Rob Van Dam Recalls WWE Making Changes To The ECW Brand During Its Relaunch

On the latest episode of 1 Of A Kind, Rob Van Dam talked about the ECW Originals having to comprise WWE’s changes in the relaunch of the brand in 2006, the ECW zombie, and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On the ECW originals needing to comply with WWE’s changes in the relaunch: “What made ECW so special was the very magic that they were taking away by adding rules. So first they used to say every show ‘ECW means anything goes!’ And so that’s why it would have been really cool if that would have been like the court to settle disputes. And when I first found out that they were — and it’s, you know, like you mentioned Bob Holly, and some of those guys were great ECW wrestlers. They weren’t in the original, but Paul [Heyman] knew that they would be very good and have what it took. And so there’s those guys and it was cool. But what bothered me though was the guys that weren’t even on ECW wrestling on ECW shows. Like, that was nothing but poison in my mind, because all it was was confusing. And I know like Matt Hardy and Kane, and I don’t know who else… People started hearing those guys were on. That’s what I was thinking was, ‘That’d be cool if you send guys to ECW, make an angle out of it. And then you got something special.’”

On the goofy gimmicks in the early days of the ECW relaunch and the ECW Zombie: “I knew it was supposed to be a Martian, and they changed it to a zombie. I didn’t hear anything about lasers. I heard this through Paul [Heyman] when we were having daily conversations about, ‘They want to do seven really stupid things.’ He’s like, ‘I’m gonna get them to cave on four of them, three of them we have to let go.’ It was like what happened every day like that, and one of them was, ‘They want to have this Martian come out, but we got it so Sandman can cane them and then that way it won’t be that bad.’ ‘Okay. Why Martian?’ ‘Because it’s the Sci Fi Channel.’ And then it ended up being a zombie.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 1 Of A Kind an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.

Rob Van Dam Recalls WWE Making Changes To The ECW Brand During Its Relaunch

Rob Van Dam Recalls WWE Making Changes To The ECW Brand During Its Relaunch

Rob Van Dam Recalls WWE Making Changes To The ECW Brand During Its Relaunch

Rob Van Dam Recalls WWE Making Changes To The ECW Brand During Its Relaunch

Rob Van Dam Recalls WWE Making Changes To The ECW Brand During Its Relaunch