Rob Van Dam Interview (February 2000)

Interview: Rob Van Dam

“The Whole F’n show” talks about injuries, politics, loyalty and his battle to return to the ring!

February 14, 2000

ECW is the fastest growing wrestling company in the U.S. today, and Rob Van Dam is the biggest star in it. Having embarked on a two-year winning streak, the ECW TV champion (who's held the belt two full years this April 4th) was set to finally capture the company's world championship after kick-starting a feud with Mike Awesome. Then the unthinkable happened. Van Dam was sidelined with a broken ankle he suffered in a main event match against Rhino two weeks ago. Now he talks to IGN Wrestling's Editor-In-Chief Blake Norton about his injury, his rehab, the fate of his Television championship, his quest to win the heavyweight championship and more from his new home in California.

Norton : Last time we talked it was for ECW Magazine and you were planning to come out west – now you’re out here. Does it cause problems since ECW operates on the East coast?

Van Dam : It makes the flight a little more challenging. I was never on the East anyway, I was in Florida, so I traded in a two or three hour flight for a five or six hour. It can be a pain in the ass doing two days out of every week, travelling from one coast to the other, but I knew what I was getting in to. I love it here in L.A., it’s beautiful and it’s worth coming home to.

Norton : I’m out West as well, and there’s a lack of Indy promotions out here. Have you thought about making some one time appearances with one of them?

Van Dam : In general I don’t do indys because ECW keeps me so damn busy. I just use my time off to be at home with my wife. I did an autograph signing at one show, but not many people knew about it. I check out the indys once in a while but I generally don’t get involved.

Norton :You spoke before about wanting to get into acting. Is that why you came out west?

Van Dam : Absolutely. That’s a lot of what excited me about L.A., being out the West Coast. I have been active in the entertainment business. I have meetings almost every week, with producers and such. Before I got hurt I was doing an audition every week, I just love it. I did a City Guys commercial and I’m going to be on TNN’s show 18 Wheels of Justice in the near future. Some of these projects will come through, some won’t, but there’s great opportunity out here. I don’t have any huge goals about being a movie star, I just want to be involved….. I just don’t like being an extra! (laughs)

Norton : You injured your ankle two weeks ago. How did it happen?

Van Dam : It was in Orlando, a house show with 800 people, the end of the Florida loop. They billed it as being my first appearance in the building, as ECW had only done it twice before when I was looking after my wife (who was in an accident a few months ago). Very early in the match I did a baseball slide, tried to go under the bottom rope from the inside to the outside and my ankle rolled underneath me. That’s all it was, it was very simple. I kept going, trying to shake it off and see how bad an injury it was. That’s what I’d generally do. Often when you’re in the ring…..

Norton : You twist your ankle or….

Van Dam : Yeah. Sometimes I’d hit my head just right so one of my arms goes numb, so I’d give it a few minutes. A lot of times I’ll feel it later when I cool down, but this time I couldn’t shake it off! (both laugh) I did some kicks, some backflips, couldn’t shake it. When I got x-rayed I was very surprised to find out my fibula was broken in two places.

Norton : That’s the weird thing, it’s the nature of wrestling. It’s all high-risk. It’s funny to read that Rob Van Dam, who regularly jumps 20 feet into the crowd, broke his leg doing a baseball slide.

Van Dam : Yeah, it completely shocked me. No matter how hard it hurt, I was sure it wasn’t broken just because it was a baseball slide. We’re reviewing the tapes, and I’m pretty sure we’ll find out I tripped over a piece of Kryptonite, we’ll find who threw that in the ring.

Norton : I remember talking to Keith Hart, one of the Hart brothers, who told me about how fifteen years ago he slipped on some soda a fan spilled outside the ring and his knee hasn’t been the same since, that’s all it takes.

Van Dam : Yeah, I hurt this same foot back in ’92 when I used to wrestle barefoot. I threw a sidekick on the outside. Same thing, I slipped on a soda and fractured my foot. Still, fans shouldn’t bring kryptonite into the ring (joking about making the mistake himself).

