Rob Van Dam tells Simon Rothstein of the UK Sun that Vince McMahon ripped his heart out and stomped on it with the way he handled the resurrection of ECW back in 2006. The former WWE & ECW champion goes in depth about how poorly he feels Vince McMahon handled ECW, the various steps McMahon took to make his version ECW completely different while burying the ECW legacy, Paul Heyman’s reaction to the whole fiasco and more.
Winning the WWE Title & Vince’s ECW: “RVD wasn’t going to be WWE champ, but I brought ECW back because that was my spirit and the spirit of the fans. I knew they wanted to see it and I was feeding off that energy. Winning the world title meant a lot. It gave creditability to ECW. At least for the moment…so we thought! But very shortly afterwards Vince McMahon’s long-term plans started to unfold.
“We were faced with the fact that he would give ECW no credit for anything up until that point and wanted to create this new brand of wrestling that would be a global product and mainstream in every way, with Extreme Rules only as a stipulation every once in a while. Our hearts were ripped out of our chests and stomped on. Vince said: “Nobody remembers the old ECW anyway, Rob. This is something new.” So it was a fun moment, it was short-lived and it’s definitely gone now.
Paul Heyman’s Feelings About the new ECW: He would come to work and just tell me how much disdain and loathing he had for Vince. I remember him saying it was like Vince had raped his wife, because ECW was so close to his heart and Vince f***ed it. He felt Vince enjoyed watching him suffer, while ripping apart the fabric of ECW week by week. But Paul has no resentment now and no desire to get back at Vince. He has made balance and is in a peaceful stage, like I am. It’s just something we laugh about.
There’s a lot more to this interview and it’s definitely worth reading – check it out at TheSun.co.uk.
