RVD was considered among the ECW Originals who rose to prominence. Van Dam’s high-flying style and ability to adapt to the extreme conditions of the brand made him a cornerstone for Paul Heyman’s hardcore promotion.
However, following ECW’s closure, Rob Van Dam journeyed to other promotions before finally making his arrival at WWE in 2001 as a part of the Invasion storyline. Over the years, Mr. Monday Night became an attraction for the company en route to winning multiple titles and accolades.
Unlike the original extreme playground, this incarnation of ECW that was debuted in the mid 2000s was much more traditional, as opposed to the extreme rules environment that made the brand famous. Moreover, Rob Van Dam blamed Vince McMahon for trying to destroy ECW’s legacy. He opened up about the same during an interview with Wrestling News.
“So at the time, I really looked at it differently from ECW. You know, I thought he’s making a mockery of ECW. I thought he might have even brought ECW back just to destroy it because he didn’t like the fans chanting EC Dub. He took credit for it, so he trained them to chant EC Dub during the shows by putting out the ECW DVD. Then I was like, Wow, man, this dude’s crazy. Maybe he brought it back just to completely wipe out the extreme theme to it, and they did completely wipe out the extreme theme to it.
So it was like, you know, just like any other show except they put way less into it. Way less budget, way less advertising. The house shows at that time, you know, we’re just the old ECW crappy arenas from the mid 90s. We would sometimes film after SmackDown on the SmackDown night, and there was some kind of weird way that we were getting paid off a split of their gate which really wasn’t fair. In the end, you know, supposedly all the numbers ironed out, whatever.”
RVD to Wrestling News
Rob Van Dam was the only superstar to hold the WWE and ECW championships at the same time during those years. The ECW brand, while not following its roots, eventually closed down in 2010 and was replaced with WWE NXT, a show that sought to find the next WWE Breakout Star with a completely different format.
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