Rob Van Dam will happily price himself out of the business before wrestling for lower than he believes he’s worth.
Speaking on his One of a Kind Podcast, the former WWE Champion spoke about how he’d rather charge a high fee and not get booked, rather than wrestle for less than he values himself.
He added that, unlike most wrestlers, fans always remember him and how he has affected their lives. This keeps his fee high, as well as interest in Rob Van Dam as a character.
“I’ve always said I will out-price myself in the business. You know, my peers or the traditional way a wrestler’s career goes, they say, ‘What goes up must come down.’ Wrestlers go up, they have their peak—you know, you’ve only got so many bumps on your bump card, man. Then, usually in their early 40s, their body starts breaking down, and their value goes down as well. They’re off TV.”
“I mean, how many wrestlers tell me this? Ninety, ninety-five percent of them say, ‘Well, come on, Rob, you know how it is. You’re off TV, you’re out of mind. People forget you real quick.’ Not so much for RVD, you know what I mean? I don’t, but I know that most people do. You didn’t impact people’s lives so much that they’re always going to remember you or that you’ll stand out to them. For most wrestlers, they have their peak years, and then they don’t.”
Rob Van Dam: We All Know Wrestling Like Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson
Rob Van Dam continued, citing Sabu as a wrestler who loves it so much, he’s willing to have his value go lower just to carry on performing.
He added that all wrestlers know people like Randy “The Ram” Robinson, Micky Rourke’s character from The Wrestler. Rob Van Dam doesn’t want to end up like that, and is happy to price himself out of the business to avoid it.
“Like I said, Sabu doesn’t want to do anything else but wrestle, but if that’s how it is, their value drops. They’re still getting what they can, but their price goes down, their value goes down, and it’s a cycle. They work for less, so they get paid less, and their worth goes down. As they move less and work their way down, you sometimes get stories like Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson [from The Wrestler]. We all know so many wrestlers like that. They got used to that lifestyle, but it didn’t last long, and there was a hard crash back to reality because they were addicted to being in front of everybody. Same old story, over and over again, to different degrees for the traditional path of a pro wrestler.”
“So for me, I’ve always said I would prefer to just price myself out of the business. Maintain my value, maintain my health, and still be able to do everything I can. Regardless of whether I was on TV last week or not. If I’m not on TV, and if I’m not booked, then maybe it’s because they want me to work for less than I do. In which case, I just walk out of the business on my own terms. Feeling healthy, and having the rest of my life ahead of me. That’s always been my plan.”
