Rob Van Dam, on the latest episode of his podcast “1 Of A Kind”, opens up about his take on the women’s roster of WWE NXT, the epic ten-woman tag team match of November 6th, and several other wrestling topics.
Highlights from the podcast are mentioned below:
Regarding the NXT women’s roster: “The women there are pretty strong. In the finale of the 2300 Arena episode, there was the ten-women tag match, which was essentially a five versus five. That sort of match offers plenty of chances to display skills and also exposes vulnerabilities or weak points. In my view, they managed it quite well. I didn’t see the entire thing, but in such matches, I often worry that if it were in another company, there could be several moves that I would suggest not attempting if they’re not proficient enough. If you’re not good at throwing punches, don’t. What I’m trying to say is, I am impressed by the standards maintained, the work ethics, and the wrestling quality of NXT, when compared to other wrestling programs on television. I find myself nitpicking here and there though. There’s one girl in particular, I am always pointing out her moves to Katie and perhaps she’ll improve over time.”
Talking about the liberty granted by Paul Heyman for crowd dives in ECW: “I wouldn’t say that liberty was granted, I feel like we always possessed that freedom. It was more about understanding our freedoms, understanding the boundaries and exploring the extent to which I would want to go. It was a continuous learning process. That’s what encouraged me to attempt those dives. I would only perform that dive on the three people he mentioned [Bam Bam Bigelow, Balls Mahoney, and Bubba Ray Dudley], as they were all large guys and I could trust them to catch me well. Balls Mahoney, Bubba Dudley, Bam Bam Bigelow, these were the only three. I was considerably heavy at that time, and not everyone was keen to catch my a*s-heavy dive. Even outside the ring, people like Lance Storm would rather avoid catching me. I believe he thought I would stop attempting the dive on him once I realized he wouldn’t catch me. But I kept on going… I wouldn’t want to take a bump on my tailbone if someone sidestepped me. So, these three guys were the only ones I could trust.”