Rob Van Dam “Hugged It Out” With Shawn Michaels
Rob Van Dam has buried the hatchet with Shawn Michaels.
Rob Van Dam has had a stellar career making his name in ECW before ending up on the giant stage that is WWE. The star earned every bit of his place in the WWE Hall of Fame when he was inducted in 2021 but in more recent years there is one clip of RVD that does the rounds online as much as anything from his in-ring career.
In 2016, Rob Van Dam sat down for a shoot interview with Kayfabe Commentaries and while talking about his issues with Shawn Michaels, RVD imitated HBK incredibly well but also threw in a lazy eye to mimic Michaels’ own that he developed after an in-ring injury.
Rob Van Dam made amends with Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania
Speaking on his 1 Of A Kind podcast, Rob Van Dam revealed that he caught up with Shawn Michaels back at WrestleMania 39 where he mended fences over the poor-taste impersonation:
“I caught him by himself. I ran up to him and said, ‘Hey, dude. The footage of me making fun of your eye like that just will never die. People love it. I tell them I’m glad to hear they’re entertained by it, but I feel like such a dick because that has to suck so bad and I had double vision with my concussion for a long time. I had to go to vision therapy and all these experts.
“And when I told him that he said, ‘Yeah, I saw the movie.’ So I was like, ‘Sweet, you watched Headstrong!’ And then I said to think about just the headaches and how inconvenient that would be because I was thrown way off my game, not being able to see right. Like for a while, I was lost…’ He just said something to the effect about that he didn’t take it that seriously, which he’s told me before, you know, but I still wanted to say [it], but something about growth cause I said, ‘I wouldn’t do that now,’ you know? I wouldn’t.”
“Like now I’m all about trying not to put anything negative out there. He said something about, ‘You know, look at me. I used to be a dick,’ (I paraphrase). I don’t remember what he said, but like [we] grew from where we were before. You know, we hugged it out and I said, ‘Thanks for watching Headstrong, bro. Spread the word.’”
Rob Van Dam recently made his debut for AEW where he unsuccessfully challenged Jack Perry for the FTW Championship.