Norton : When you’re wrestling impact wrestling, and the ring has to be 100% perfect because you have to use all of it. It’s imperative that the fans get that message. The same thing happened with Droz, D’Lo Brown slipped on a can and that’s all it took.

Van Dam : This was something very simple where whether it was the sole of my shoe, or the mat, or a slight bit off on my co-ordination, because of that we’re looking at twelve weeks out of the ring. It’s incredible.

Norton : So it’s twelve weeks…..

Van Dam : It’s been two weeks, so it’s another ten I hope. It will be three weeks before I can put any weight on it at all. Then I’ll have a special boot for three to four weeks, then rehab for three to four weeks. I’m not going to hit the ring as soon as I can walk. Everybody, from the doctors to Paul Heyman to the fans, have told me to wait until I’m 115%. They don’t want to see me hobbling around. It’s not going to be worth a few weeks against the rest of my career.

Norton : Well, we’re talking to the guy who finished a match on a broken leg here…

Van Dam : (Laughs) Exactly.

Norton : I was watching ECW on Friday. Cyrus shows up, does his bit about "the network doesn’t care about RVD", then sets up Spike vs. Dupps for the title, Spike wins in a matter of seconds and they go right to a break.

Van Dam : I have no official info, I don’t know what the plans are. I was completely surprised as well! (laughs) I noticed that after the match they didn’t announce him the champion.

Norton : Yeah, they went straight to break, and it didn’t come up as a topic later in the show. They just ignored it completely.

Van Dam : Shane Douglas held his title while injured for years. Every time he’d take his cast off he’d scratch his elbow and put it back on. I don’t plan on having anyone else defend my title for me, and I don’t plan on giving it up to any tournament or dropping it in the mean time. I hope I have the option to defend it, like you just said I wrestled with a broken leg. I’ll wrestle hopping on one leg if I have to and still kick everybody’s ass! Right now I’ve had the belt for 22 months, making me the longest reigning champion in the business. I don’t plan on making it to two years by taking time off, but at the same time, if I hold the title for three, four, five years, I don’t think anybody’s going to look at a few weeks out of that being a major part of it.

Norton : You’re given two options – either the title goes up for a tournament or you have to defend it and put someone else over for it, which would you rather do?

Van Dam : (Pause) Well, if I was in the ring defending it, who’d beat me? (laughs) I think if it was a tournament and somebody was to win the title that way they might not be happy because they didn’t beat me. The fans wouldn’t be happy either.

Norton : It would de-value the title, because RVD is the top guy, and the new champion not beating Van Dam means that he’s not necessarily the top guy.

Van Dam : Right. And I think that if a guy like Lynn won the title now, there’s no way he’d keep it, he’d say "let’s hold it until Rob comes back", then I’d kick his ass and take it back (laughs).

Norton : I loved the angle with you, Sabu, Mike Awesome….. so did the fans. People have been waiting for you to get in on the world title scene for years. Have you any idea if you’ll pick that program back up, with or without Sabu, when you return?

Van Dam : I’m not sure what’s happening yet. I know that when I get back in the ring I’ll continue exactly where I was where I left off. Awesome will continue to say he’s the only true champ, and the fans will continue to chant "RVD!" and that’ll bring me out. So sure, when I come back I still plan on kicking Mike Awesome’s ass. As far as Sabu, I don’t know if he’s going to be in ECW or not. As it comes to my ears, it keeps changing, so I don’t know.

Norton : ECW today is a different company to what it was five years ago, now there’s magazines, video games… do you think the respect the fans give the wrestlers has evolved or changed now that ECW is a national product?

Van Dam : I’ll tell you, ECW is a prime example of wrestling evolved. Compare it to wrestling in the 80’s where you didn’t have to have personality and didn’t have to wrestle, if you were big and marketable you’d be pushed. If you could dance, or hold a pig or wear a chain, or sing a song… if you were 300lbs, 6’6, you could have a job. That is when wrestling was at a major peak. Then it came back down, and now that it’s up to its all-time peak, it’s because wrestling has changed, and it is the same crowd watching now that did then.

