RVD had many memorable matches during his WWE career. Perhaps the most memorable outing was when he went up against John Cena at ECW One Night Stand 2006. The ECW legend cashed in his Money In The Bank contract for this title shot. He went on to defeat the Cenation Leader to become the new WWE Champion.
The former WWE star reflected on this iconic match during an interview with Chris Van Vliet. He was asked which is the one match fans ask him the most about. Van Dam said that it has to be the bout with Cena:
“The one match would probably be when I beat John Cena at ECW One Night Stand and won the championship belts. Which if they asked me, I’d bring it up. If they asked me what my favorite match was, [I’d mention it] because first off, the match itself was in my opinion, great. I loved the match. Obviously Cena is great. He was great with that crowd. The crowd was incredible. One of a kind crowd.
[It was an] irreplaceable moment, besides all of that, it’s like ‘What was my story, my build up, going into that particular match? Everything since 96.’ Maybe even before that, if you were to add the history. So for those reasons. Me and every fan in that building, we were all fighting for what I believed in, in my heart, and what got me all the way up to that point. That’s why they all wanted to see the match go the way it did and see Cena go down, or they would riot.”
‘Holy Crap, This Is Great’: RVD
One of the things that made the match special was the unique crowd reaction. The event was held at the legendary Hammerstein Ballroom and it was the home crowd for RVD. It was one rare occasion when John Cena was decisively the villain. When asked if they anticipated such strong crowd reaction, Mr. Monday Night admitted that he didn’t:
“I don’t think anybody could have known exactly how that crowd was gonna be first off, to put that out there. I didn’t. I knew for sure that was my home. I knew that they were with me. That was my building. But I couldn’t have predicted that they were gonna feel so much that way. They’re gonna be like ‘No! Fuck your T-shirt’ and throw it back. You see me laughing when you watch that.
I thought that was funny and great. What are the chances that a fan that could have a John Cena shirt, because they’re all real fans at heart, will do that? Then boom, second guy does it again, third guy wipes his ass with it. It’s like, ‘Holy crap. This is great,’ But I had no idea it was gonna be like that. John knew that he was in for a rough night, He was gonna get shit on a lot. He knew that. He’s just super cool. I really think he was looking forward to the match. I think that he had fun with it. I know I did.”
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