“Would Have Been Very Respectful”: WWE Legend Reveals How One Act From Paul Heyman Led to His Lifetime Frustration

Legendary WWE manager Paul Heyman was the person behind the creation of Extreme Championship Wrestling, which was later bought by WWE in the Attitude Era. While ECW never really got proper recognition under the WWE banner, it did benefit Vince McMahon in other ways.

During a recent interview, the former WWE Superstar revealed how McMahon’s acquisition ruined things for him after transitioning to WWE. He was not pleased with Paul Heyman’s involvement in the whole episode as well.

WWE Hall of Famer reveals how Paul Heyman left him frustrated

WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam was recently invited to Chris Van Vliet’s podcast. Here, Van Dam revealed the episode where Shane McMahon got a move from his wide arsenal that made the Hall of Famer widely popular among fans.

During his early days in the ECW promotion, Van Dam would use a move that became popular as Coast-to-Coast. When asked about whether the younger McMahon had asked for permission, Van Dam said, “No, that would have been respectful. Not expected, but it would have been very respectful. But the way I understand that Paul Heyman showed him a video of me doing it and said, “Can you do this?” and gave it to him.”

Since ECW was not an overly popular promotion like WWE or WCW, most fans did not know about the promotion or its performers. So, when McMahon performed the move, not many people could recognize it at Van Dam’s. Unfortunately, it also became an instant hit.

Read more: Rob Van Dam Destroys Rumors of Suffering From Brain Disorder, That Destroyed a Wrestling Family 16 Years Ago

It is known that RVD first performed the move at the Heatwave 2000 event and called it the Van Terminator. But since then, Shane McMahon made the move his own with his iconic moments by using trash cans. Although he has had many OMG moments in his career, including his last WrestleMania match against Braun Strowman, his Coast-to-Coast move is always on the list. This caused RVD to get frustrated, following which he took immediate action regarding the move.

RVD abandons the Van Terminator and makes concussion excuses

RVD had to quickly abandon the move since people started calling the move Coast-to-Coast. But this did not deter RVD, as he had a wide range of flashy moves to entertain his fans. However, WWE still wanted him to perform the move, so RVD came up with an excuse to evade the situation.

He further said, “You know you had to have like things like that to counter them, making you do things that you don’t wanna do because it lowers the value of when you do it all the time.” RVD would then make excuses in the name of concussions to evade performing the maneuver.

What do you think about RVD’s move and the history behind it?

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