Unlike back in the 80’s, now the fans are told that wrestling is entertainment, and they’re still entertained my watching it. It makes them appreciate the harder working wrestlers. That’s the way a guy like RVD can get ahead in this business. A guy like Rey Mysterio, 140 pounds, couldn’t get a job ten years ago, not to mention be considered a top wrestler. In the same respect, now in the year 2000 ECW is the cutting edge. ECW has the hardest workers, the guys willing to give more of their body to the crowd, literally, breaking their bones or cutting pieces of them off (laughs), whatever it is.

I get praise constantly from the RVD fans for my work ethic. I think that the Monday Night groups wouldn’t let their wrestlers work as hard as they want to work and be used to putting in the two and a half minutes they’re used to. I feel wrestling fans’ respect is at an all time high, whether it’s chanting my name, buying my product or just telling me, they’ll come up and say "The stuff you do, the high flying, on the microphone, you have great skills", I believe them. I don’t believe they’ll go up to Balls Mahoney after I leave and tell him the same thing. I know they’re sincere. If you want to go back five or six years, the fans still had admiration for the pro wrestlers as celebrities, but they didn’t have the same respect for what they have to go through. Now with A&E specials and everything, the fans know what’s going on and respect us all as hard workers.

Norton : Jumping to home for a second, how’s Sonya doing?

Van Dam : She’s doing much better. She’s unfortunately got the burden of taking care of both of us right now. I can’t put any weight on my foot, so I can’t lug boxes up the stairs. She just put her crutches down the week before I picked mine up, and she’s still going to therapy, but she’s doing way better. She’s way ahead of schedule as far as her recovery goes. They told her they expected it to be twelve months after the accident until she was ready for another operation, but she did so well she took it out after six months. I learned a lot from watching her bounce around on her crutches. Sometimes I feel like a Chinese acrobat, balancing on one crutch and using the other to reach something. It’s all that martial arts training (laughs).

Norton : Are there any thoughts in the back of your head about having a family?

Van Dam : Not in the near future….. it’s not something that is one of our goals. I have a busy, hectic lifestyle I have now, that I’ve worked hard to get. I see it only increasing over the next few years.

Norton : So you’ll be back in the ring, going as "extreme" as ever?

Van Dam : Exactly. I’m on a temporary halt, but it’s all upwards and onwards. Sonya and I are going through it together. We’ve had five broken bones between the two of us the last six months, and I don’t have a record of that (getting injured) at all. I’m hoping it’ll be another five or six years before I get another injury. Now that I’m at the starting line, I’m just revving my engines up, and the second I get a green light I’ll be outta here!

Interview: Rob Van Dam (Part 2)

Rob discusses drugs in wrestling, psychology, and answers questions from IGN Wrestling's readers!

February 14, 2000

The second and final part of IGN Wrestling's Rob Van Dam interview – continued from part one.

Norton : The last time we talked you insisted on tackling all the hard questions as well as the easy. You wanted to clear the air about a television interview where words were put in your mouth about drugs in wrestling. It was edited out of the ECW Magazine interview the last time we talked about it, do you want to touch on it again?

Van Dam : It wasn’t so much words put in my mouth….. I was interviewed about a wrestling lifestyle. I’m very cautious about exposing parts of the business, especially to a new area. I was very, very cautious and approached the interview with many questions. I was told many times it would be about our lifestyle, about being on the road, working in the gym, the schedule, the appearances and all that. I said "yeah great, I’d love to do that". Then I got word it may be a negative piece and they said "Oh, no, it will just be about your lifestyle, no problem". So when I went to do it, this lady knocked on my door, I didn’t even give her my address, I didn’t expect to do it here. When I did the interview for ESPN, she asked about nothing but drugs, drugs, drugs. "I thought this was going to be about our lifestyle" I said. She said "Yeah, the lifestyle, about doing drugs." A bunch of questions I was asked were printed out of context. She asked about Louie Spiccoli, my buddy, overdosing on Somas. She said she heard I was going down that road. My answer to that was "I can’t say I’m on the same road, but at the same time watching my friend die was a learning experience for me, and will help me make better decisions later on". They played that answer without her question…

Norton : So what it looked like what she was saying was true….

