RVD Tells Funny Vince McMahon – 420 Story, Talks Marijuana Use In Pro Wrestling

Wrestling Inc. – Rob Van Dam Interview

Conducted by Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman

Audio Link – https://audioboom.com/posts/7671548-roman-reigns-is-wwe-universal-champion-a-heel-and-with-paul-heyman-feat-rob-van-dam

On how he and Rey Mysterio got a move called the “420 Leg Drop” on WWE TV:

One night before the match, Paul came up to me and he said, ‘Vince wants to know what the 420 leg drop means.’ I said, ‘why?’ He said, ‘he needs to know if the commentators can’t say if it’s a drug use. He wants to know is it a drug use?’ And I said, ‘no, it’s the name of our move.’ He goes, ‘I know, but he wants to know what it means.’ I said, ‘it’s 420. I pick Rey Mysterio up. Then I jump up while I’m holding him up and all of our legs come down on the guy, so it’s four legs and twenty is our combined shoe size. I wear twelve. He’s eight,’ and he’s like, ‘OK, I can work with that.’

On if he ever received blowback for getting the 420 referenced mentioned by commentators on WWE TV:

I never heard anything back on it, so I don’t know. I think what happened was I ended up tearing my ACL, actually, around that time because I know Rey Mysterio and I were tagging when that happened, when it finally tore all the way through. So I was out for 2005 because I had to have knee surgery. So that’s pretty memorable.

On advances made with the cannabinoid CBG and how it could help with concussion rehab:

Well CBG is one of the many components that we find in the cannabis plant. I’ve been an advocate for over 20 years. There’s over a hundred, we call him cannabinoids that make up the marijuana plant. Since it’s illegal to study the plant, we’ve only known about THC. Marijuana gets you high. That’s all we’ve known, and the last few years because it’s becoming quasi-legal, we’re starting to look at the plant. Then we got CBD and oh snap, it mimics the THC, but without some of the effects that some people might not want like your attention span precipitating. Turns out it’s not just THC and CBD. There’s CBG, there’s CBN and there’s a handful more that we know, but we have so far to go.

We’re going to find out that the plant can cure like everything and I’ve always known that, and I’ve always known it can replace like 80% of our resources. That’s the only reason that it was ever prohibited in the first place. You can make fuel out of it. You can replace 80% of pharmaceuticals. You can make anything, plastics, wood [and] steel. So we’re learning about the plant, and CBG, it will become THC or CBD much like a stem cell becomes any other cell if you know that about stem cells. It can become blood, hair [or] whatever. So CBG is a precursor, and I was reading that CBG could regenerate dead brain tissue. So I was like, wait a minute, what? I have a lot of friends with concussion issues that inspired me to start RVD CBD. I was like I might be able to get to the bottom of this before the NFL.

They probably have a bunch of red tape to cut through, and I’m always trying stuff myself. I’ve had hundreds of concussions. So I’m always trying. I’ve had stem cells. I’ve done oxygen therapy, red light therapy, whatever. I believe in the plant. We have so many answers still to come. So we’re looking at it, and I opened up the company with the goal which will always be there to have a neurological protection and reviving medicine for back for lack of a better word. And currently, I have a few products out. That’s not one of them. The products I have are amazing, but that’s always going to be like the goal, until I get it, and when I do get it, I’m always going to be making it better once I have it. Every time, I learned to improve just like all my products.