Rob Van Dam Praises Tony Khan, Talks AEW Wrestlers Having Creative Control

01/01/2025 12:08 PM

During a recent edition of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam shared his experience working with AEW.

You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:

On fans being negative towards AEW: "Yeah, they got some haters posting on Instagram. It's entertaining, you know, some of the stuff that they put on there. And all the botches, and they always say 'only the best wrestlers botch.' I haven't been there first off, since April, you know, so maybe the houses were different then."

On his experience working in AEW: "From my experience, Tony [Khan] is just a really nice guy. He's happy to be there. He's comes across like a friend, like he's genuine, like he's really, really appreciative. He'll like, take his time and you know, 'Don't walk away.' He doesn't say, 'Don't walk away.' But it's like, you know, 'Hold on, I got a list of things I'm going to tell you.' He be like, 'Rob, that was awesome. You were awesome. The match was great. The people loved you. Thank you so much for coming in here. Almost like he's going through like to make sure to cut everything. And it's really cool. It's really — you know, an appreciative thing to go through."

On AEW wrestlers having control: "I feel like the boys there seem to have so much control, and a desire to take the product in a different direction. And so I think that's what they're going to get judged by a lot, is whether that kind of product is inferior and if the other kind of product — more mainstream — is superior. And it really has always been that way in the past. I say that myself, being kind of a wrestler with a niche following. Because [of] ECW, because hardcore, because I'm a whole F-ing show, because of all that. You know, people love me, but I'm not in that position, like where Cena [is]. The mainstream — you know, like everybody loves them. Kids love them. I love them, you know. So it's — when you are a specialty item or have specialty talents, you're going to get a little bit more of a niche, however big that niche you can get."

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