Van Dam : Yeah. It’s been at least a year since it came out, I can’t remember exactly how it worked, but out of the whole show they only had like one line from me and made it sound exactly like you said, like my answer was to a different question.

Norton : On to the fans’ questions. The last time you were on television during the Mike Awesome confrontation, you made the 4:20 drug reference. You get critics saying that you’re giving a bad example to younger fans. How do you respond to that?

Van Dam : As a professional wrestler, or as a role model or even a celebrity, I don’t endorse pot smoking. Several references you refer to are usually made by the fans or made in jest towards me. That’s the way it’s always been. The fans bring signs, they were the first ones with the Pot sign, I didn’t make the shirt that had that on it. It was pretty cool, and I have fans that are kids, but when kids have an RVD 4:20 shirt it’s because Van Dam is their favorite wrestler. To them, it means that it’s time for Rob Van Dam to come out and smoke someone’s ass. It’s not about drugs, they’re not thinking about them and I wouldn’t want them to. Kids should stay away from drugs. They’ll be a hindrance and a danger to whatever they want to do. The interview I did in high-times magazine which started all the hype you’re referring to is the place and time, not that I wouldn’t do it again, I would, but that’s the place and that’s the time for me to expose my views on the whole situation. There’s a lot of different drugs, pot is pot, there’s other drugs out there obviously, and in high times magazine that’s the time and place to give one’s views, not anywhere else. In wrestling magazines and on TV shows, anything like that, mostly it’s the fans making those references to me or a slight adjustment. I’m dead set against having fans who look up to me get the wrong impression and think that it’s cool to start a bad habit they don’t do, with me being the inspiration for it.

Norton : Very cool. On to fans’ questions. Mike asks, have you ever gotten an injury doing the crazy somersault off the top? You take these incredible dives, have you ever hurt yourself?

Van Dam : I’ve never hurt myself on that particular dive. The dive where I run and clear the top rope, plancha out onto my opponent on the inside of the guard rail, a less extreme move I suppose, I did that once in Florida, again, which went wrong. I did a flip on to Bam Bam Bigelow, and my legs hit his him in the chest. I bounced back and landed on my head, split it open. Lots of blood instantly, but of course, being Rob Van Dam I went on and continued the match.

Norton : Next question, one of the many fans who wrote in with this; "When will you become the ECW champ? You deserve a title shot, you’re the whole F’ing Show!"

Van Dam : The belt is there when I want it, I think most fans know that. I’m not just the longest reigning champ in the business but the top guy in the company. Where else is there to go? I’d prefer to have my reign when ECW is kicking ass in the ratings, when we’re one of the top two, which is coming up very shortly. That would be a good time for me. What happens in the mean time? If I have to kick the current champ’s ass, so be it.

Norton : Where did you meet Bill Alfonso, and who got you into wrestling?

Van Dam : I met him up in ECW in Jan of ’96 when I debuted. I hadn’t met him before that point. The original Sheik, not the Iron Sheik, as many newer fans get confused about, trained me in Michigan. I met him and started schooling with him in December of ’89.

Norton : This comes from Mogo: What is your ultimate goal in the industry?

