Kurt Angle Thinks TNA Could Have Used Rob Van Dam Better
In Kurt Angle’s opinion, TNA Wrestling could have used Rob Van Dam a lot better than they did.
When Kurt Angle and Rob Van first wrestled for the same company, it was in 2001 when RVD signed with WWE following the death of ECW. By that time, Angle was already an established main eventer in just two years of being in WWE while RVD quickly won over the fans as one of the most popular wrestlers in the company.
After about seven years in WWE, Kurt Angle signed with TNA in 2006 and RVD would eventually follow in 2010. During RVD’s first TNA run which lasted for three years, he held the TNA World Championship for 113 days and also won the X-Division Championship. Meanwhile, Angle had the most TNA World Titles ever with six reigns totaling a record 608 days.
On the Kurt Angle Show podcast talking about RVD this week, the WWE & TNA Hall of Famer said that while RVD cared about being a pro wrestler, he didn’t necessarily show it by his actions.
“That’s Rob. ‘Hey Dude, I’m hanging here. I’m hanging out. I’m cool.’ He just wasn’t vocal. He wasn’t trying to be a leader. He wanted to go there and do his thing and perform. It’s not like he didn’t care about the company. That was Rob. That’s the way he was.”
“If you’re going to care about a company, if you’re Rob Van Dam, as long as you give everything you have in that ring every single night you go out there, that’s all you need from Rob because he’s not going to give you anything more.”
“He’s not going to tell people, ‘Hey, my passion is to make TNA the greatest company in the world.’ Rob is Rob Van Dam and what he’s going to do is he’s going to do it his way, his own thing, and his style at a very high level all the time.”
When Angle was asked if TNA used RVD the right way, Angle said that the company could have utilized RVD more than it did.
“They could have given him a better push. Definitely. I don’t know if they thought that he didn’t care because he had that I don’t care attitude. They might not have known Rob as well as I did, but Rob deserved a better push than he got.”
If you want to check out a funny Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam clip, they did a comedy bit for Funny Or Die back in 2012. It’s worth checking out below for a few laughs.