Why Hall Of Famer Felt Like Superman Beating John Cena For WWE Title
Winning the WWE Championship from John Cena was a huge moment for a WWE Hall of Famer.
The WWE-ECW One Night Stand 2006 PLE from New York City will always be remembered fondly by wrestling fans and most of the superstars who competed on the show.
That’s a show regarded as having one of the best and most vocal crowds in wrestling history. In the main event, ECW legend and WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam beat John Cena to become the WWE Champion for the first time in his legendary career.
It was a night full of controversy because RVD benefited from Edge attacking Cena with a Spear during the match. RVD hit a 5-Star Frog Splash on Cena for the pinfall, which was counted by former ECW boss Paul Heyman, and RVD became the WWE Champion.
At that point, it was only the second year of John Cena becoming a main eventer, and RVD was actually in WWE before Cena, but Cena was WWE’s Golden Boy, so to speak, which is why it was a big deal for RVD to win.
While talking to Monopoly Events at For The Love of Wrestling 2026, Rob Van Dam talked about what that match meant to him.
“Absolutely. Yeah. I do remember I felt like Superman. I felt completely invincible walking out there because I knew that was my house. Those are my people, and this was my match. So, I couldn’t have felt better, you know, like confidence through the roof.
The normal pressure that I had before a match, of not wanting to screw up, you know, I put myself at high risk situations, and to fail something like that would just be the worst thing in the world to me. You know, it didn’t happen.
The match was great, and the people were beyond great. I knew that they were going to be all for me and against him, but I couldn’t have predicted that they were going to be that extreme. That was a whole new level that no one had seen before. That’s why it made history, and that’s the ECW fans having their shining moment.”
RVD Knows How Big It Was To Beat John Cena
Following that ECW One Night Stand 2006 PLE, WWE relaunched the ECW brand with RVD leading the way as the WWE Champion. The ECW relaunch didn’t really work that well, but One Night Stand 2006 still had a big impact on pro wrestling history.
Actor Timothée Chalamet has praised the RVD-Cena match heavily as well, and RVD reacted to that.
“That sounds pretty good. And there’s a lot of wrestling fans everywhere, you know what I mean? And when you’re on TV, you never know who’s watching you. So, it’s great to know, you know, like I knew at that moment, after the match when I had the championship, I knew I was on top of the world, and I knew moving forward, everything was going to be better.
We were bringing ECW back as a new brand. I knew I had done some very significant things in the industry by even talking to Vince and planning the idea to bring ECW back. I mean, that was really pretty substantial, substantial in the — So, I didn’t know that I was going to be at the peak and that it was going to soon just be all downhill after.”
RVD mentioned the downhill after because he was arrested for marijuana possession, and WWE took the title off him in a match because of the incident.