One of the few ECW wrestlers that still maintains a close relationship with Paul Heyman is Rob Van Dam. Van Dam may be considered one of the original “Paul Heyman guys” thanks to ECW, and few would argue they’re only part of a handful of people whose success in ECW translated to the WWE.
Van Dam talked about Heyman on the That 90s Wrestling Podcast, where RVD revealed he felt sorry for Paul Heyman when he first saw him in the WWE in 2001. He revealed that he thought Heyman didn’t want to be part of the company at first, but when he later found out that Heyman was being paid by the WWE, RVD would have changed his original perspective.
“I kinda felt- in a way I think I felt a little sorry for him because I believed that he really didn’t wanna be there and that things had come to that. I didn’t know he was getting paid by them all along, otherwise I would have had a different perspective. I thought this man is eating his hat as they used to say it. And I thought what other choices does he have? There’s no ECW, I didn’t know if WWE had bought WCW at that point or were purchasing it, but either way things had come to that, so I kinda felt sorry for him. Man, he would tell us, the Paul that we knew would never do this, never do this. And there he is, and I just thought man, that just makes him like everyone else. He needs a job but there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than I knew.”
Van Dam eventually joined him and had a successful stint with the company, and the WWE has recognized his success enough to have a WWE Icons documentary in the works for him. However, at first he thought Heyman had joined the company he experienced so much success in eventually just to make ends meet. You can watch the interview below.
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