WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam recently spoke on his podcast, “1 Of A Kind With RVD,” about a variety of professional wrestling topics including Sabu’s appearance in AEW, how his partner doesn’t get enough credit, and his recent run-in with Hulk Hogan. Here are the highlights:
On Sabu intentionally botching spots to fool the dirt sheets:
“He would do that and he would tell me he is gonna do it, and then I would see the write up and they would be criticizing him saying that he missed a bunch of spots because it was so different. It wouldn’t even, it wouldn’t fit in. And the only reason to do it would be, ‘Hey, that would happen.’”
“You know, but everyone’s gonna think he f*cked up. So he would do that for no reason. Like boom, set me up chair top rope. He would slip and like, fall to the floor and like, and everyone would be like, ‘what just happened?’”
“And he wanted it that realism and, and wanted to work the people in the, in the moment so much that, you know, sacrificed some of his credibility with certain marks. “
On Sabu’s AEW appearances:
“I knew that he was gonna be, debuting on Wednesday and then after that, I guess I knew that he was gonna be part of Sunday.”
On the potential of Sabu getting inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame next year at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia:
“Yeah, hopefully he would. He’s gotta have a good positive energy run for a while…”
On being approached by “Rich & Shameless” on TNT and his interaction with Hulk Hogan:
“They wanted me to be on the show they were gonna do on Hulk Hogan.
“The way that they pitched it to me was they’ll talk about my career, talk about his career, this and that. And when I saw Hulk, I mentioned it to him. He said, ‘Yeah, they wanna drag up a bunch of sh*t from the past.’
“Well, he didn’t want me to. He said, ‘I’d rather you not do it.’
“So I was like, ‘Well, nuff said,’ you know? Hulk’s the dude that I used to watch growing up. He’s the guy that I still feel like a fan around, like he’s Hulk Hogan…and, I watched it the other day and it was all about that sex tape.
“So I turned that down, but as soon as I did, I got this [other big] RVD project that I guess I can’t really talk about yet. But anyway, that’s just karma.’“
On New Jack punching Junkyard Dog at ECW Wrestlepalooza 1998:
“I was upset that new Jack punched him. I think allegedly JYD stiffed New Jack, maybe 50 bucks for some coke. At the time, it was just a bunch of drama like New Jack was known for, and he just kept saying, ‘He come up on me! He come up on me! He come up on me!’ Like over and over and over and over again. ‘He come up on me!’ So that became an inside joke forever.
“I was bummed cause JYD was one of the OGs when I grew up watching him and I thought, ‘How disrespectful,’ but I don’t know what happened.”
You can check out the complete show below:
(h/t to RVDPod.com for the transcription)
