Rob Van Dam was one of the faces of ECW's extreme action, which popularized aggressive, high-impact action that was quickly imitated.
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In the 1990s, Rob Van Dam was one of the faces of ECW’s extreme action, which popularized aggressive, high-impact action that was quickly imitated by the hardcore divisions of both WWE and WCW. Van Dam claimed that he saw the WWE Hardcore Championship division in particular as a personal slight on the most recent episode of the “One of A Kind” podcast.
“I was insulted by it until I got it. And that was because I felt like they were making fun of us and ECW because we have this, in my opinion, superior artform, making wrestling cool. To people that aren’t even wrestling fans like something like ‘you’ve got to see this’ and obviously I was a big proponent of it and and always will be but then I would see the Hardcore Title match on Monday Night Raw or whatever and in my opinion from that competitive state of mind I thought they were making a joke out of it.” Said RVD.
“I felt like they were making fun of us in ECW because we have this, in my opinion, superior art form, making wrestling cool to people that aren’t even wrestling fans. Then I would see the Hardcore title match on ‘Monday Night Raw’ or whatever, and in my opinion, I thought they were making a joke of it. RIP Crash Holly but it pretty much meant the hot dog stand was gonna get tipped over … the Hardcore match was something to laugh at.” he added.
Read more: Former WWE star, Rob Van Dam makes AEW debut and receives title shot
The Hall of Famer claimed that he thought he did his best to make the Hardcore title mean anything after being forced to wear it after he joined WWE. In the end, he gave the championship such significance that the business eventually discontinued it in 2002 and combined it with the Intercontinental Championship.
“All of a sudden, the Hardcore Title matches sometimes are the best match on the card. That can be subjective, but to the people that enjoyed it, continuously the best match on the card. I even main-evented. And I know they didn’t want the Hardcore Championship to be a main event on their shows and so what do they do? They got rid of it. I was making the belt mean too much”. Exclaimed RVD.
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