Van Dam : My ultimate goal….. hmm…. I’d have to say it varies with my age, my place in life etc. There was a time when I was a teenager, before I met the Sheik, I was only 170 pounds. I wanted in wrestling so bad I would have refereed for years. I was at the time setting the ring up, tearing it down, travelling around by fighting sometimes two kickboxing shows a night. After I got in the business, for the first three or four years I just wanted to make it. I didn’t know how far I’d make it, but the guys who looked at me as being green, I wanted to be better than those guys. I wanted them to look up to me. The first several years I had many times when I felt like turning around… I’d break down, I got so discouraged. I’m glad now I pushed past those points. I had some sh*tty jobs on the side to supplement my income, I paid my dues. Then I go in to ECW, wrestling is my whole life, I’m making a living in it. Before you know it, I’m told I’m one of the best wrestlers in the world. I didn’t need to hear that, I never aimed for it. PWI ranked me at the top (he came number 2 in the PWI 500). It was never one of my goals in the business, but at this point I want to make enough money while I can wrestle so I don’t have to go back to a sh*tty job after I finish.

Short term, I’ve always tried to wrestle the best match on the card. When I was in WCW (Rob had a very short stint in WCW), whether I’m in front of thirteen people or on Pay Per View.

Norton : "I’m going to the Living Dangerously Pay Per View. Is there any chance you’ll be doing color commentary, ala Shane Douglas at Heatwave a while back?"

Van Dam : At this point…… sure, I’d have to say there’s a chance. I don’t know what I’m going to be doing, I won’t be in the ring wresting, so doing commentary has as much of a chance of happening as much as anything else. At this point it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Short of that, what are we going to do except interview me and look at my foot? (laughs) There’s a good chance, but that’s not based on anything I’ve been told, so nothing is definite.

Norton : Popular question – why don’t you go to the WWF or WCW? The money would probably be better, the matches would definitely be easier in the sense that matches are shorter and less intense…

Van Dam : Being at the top of ECW I’m making good money. It’s not the same as the top of the WWF or top of WCW, but there’s no guarantee I could go into one of those positions. Even if I could.. I don’t like WCW. It’d be hard for me to think of something I like about them. Their show basically sucks. The WWF is very entertaining to watch, but they’re still not best for me. I prefer to work hard and that’s how I want to do it. I don’t want to wrestle 2-3 minute matches every night, I don’t want to wrestle girls, I don’t want to get shot with a fire extinguisher and go down for the count. That’s just not me. Yeah, there’s more money there…..

Norton : But ECW suits your talent and your personality better…

Van Dam : Absolutely. I’m best showcased in ECW because I’ve got the best booker in Paul Heyman behind me, pushing the whole company and the RVD product. I’ve got Joey Styles, the best commentator in the business showcasing my moves in the ring, because the other (commentators) don’t know how to call them, or don’t care because talking about something else. ECW has the best schedule I’ve ever seen in my ten years in pro-wrestling. When I was wrestling in Japan I’d be wrestling for four weeks at a time with maybe every Wednesday off. I’d be riding a bus all day in another country, and that sucked bad. I liked the style, honor, money of being in Japan, but not that part.

ECW is just weekends. It’s a Friday, a Saturday, sometimes a Thursday, sometimes a Sunday. I know that I’m coming home every week, sometimes for up to four days. That’s something that is very important to me. I don’t enjoy going on the road for weeks at a time. There was a time where I did appreciate that, but now, unless I’m going somewhere really cool, somewhere new, then the traveling part of it is not that great anymore. It’s more of a hassle, but it’s part of the job, and I do appreciate it – it would be more of a hassle to be stuck in an office behind a desk. I just don’t get exciting thinking "oh boy, I get to pack my stuff and get on a plane!" (laughs) I prefer ECW’s schedule, ECW’s style, and my position in ECW. ECW is the company that has the most potential for growth out of any of them. The next few months are going to be very good for ECW, and I’m very glad to be in the driver’s seat of it all.

Norton : Michelle mailed us all the way from Italy…

Van Dam : Italy!

Norton : Italy! She says that some describe you as a high-spot artist, do you consider that a compliment or do you not agree with it? Some wrestling purists say that it’s less about psychology, it’s more about being a stuntman.

Van Dam : I generally don’t consider it a compliment because of what you said, it’s usually, usually…

Norton : …said in a derogatory way, like you’re not "educated" to wrestling or something..

