Rob Van Dam Explains Why He Chose to Return to Impact Wrestling

On what made him decide to return: “One’s perspective has to change as we move through time because you’re looking at life and that’s just a fact. I’m still interested in good business, interested in opportunities, and I just follow my spirit. So, right now, everything’s lined up in this fashion. So, it’s a good deal. I talked to Scott D’Amore, we talked about the business and then I understood Impact’s schedule and I was able to compare that with all the other schedules I’ve had over the last 30 years, and everything is favorable and hopefully, it’s a win-win for everybody.”

On who in the Impact locker room would fit in back in ECW: “I’m sure that I know a lot of the guys who’re in the locker room right now but I haven’t been in there yet. So I have a lot of people to still meet. But there’s no doubt about it. There are several wrestlers who would have done very well in ECW. And that’s a testament to how ECW has impacted the entire business. Overall, all pro wrestling is a lot more like ECW than it used to be. ECW used to be the only group that was hardcore, that had people going through tables and having these fatal four ways, triple threats. Everything. That was ECW and now all the groups are extreme. All of them are. And that’s how times have changed and how ECW has affected the whole standard. Back in the day not many of the other wrestlers would have been comfortable in ECW because it was so different. But now, years later, people that watched ECW growing up who are now pro wrestlers themselves, yeah…there definitely could have been a lot more people because a lot of the wrestlers today were inspired by ECW and they enjoyed and preferred that kind of style.”