Hello and welcome to #8 in the series after Booker T scores a decent 3.72. As mentioned the other day, I’ve added the top 100 rankings poll in brackets to see how they compare in this setup.
Wrestler
Rating
Stone Cold Steve Austin (1)
4.36
William Regal (18)
4.1
Bret Hart (9)
4.07
CM Punk (16)
3.85
Booker T (48)
3.72
John Cena (17)
3.43
Becky Lynch (28)
3.2
Next we have THE WHOLE F’N SHOW, Mr. 4:20 himself, Rob Van Dam
Gave a 3. Think he spent the majority of his career on auto-pilot and kinda subsequently ruined his legacy. I also cant stand his stoner DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE character, he was way more interesting as the egotistical twat back in the ECW days.
tough one this innit because he has a similar career path to Booker T in the previous thread, the maajor differences being an ECW guy rather than WCW and his wasted potential is self-inflicted rather than being held back for altogether more dodgy reasons. His initial run in the Fed between 2001-2002 was incredible, he (like Booker) were the only guys to come out of the Invasion angle looking good, it’s no coincidence they have basically the same WWF career in terms of being given similar opportunities and big matches such as Team Alliance or Elimination Chamber or Money in the Bank.
RVD and Booker finally one the big belts in 2006, but the difference is RVD’s will go down in history as one of the most memorable moments in wrestling history whereas Booker put on a solid match with Rey in an otherwise awful show. Then he threw it anyway for driving under the influence.
flitting somewhere between a 3 & 4 because when he was switched on (and like you say his ECW stuff was terrific) he was amazing but there’s so much shit in there and its partially his own undoing.
can’t remember which jerry lynn match was better but whatever, those two were always great together
remember him having a suprisingly decent match with neville in nxt, however it was a bit sad seeing him in the same gear doing the same schtick as in ecw but at half the speed
Went 5 and the Cena match because that’s the match which got me back in wrestling after stopping for a few years because I hated seeing triple h on top and he was my favourite wrestler as a kid.
A real anomaly. He didn’t look or wrestle like anyone else at all, and as such his matches look odd and have quite unique psychology but he honestly made it work with everyone. It’s a testament to his work that he could adapt to feuds with people ranging from Sabu to Big Show or Jericho and everyone in between.
Maybe a little spot-heavy for some, but with the martial arts and lucha aspects mixed in he just blew me away as a kid. Seems to have a legit hardness to him too despite the stoner facade. Much like Jericho, Vince seemed to like putting RVD in the upper midcard or jobbing to his top top stars, but both guys repeatedly broke through those ceilings because of their in ring work. A little light on genuine storylines in the latter bit of his wwe career but his ecw and tna work shows he’s more than up for it, and honestly a genuine highlight whenever he was on a card for me.
A great look, highly underrated on the mic, and has had very respectable longevity - some of his work in 2020 alone has been making waves. If Booker’s a 4, RVD certainly is. 4.
first time seeing him in ecw was a genuinely wtf moment, just never seen anything like him. mad that he took so long to get signed, even sandman made it to the big leagues before him! broke his ankle when he was tv champ so that might have prevented him signing i guess but probs should’ve happened for him before then
Gonna hit him with 4 star frog splash. A unique and fun wrestler, brilliant mix of athleticism and style that elevated him above a lot of other high flyers. He was a perfect foil for Jeff Hardy during the invasion, and their matches were great. Just not quite enough for a 5, a shame his big WWE push ended how it did.
He would be a definite 5 if we were rating how fun wrestlers are to use in WWE games though.