In 2021, ECW legend Rob Van Dam joined the elite fraternity of Superstars to have their name immortalized forever in the WWE Hall of Fame.
Now, for a performer who got his last name from an action movie star, became a legend for working in a small venue a few miles from Veterans Stadium, and then maintained that success over an expansive career spanning decades, getting into the Hall of Fame has to be pretty cool, right? RVD wasn't duking it out with Sabu in South Philly for future accolades, so earning that honor in the future must have been a full-circle moment for “The Whole F'N Show.”
Well, not necessarily.
Discussing joining the WWE Hall of Fame in an interview with Wrestling Life with Ben Veal, RVD noted that while he was happy to be immortalized forever, he didn't like how it actually went down, as he was forced to accept the honor without a crowd in a real lackluster ceremony.
“It was very validating to be thought of on that Mount Rushmore of wrestlers. That’s something that they can never take away from me now. It felt like I elevated up to a level, and now people refer to me as a Hall of Famer. It’s very prestigious. So I was honored,” Van Dam explained via Fightful.
“The fact that it was during COVID and we didn’t have a crowd was kind of disappointing after going to Hall of Fame for so many years and watching the really long speeches. They told us to go three to five minutes on our speeches after hearing [really long speeches]. So it kind of felt like when I was in high school, all the grades sell M&M's to pay for the senior trip, and then when you’re finally a senior, then you capitalize on it, but by the time we made, they stopped taking the boat to the Bahamas, and instead we got screwed because we just went to this local amusement park. That happens to me sometimes.”
Disappointing stuff, right? Sure thing, but it actually impacted RVD's performance too, as, per “Mr. Monday Night,” his speech ended up going way over expectations.
Rob Van Dam has a good reason for his expansive WWE HOF speech
Turning his attention to his actual Hall of Fame speech, RVD noted that while the speech shared by WWE was nine minutes long, he actually went for 27 minutes, which, as it turns out, is a good 24 minutes longer than he was supposed to go.
“But the thing about the time and there not being people there, if you’ve seen my speech, then you’ve seen like nine minutes of it, but the whole thing was actually 27 minutes, so I actually went in theory maybe 24 minutes over the three-minute request,” RVD noted. “I didn’t hear anything. When I got back, I said, ‘That was a little long, wasn’t it?’ I had no idea until I saw the whole thing that it was that long. You’re playing off of somebody turning the volume up and down on a response. I’ll have to get in it again.”
On paper, it makes sense that a WWE Superstar would take their cues from the audience, telling a story that has twists and turns before hitting a massive crescendo at the end to send fans home happy. Still, if he wasn't going to get to celebrate in front of fans, at least he got to say everything he wanted to at the moment, which is a very fun anecdote, especially considering he's continued to shine as a living legend in rings around the world.
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