There were multiple reasons why Rob Van Dam wasn’t excited to work with Ric Flair at WWE.
On a recent episode of 1 Of A Kind With RVD, the WWE Hall of Famer spoke about working with Ric Flair on the RAW brand in the early 2000s. Van Dam admitted that The Nature Boy was someone he wasn’t interested in wrestling at the time.
“At that point, for me, I’m just trying to get the job done,” Rob Van Dam said. “This is gonna sound disrespectful, but at the time, he was not one of my choice opponents.
When asked if it was due to the fact that their styles didn’t mix, RVD said yes, but there was more to it than that.
“Yeah, I’m glad we got footage of RVD wrestling with Flair,” Rob Van Dam admitted. “I like him now too, but even when I was there, even, you know, like, I don’t know. Everyone treated him like, I really can’t, to go back into that state of mind, I feel like I’d be rehashing talking sh*t, but, you know, because I keep it real on my podcast, you know, I don’t mean any sh*t talking by this, but back then at that time when I was in the competitive mindset and had the ego that I had, I felt that a lot of the boys kissed his ass.
Ric Flair stooged on Rob Van Dam for smoking marijuana while in WWE
“[They] laughed because he would wear his robe at the bar, maybe with not much underneath, and I just thought I would roll my eyes at that. It wasn’t entertaining to me. He wasn’t my hero growing up. Hulk Hogan was because we only got WWF, whereas people in the south, Ric Flair, was their Hulk Hogan. That’s how I always thought it, and you know, just even backstage, there’s a story that I won’t get into, but let’s just say I thought he was a stooge at one point, that he stooged on me for smoking, Mr. Ric Flair that now has his own marijuana brand.
“So my feelings were among that and then having the mismatch of style where I’m in there with someone that’s gonna want to just chop me and me and make me fall as opposed to, you know, what wrestling was for me. But again, bigger picture, we’re all fu**ed up characters, and, you know, it looked like a good match, and I’m sure it probably was, but that’s what it was like for me.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Whoa, I’m in here with the Nature Boy, you know, one of the original OG champions.’ I never really got into that mindset, I don’t think. Maybe I did with Hulk Hogan a little bit. I don’t know. I felt like you gotta stooge at your level to get ahead. Come on. You’re Ric Flair.” [H/T: WrestlingNews.co]
READ MORE: Ric Flair On MJF Comparisons: He’s Talented As Hell, But I Hope Nobody Is Ever Me
What do you make of Rob Van Dam’s comments? Do you think it was hypocritical for Ric Flair to do what he did based on what he’s doing now? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