Van Dam : Exactly, which is ridiculous. Psychology is about learning how to get the crowds reacting. Psychology is learning that what you do in the ring has to be something in the ring they can relate to, so they’ll cheer for you, they’ll boo for you, cry for you. Psychology is about knowing how to get that out of them by doing what you do in the ring. There’s a great study to it.

But the people now who used to refer to me as the high spot artist are those who wrestled in the 80’s or were big fans in the 80’s, and they don’t understand how times have changed. Those wrestlers who can’t do the flips, the splits, high-jumps to entertain the crowd, they see their style slipping away and they’re fighting to get it back because it’s all they got. So they’re saying "What about Psychology? Take the arm! Go back to the mat! Lay down! Hold it!" Psychology, just like wrestling, has changed. Thank God that changed, or some of us harder workers wouldn’t have a chance nowadays.

I’ve learned the best way to get a reaction out of the crowd, and that’s why I’m the whole F’n show. I have the crowd in my matches from the start to the finish, I don’t waste moves. If a throw somebody into the ropes and hit a shoulder block, and turn to the crowd and say "hey, what do you think?" They’ll say "well f*** you! What was that? That’s boring!" I watch other wrestlers do it and they wonder why they get no reaction. I wonder why they did that in the first place. My job is to entertain the crowd, so I’m going to do that to the best of my ability, and that involves doing everything from the beginning to the end of the match so that the crowd are chanting "Whole f***ing show!" It’s important for me to give them their money’s worth if they came to see me. I can’t wrestle for two minutes and high-tail it out of there, say "hey, easy day at work!" That would lay on my conscience. I’d feel much better getting feedback from the fans knowing what I’ve got to offer.

Norton : Jumping back to the WCW / WWF situation. You fought Taz in his last big match in the ECW. Any thoughts on how they’ve used him in the WWF so far?

Van Dam : I’m a little out of touch with it. I haven’t talked to him since he debuted. He was very happy going into it, and it looked like a good opportunity, although he was extremely upset about leaving ECW. It’s something he didn’t feel right about. But for him, it was the better move, it looks like. Since he’s been there, I know he was still very happy. I believe I saw him do a run in and hit a clothesline on somebody (laughs), so I haven’t seen him wrestle much myself to give an opinion, but as far as I know, he’s happy…

Norton : To each his own…

Van Dam : Exactly. I never fault anybody for looking after themselves.

Norton : (Reader:)"Hey Rob, you truly are the whole F’n show. Are you still going to be on TNN Fridays while you’re healing or are you going to recover and then make a huge return?" Would you rather stay on TV, or make a dramatic re-appearance when you’re ready to wrestle?

Van Dam : Well, I’m forced to take it easy and take some R and R, so there will be some time off, physically. For TV, they have plenty of footage of me that hasn’t been shown yet, so they can keep me up there without me wrestling. While I’m out it shouldn’t be that noticeable. I’d definitely like to do some appearances, whether it’s being interviewed or the possibility of commentating, like we discussed earlier, (before I can wrestle again). It’s going to be a few weeks before I’m ready to start hobbling back and forth around the airport.

Three weeks from now is the first time I can put any weight on it, the start of March. Throughout March I’ll have a walking boot on, then towards the end of the month I’ll have that off and be doing my physical therapy. One leg will be weaker than the other to start with. I won’t be doing big backflps and stuff like that right from taking the cast off, but I should surprise people with how fast I come back. Ideally, I think I could fly up there (to do ECW shows) a couple of times while I’m healing. I think it would be better than being at every show, hobbling around on crutches. That would just prolong my recovery, and nobody is going to want to see that. Some guys like to prove that they’ll make the show no matter what, I don’t know, if fans want to see me they have tons of footage they can see. I’m doing a lot of interviews. I don’t mind showing up if they want me to, though.

Norton : "I’d like to know what Rob thinks of Sabu leaving ECW for WCW." They say in brackets "selling out" . Is it the same as the Taz situation?

