Professional wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam who is a former WWE champion and a former ECW champion recently looked back at working with professional wrestling legend Triple H and shared his experience on how he felt about it.
Rob Van Dam came into the world of WWE in 2001 after ECW was purchased by WWE. He had been treated as a potential big star for the future. He got a number of chances to work for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship during the early Ruthless Aggression era against Triple H.
Rob Van Dam Remembers Working With Triple H
When the first brand split took place, WWE came up with the World Heavyweight championship for Monday night RAW as WWE Championship went to SmackDown. Fans were expecting that WWE would book a tournament or something like a Battle Royal to Crown the new champion. But it was just handed to Triple H which was a terrible piece of booking.
The first Challenger of Triple H for the world heavyweight championship was none other than Rob Van Dam. The duo had a one on one match at The Unforgiven pay per view event of 2002 but he lost the match. He got to challenge for the title once again at the Survivor Series pay per view event inside the first ever Elimination Chamber match. Once again he failed to win and after that he did not get any regular chance against Triple H.
Rob Van Dam who is a former WWE champion and a former ECW champion recently spoke to Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast where he looked back at working with professional wrestling legend Triple H and shared his experience on how he felt about it. He said;
“I mean, I wasn’t happy about the situation at the time. Again, competitive state of mind, you don’t look at it when you’re across the ring from him and you’re both competing for the love of the crowd. You don’t look at it like, ‘Hey, this guy is, not a CEO, but whatever his position was at the time, is qualified to make important decisions. He sits in the meetings.
“He’s one of the guys that directs the paths of where the whole show is going.’ You don’t look at it like that. You look at it more like, ‘It’s not fair just because he’s with the boss’ daughter.’ Really, there’s so many more variables to it that you just don’t consider at that time. A lot of wrestlers don’t grow enough to see the whole picture.
“So forever, their opinion will be like it is in the book they wrote where they’re like, ‘If it wasn’t for him, I would have had a great career.’ But you know, really, it is what it is. But looking back, I had great matches with him. He’s a really good wrestler. At the time, I don’t even think I could have admitted that just because I felt more like puffing my chest out and trying to fight for every inch I could get.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription