RVD Feels Vince McMahon Tried To Destroy ECW Brand

Rob Van Dam will always be remembered as one of the greatest high-flyers in the wrestling business. The Whole Dam Show recently opened up about Vince McMahon’s attempt to tarnish the original home field that made him with the ECW brand.

RVD was considered among the ECW Originals who rose to prominence. Van Dam’s high-flying style and ability to adapt to the extreme conditions of the brand made him a cornerstone for Paul Heyman’s hardcore promotion.

However, following ECW’s closure, Rob Van Dam journeyed to other promotions before finally making his arrival at WWE in 2001 as a part of the Invasion storyline. Over the years, Mr. Monday Night became an attraction for the company en route to winning multiple titles and accolades.

Rob Van Dam’s breakthrough came in 2006 when he defeated John Cena at ECW: One Night Stand. The event marked the beginning of the revamped ECW brand under the WWE banner with Van Dam as its champion and mainstream attraction.

Unlike the original extreme playground, this incarnation of ECW was much more traditional, as opposed to the extreme rules environment that made the brand famous. Moreover, Rob Van Dam blamed Vince McMahon for trying to destroy ECW’s legacy. He opened up about the same during an interview with Wrestling News.

“So at the time, I really looked at it defensively from ECW. You know, I thought he’s making a mockery of ECW. I thought he might have even brought ECW back just to destroy it because he didn’t like the fans chanting EC Dub. He took credit for it, so he trained them to chant EC Dub during the shows by putting out the ECW DVD. Then I was like, Wow, man, this dude’s crazy. Maybe he brought it back just to completely wipe out the extreme theme to it, and they did completely wipe out the extreme theme to it.

So it was like, you know, just like any other show except they put way less into it. Way less budget, way less advertising. The house shows at that time, you know, we’re just the old ECW crappy arenas from the mid 90s. We would sometimes film after SmackDown on the SmackDown night, and there was some kind of weird way that we were getting paid off a split of their gate which really wasn’t fair. In the end, you know, supposedly all the numbers ironed out, whatever.”

Rob Van Dam was the only superstar to hold the WWE and ECW championships at the same time during those years. The ECW brand, while not following its roots, eventually closed down in 2010 and was replaced with WWE NXT, a show that sought to find the next WWE Breakout Star with a completely different format.

Do you think RVD is right about Vince McMahon trying to destroy ECW? Sound off in the comments!