Van Dam : It is to a great extent. He’s looking out for himself. His personal situation in ECW and his personal situation with Paul, business-wise, is something only those two are going to know. At this point I don’t know what he’s doing – I keep hearing he is, then he isn’t, then he is going. But it’s not the most important thing on his mind now because of his mother being sick.

Norton : "What is it like in the ECW locker room? How does everybody get along, and how do the boys treat each other?"

Van Dam : It has a pretty good hint of a team atmosphere. All the guys want to see everyone else do well, because they want to see the company as a whole take off. At the same time, there are guys who don’t have steady positions, wouldn’t mind getting their position by somebody else being bumped off. There’s a lot of eager, hungry guys in the dressing room every night trying to jump up and get a hold of the bottom of that ladder. As they climb, there’s people in the way, so there’s always going to be that…

Norton : Be a sense of conflict…

Van Dam : Yes. But overall it’s the best dressing room I’ve been in, and I’ve worked for a lot of different companies.

Norton : Will you be wrestling in the UK any time soon? Of course, you won’t be wrestling any time soon period….

Van Dam : I don’t have any plans in the books, though I am talking to one person about it. The talks have just started. There’s a show in the UK that someone has been e-mailing me about, so if it works with my schedule, I’d love to come over.

Norton : The final fan question… I got an e-mail from Dean in Ireland, asking if the whole f***ing show is coming to Ireland… (laughs) I assume I know the answer to that one because there hasn’t been a wrestling show in Ireland for years! (laughs)

Van Dam : Okay (laughs!) I may have to make a little bit of a drive, because we’re not right in their back yard, but ECW hopes to go everywhere.

Norton : I heard some whispers about Canada…..

Van Dam : Yes, I heard Paul say that, but I’ve seen a schedule until the end of June and nothing there. We do have some new towns, Washington DC for the first time, Wisconsin for the first time, we just went through Tennessee for the first time. Even in Florida we’re picking up some new places. One question I get asked often is when ECW is coming to the West Coast, and I’ve heard Paul Heyman say himself that we’re definitely coming out here. When is a question. We’ve already had plans fall through for last November. But it’s in everybody’s mind and I know we’ll get a great response when we come out here. I’m looking forward to coming out here, Canada, Texas, the U.K., everywhere. I’ve traveled around this business a lot, and now I’ve found a home in ECW. The reason some are leaving is the same reason most are staying. It's best for them. I’m looking out for me. I belong here in ECW, and I want to keep my travels with Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Norton : Last question. Have you reached your limit? Is there anywhere further you can go with the Van Dam character physically, and character wise?

Van Dam : Absolutely. It’s a continuous movement. It may not always be straight forward, it may sometimes veer off to the left, veer off to the right, but it stays going. It’s a natural progression. Physically, I still haven’t shown you everything that I’ve got. I’m still coming up with new things myself, often. That’s one thing about pro wrestling. It amazes me that at this point that hundreds, thousands of years after wrestling has been invented, I can see a move or do a move that people have never seen. It’s incredible that there’s still room for that. The character side will be developing in front of a camera a lot. You ain’t seen nothing yet. The more familiar someone is with a camera, the more comfortable they are, the m ore you find out about the real person. As far as RVD goes, I’d like to do a lot more in front of the camera, instead of the quick 2 – 3 minute promos. I’d like to do more appearances. This is the third time we’re talking about color commentating. It’s an interesting option. Right now my character on TV is such a small percentage of what I’ve got to offer. I think they only get to see a little tease. Of course everyone wants to see more Rob Van Dam, what could be better? (laughs)

Norton : Best of luck in your recovery, both you and your wife. We’ll talk to you later.

Van Dam : I Appreciate it. Talk to you later man.

(You can catch TV champion Rob Van Dam and the rest of the ECW crew Friday night at 8pm eastern on TNN, and on the syndicated "ECW Hardcore TV" on weekends)