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ROB VAN DAM OFFERS A FIRST HAND ACCOUNT OF PAUL HEYMAN LEAVING WWE

Written by Dan Bristow (dan@wrestlingnewsdesk.com)

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

4:54 PM EST

A fascinating story has been posted by THE NATIONAL LEDGER regarding the recent media interviews conducted with Former ECW and WWE Champion Rob Van Dam. You can view the story for yourself at this link: http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272618445.shtml. Reporter John Roth writes:

On December 3, 2006 World Wrestling Entertainment presented an ECW pay per view, "The December To Dismember" that is still the subject of controversy. The Augusta, Georgia event fell apart in front of the eyes of the spectators who had come to see The Elimination Chamber Match for the ECW World Title, then being defended by The Big Show.

The event bombed. It was the poorest received WWE pay per view all year long. The show ended 20 minutes early. The crowd, furious with the lackluster event, grew hostile when both Rob Van Dam and CM Punk were eliminated from the Chamber early in the match. The audience chanted "T-N-A!" One of the ringleaders of this chant? Sonya Szatkowski, aka Sonya Van Dam, wife of RVD.

Bobby Lashley was crowned the babyface ECW World Champion on this night. Heyman and Show, according to several people, had feverishly pitched a scenario where Show would start in the Chamber, and get UFC-style choked out by CM Punk in the 1st round. But WWE Chairman Vince McMahon wanted Lashley to have the babyface spotlight to himself, and had RVD and Punk, far more popular than Lashley, eliminated so that Lashley would be the focus of the match.

The growing tensions over the presentation of the ECW brand between McMahon, who purchased the assets out of bankruptcy for far more money than he spent acquiring Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling, and Original ECW Owner and creative director Paul Heyman came to a head. There are lots of reports of what happened. All that's known is that shortly after the agent/producer's meeting, Heyman had a private meeting with McMahon and Stephanie McMahon LeVesque, and a short time later Heyman had departed the arena and went back home to New York. People who saw Heyman in the locker room had no idea anything had happened. Was he fired? Did he quit? Heyman has never given an interview, written a blog, or publicly discussed the situation. He simply stopped working in the wrestling industry.

Now comes the first on-the-record report of what happened that day between Vince McMahon and one of the most influential creative people in the history of professional wrestling. Rob Van Dam was interviewed this week on The Live Audio Wrestling Show in Toronto, and finally shed some light on the events that lead to both his and Heyman's departure from World Wrestling Entertainment and the brand Heyman and Van Dam will forever be associated with, Extreme Championship Wrestling.

When host Jason Agnew asked RVD, "How drastically did your time in the WWE change after Paul Heyman was sent home in December of 2006?"

Van Dam responded, "I knew I was on my way out already. In fact in November we were on a very, very stressful and dreadful over seas trip. Paul Heyman and I every night would get together in the hotel room and talk about everything they had done to try and destroy ECW on nightly bases. It was little things, not putting as much promotion in to it, where it is on the card, just everything, you know everything. It was obvious that a lot of it, agents didn't like ECW and that's no big surprise but guess what? Its Vince's ECW now, get behind it, quit being A-holes, its business! They were still trying to squash and bury ECW and it frustrated us."

"Paul and I both on that trip said we were leaving and I knew that we were going to leave, we both were. Paul, you said got sent home but I actually watched him get in to a taxi and walk out of the place, so there's two sides of the story for you. Vince told Paul basically kiss my ass, I'm paraphrasing, it had more to do with apologizing and taking back some things that were said and caving in or consider this you handing in your resignation. Paul said I am very happy to hand in my resignation, he couldn't wait to get out of there and he'd always been like that so I talked to him. I was waiting for his cab and he told me what just went down and he got in his cab and left. I told him "Paul my contracts up in a little bit, I'm gonna finish it. I signed the contract you know and I believe in loyalty. If I tell ya I'm gonna do the job, I'm gonna do the job, I'm gonna be there." I had till June and as it got close to it man I could not wait. It wasn't actually until Wrestlemania that I absolutely knew for sure that I was not going to re-sign. From that point on ugh, it just seemed like week by week it got more stressful for me."

Van Dam also was interviewed by Kevin Eck of The Baltimore Sun, and gave a very pointed statement regarding how Vince McMahon apparently viewed the ECW audience.

Van Dam's statement: "When they started killing the spirit of ECW, my passion came down. I was telling them, "What you're doing is going to destroy ECW. ECW fans won't get behind this." And I was hearing ridiculous things such as, "Rob, people don't remember the old ECW." I'd say, "What are you talking about, Vince? Why do you think they chant 'E-C-W?' " "Well, because I trained them to do that over the last five years when they see something extreme."

"How do you argue against something like that? I can't say I know what's better for global business, because WWE is like Coca-Cola, recognized around the world. But I knew that ECW was something special, it was something different. And I knew it was that spirit that was the thing not only that would interest me and keep my passion going, but would also draw like-minded fans. It would make wrestling cool again. [Vince] would say, "No, I never had any intentions of making this like the old ECW. People move on. They get married, they have kids. Nobody remembers that." Well, then why did we bring back the originals? Why'd we do this off the success of that pay-per-view? And I heard this: "Rob, for all I know, those 2500 fans in New York at the Manhattan Ballroom are the last of the old ECW fans." I mean, at some point, you tap. I tapped out. My passion tapped out. My desire to be there tapped out. And so how do I feel about the new ECW? It's something that I wanted to be a part of so bad that I walked right out the exit."

For someone who WWE officials always felt couldn't deliver a good interview, Rob Van Dam speaks with more passion today than almost anyone else on sports entertainment television. And it's that honesty that makes him R-V-D!