WWE Payback delivered some big news outside of the ring. Former WWE and ECW champion Rob Van Dam will be officially returning to the WWE and will be a big part of the upcoming Money in the Bank pay per view.
[adinserter block=”1″]The announcement of the returning RVD got a huge ovation from the Chicago crowd and was met with repeated “R-V-D!” chants throughout Payback. It would appear that MITB would be his first match back with the company but it’s still unclear whether that will be his debut or he will debut sooner and was just being advertised for the show.
Let me start this off by saying this. I love Rob Van Dam. I worked with him in ECW and he was one of the coolest guys I interacted with in the company back then. I have always been a fan and he has been gracious enough in the past to come on my radio show for an hour of unfiltered talk. That said, I am not a big fan of this move at all.
It’s funny because there are a lot of fans excited about this who have tweeted about RVD returning. My assumption is that none of these fans watched his three-year run in TNA Wrestling. Rob appeared uninspired no matter what he was doing and this wasn’t a case of Rob being misused. He was pushed harder and better in TNA than he was in the WWE. He wrestled everyone and anyone over the three years and appeared in many main-events. So anyone that chalks it up to being misused didn’t pay attention. He just wasn’t that good and didn’t appear to evolve at all. It was the same Rob in every match and after awhile it got old.
Anyone remember hearing about that RVD classic in TNA at any time over the last three years? Me neither.
The WWE are in the middle of a youth movement for the first time in several years. There is a shift towards the future with younger guys and the demands on match quality have gone up tremendously over the last few months. If the same RVD that I watched in TNA is returning to the WWE, well than I think his matches are going to stick out for all of the wrong reasons. If for whatever reason Rob was phoning it in for the last three years and still has it, than he could be a welcome addition back to the roster.
Dave Meltzer reported on his latest F4Wonline.com podcast that Rob is not only coming back on a limited schedule but is only under a short-term contract. Meltzer does point out that the contract could change and become longer. I remember when I had Rob on my radio show he said that one of the main reasons he left the WWE was the schedule. To hear that he is back with a limited schedule certainly doesn’t surprise me.
[adinserter block=”2″]Here is the other green elephant in the room no pun intended. Rob is well known for his fondness for marijuana. The WWE has instituted a ban on marijuana since Rob left the company. Rob spent about 20 minutes on my radio show talking about the virtues of marijuana. Quite frankly this is why I never thought a deal would work out between the two. Now maybe since Rob is working limited dates he won’t be subjected to those tests. Otherwise one of these two parties had to compromise and I can’t imagine it was RVD.
I would imagine we will get a better idea of what he is doing at MITB sometime over the next couple of weeks.
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