Rob Van Dam Quotes

That's a frustration sometimes, that certain directors that I'd like to work with, they just aren't doing stories that I'm sort of castable in. Not always, but sometimes I have that frustration.

I certainly would have regretted not getting into wrestling. It's been very lucrative for me and I've been fortunate to get into it and make money and not do anything stupid where I invested in something that collapsed.

When I was growing up, I thought there was only WWE. That's it. One promotion in the world. And then, as I grew up, I found that there's local wrestling. There's WCW, there's ECW. In Mexico, there are the luchadores. And then, finally, I realized there's wrestling in Japan.

When I came to WWE back in the day, I'd been working seven-and-a-half years, and I was very frustrated. I started getting some momentum, and my work was very vicious, and it was very believable.

WWE has given me everything; it really has. My kids will go to college because of them, I don't have to worry about finances because of them.

I do recall at one point being part of WWE and other guys taking the risk of stepping away, and a lot of guys don't do it because of the fear that it's not going to be the same.

Man, it was a great ride back in the day. Obviously, I started out in WCW, and I was a good mechanic back in the day. Got fired from that gig, made a turn for ECW.

I didn't mind when Paul Wight came to me and said WWE offered him $1 million a year for ten years. I was like, 'Dude, you need to take that. You need to go now. Lemme give you a ride to the airport.'

The AAF offered me a commentating spot for their league, and it was literally the day after I signed my deal with the WWE.

I had the greatest deal in the history of professional wrestling. I could work for WWE, anybody else that I wanted to, and collect income from every one of those companies, including merchandise. It was a really good deal.

When I was first in the locker room with The Undertaker and John Cena it was very strange. But it gets to a point that these are going to be guys you are working with you get over that pretty quickly. You can't be star struck.

I think Ring of Honor is becoming a legitimate threat in the world of pro wrestling. To say that Ring of Honor would be WWE is getting a little bit ahead of yourself. At the same time, I think Ring of Honor can definitely be a place where guys can make a living.

When I was on SmackDown, I would say we had the most well-rounded women's division, and I think that's all because of the opportunities SmackDown gives. I think it was definitely the right place for me to start.

I never expected to make a living from climbing, but it got to the point where I either had to get a job or start trying to make some real money from it. I didn't want to be 45 and a dirtbag.

WWE asked me to be a coach 3 times before I left.

Was I a fan of WWE? Yeah, of course, but I knew it was not going to be a thing for me, until NXT came to the foreground and a lot of my friends who I was competing against on the independent scene were getting signed.

If you would have asked me three or four years ago when I started wrestling whether I would have worked for any other company than WWE in the long-term, I would have told you no.

The fact is, there's a ton of opportunities out there now for professional wrestlers which, when I was coming through, weren't really there. The only game in town realistically was WWE, and it was very, very difficult to see yourself working anywhere outside of that.

Wrestling was a part-time thing and I was starving doing it. When the opportunity came up to wrestle with WWE and come to the states, it was a no-brainer.

Without knocking Impact Wrestling, your contribution was largely limited to what you could do in the TV show. WWE is a bigger company with a bigger infrastructure and a lot more ways to make a contribution.

ECW was the most fun for me artistically. And then, WWE, it was also very fun, but that was part of it. It was also a very stressful, monotonous schedule. There was a lot of politics, adjusting to that, and I am not a politician, and I don't play those games. So that was very frustrating for me as well.

I think the biggest thing is kind of working everywhere and working with different people that, when I did walk through the door at WWE and looked around, I didn't really feel that out of place because every second face I looked at is somebody I've known for over a decade or worked with or I've been around in some capacity in the industry.

Wrestling has gotten crazy lately in that guys can really make comfortable, good livings outside of WWE.

I crossed over into the WWE, but a lot of guys never did cross over.

People can say what they want about Eric Bischoff, and I've heard a lot of people make negative comments about him. I'll comment on his booking. His booking is not what I look for in wrestling, but that said, I will always be appreciative and thankful to Eric Bischoff for offering me the contract he did, when did because it saved my financial life.