have it the best way.”

On setting it up: “He was also doing a documentary with Ultimate Warrior at that time. So he called me one time and said — or maybe he told me in person. I don’t remember… but either way — I think it was a call. But he told me that Ultimate Warrior was interested in working out with me. He wanted me to train him. He’s not been in the ring in 10 years, and he’s got a match coming up in — I think it was Africa, with Orlando Jordan… I was just like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ And he’s saying, ‘Well, he’ll come to you to LA. If you can find a ring that will let us work out in it. And I was like, ‘Well, yeah, that’d be awesome. I got conditions. I want to be able to film it, and I’ll make an episode for RVD TV. That would be huge, you know. And it’d be an honor and everything.’ And he agreed to it. And I remember asking Rick Bassman, because Rick Bassman was in charge of the ring by the airport in El Segundo. He said ‘Ultimate Warrior can pay. I’d happily charge him, just like I charge anybody else to use the ring.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, that doesn’t sound very good.’ But they had a lot of history.”

On getting to train with him: “It worked out. We coordinated. I went and picked up Ultimate Warrior. And yeah, Andrew wasn’t even in the car. I think it was just me and Medium Rob — I don’t know, there’s one more person. It might have been Mellow Matt. It was one of my clique, not one of his. But anyway, I picked him up from the airport… we went to the school, and we worked out. I put him through my stretch. Which, really, you know, that takes a long time. After an hour of stretching, nobody wanted to do anything. They were like, ‘Alright, I gotta get going now.’ But he ran the ropes a few times. You know, there wasn’t much of me actually training him.”

On what he did: “You know, [O would] say, ‘Like, dude, you need to be — let me show you ‘you.’ And I would imitate the Ultimate Warrior, you know, bouncing off the road. Like we just, ‘You need to be that, that’s what you are. You’re a ball of energy,’ you know. And it was more about that. But he wanted me to bump a few times for him, whatever. It was not — it wasn’t really extensive.”

On the end of the trip: “We just worked out. I took him back to the airport. He had another flight, and he went back to Arizona. It was only one time, and then it got out like I was training him, like we were spending a lot of time together. In fact, it was, you know, like an hour stretching, maybe an hour of running around the ring a little bit. And then, you know, filming other stuff.”

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.