Rob Van Dam comments on backstage altercations in wrestling.
For the past year, the world of wrestling has consistently been clouded by the issues between CM Punk and various members of the All Elite Wrestling roster. The issues first arose when Punk and The Elite (Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks) were involved in a backstage brawl at the All Out pay-per-view in 2022. The issues seemed to continue when Punk made his return to the promotion in June 2023, as numerous reports came out about various incidents with talent like Jack Perry and Ryan Nemeth.
On the latest episode of the 1 Of A Kind podcast, Van Dam noted that while stuff like this did happen back in the day, it was usually resolved fairly quickly.
“It happened, and it wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m sure people are going to shit on this opinion, but that’s what I said when I saw that every single site was picking this up. I said to Katie, I’m sure it’s my old school fundamentals, but I said ‘I don't think this should be that big of a deal.’ She said, ‘Right, they’re both fighters, right?’ I see at weigh-ins where they do the face off and they take the picture, a lot of times they get to close and they pie face and start going at it or whatever, and I get you got to set some strict rules if you don’t want that to happen every single time, I get it with that. But with wrestling, it’s even a little bit different because the competitors don’t have the whole injury, win or lose, be in the best condition possible to have every advantage, wrestlers aren’t in that the same way that a fighter is. So if they let out a little bit of steam every once in a while, usually what would happen is that the promoter would put those two in the ring as soon as possible. That happened every time that I can think about it. That’s what Paul did with me and Taz. It’s always been that way and I always find that people work it out by working together. I’m surprised that it’s that big of news, but if you look at it like it’s football, sure whatever I guess. With wrestling, I don’t know, it’s not something you should just ignore if you’re the boss and you got millions and millions invested and some of that is going to these two players and you need to handle the business end of it to protect your investment. Besides that, it’s not the same thing as the corporate office, it’s the dressing room.”
Van Dam recently competed for All Elite Wrestling, as he faced Jack Perry in a FTW Rules match on the August 9 episode of AEW Dynamite.
In a recent episode of his podcast, Van Dam shared his memories of the late Bray Wyatt. Fans can learn more by clicking here.
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