When news broke that “The Whole F'N Show,” Rob Van Dam had officially accepted a booking with AEW to challenge Jack Perry for the FTW Championship, it turned eyes around the professional wrestling world.

Sure, it's not like RVD was out of action or had retired from professional wrestling or anything like that, he'd actually just wrestled Channing Decker a few months earlier at IWC Superstar Showdown in Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, but seeing the former face of ECW wrestle for a major promotion once more and actually working as a babyface instead of whatever the heck he was doing in Impact Wrestling felt like a Sting-esque addition to the promotion, even if he was only initially booked for one match.

While things shook out in an interesting way, with Perry securing the win and RVD going unused for All In at Wembley Stadium, he was still booked for an episode of Collision as a tag team partner for Hook near his hometown in Michigan and landed another Dynamite booking in Philadelphia mere miles away from where he became a legend at the 2300 Arena.

Good stuff? For RVD, you bet, but it wasn't all good news for the WWE Hall of Famer, as according to the man himself on his 1 of a Kind podcast, when the Collision booking hit, he landed another call, informing him he was officially unbooked for WrestleMania 40 weekend from the “Big Company.” Fortunately, Van Dam had built up enough goodwill around wrestling to keep the hype train moving, and he was afforded another chance to showcase his talents shortly thereafter.

“I got a phone call, I picked up because it was from the big company, and had a little talk, and got officially unbooked from Philly. About 30 minutes later, I got another message. Got officially rebooked in Philly from another company. So that was pretty good. In the meantime, I'm just reading letters. ‘A. E.' It happened like when I got there and before I left, before I even had a chance to think about the first message, so that's just the universe doing what it does, which is pretty awesome,” Rob Van Dam said via Fightful. “The reason I don't want to put too much detail on that is because word got out when I said before that I was unbooked, and it kind of worked against me because then I had someone inside working on trying to do some damage repair and then I got people on Twitter saying, ‘Let's pass this around, man. We need RVD rebooked,' and I was trying not to give that much attention to it because I had someone working on it. Either way, different dates, same town. The one is becoming more and more valuable than the other one to me each time anyway.”

Discussing what it means to share the ring with Hook, the son of one of his greatest in-ring opponents of all time, Taz, RVD celebrated it, noting that he's excited to run it back, especially since Taz will actually be calling the show this time.

“I didn't know until I saw the flyer that I would be teeming with HOOK again. So that's awesome,” RVD said. “I know that people have really wanted to see that, and they enjoyed tag team, as did I, set-up last time. Hopefully, Daddy will be there this time, too, and I'll be able to see Taz again. Maybe Taz can give me some pointers.”

Could WWE make this into a thing, giving Hook the RVD rub just like they did when with Sting and Darby Allin? Maybe yes, maybe no, but after having his WWE booking – even if he won't say the letters – revoked in the City of Brotherly Love, it's safe to say Tony Khan may owe the Hall of Famer one.

Rob Van Dam discusses the difference between ECW, WWE, and TNA.

Have you ever wondered what how it felt to jump from ECW to WWE to TNA during incredibly hot periods for all three brands? Well, Rob Van Dam actually did just that during the prime of his career and explained on his podcast just how different each experience was from one another.

“From my perspective, I always say ECW was the most fun for me,” RVD shared via Wrestling Inc. “WWE made me the biggest star and the most money. And TNA was the easiest job that I had. In other words, [it was] the least amount of work for that money, especially when I first went there when we were doing it once every two weeks at Universal Studios. That was cake,” he added, “especially when you're getting off the road from WWE, and you would've done eight to ten matches on average in those same two weeks.”

When RVD jumped from one company to the next, fans often wondered if he'd be able to keep the magic alive and remain one of the very best in the business when another booker was calling the shots. As it turns out, RVD is pretty much a charisma machine, as long as you don't put him in a Cancel Culture stable with Joey Ryan. Fortunately, Tony Khan knows that and has made it a point to keep the magic alive a little longer, even if WWE is out on his business.