🤼‍♂ How Good of a Wrestler Were They Really? 🤼‍♀ #8 Rob Van Dam 👍

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 :+1: Van :+1: Dam :+1:

So, how good was the five-star man really?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Best match:

  • Rob Van Dam vs Dan Kroffat (AJPW Budokan Hall 1995)
  • Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs Hayabusa & Shinzaki (Heatwave '98)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Lance Storm (ECW Guilty As Charged '99)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Jerry Lynn (ECW Living Dangerously '99)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Jerry Lynn (ECW Hardcore Heaven '99)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Jeff Hardy (Invasion 2001)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Chris Jericho (Unforgiven 2001)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Stone Cold vs Kurt Angle (No Mercy 2001)
  • Team WWF vs The Alliance II (Survivor Series 2001)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Eddie Guerrero IC Title Ladder Match (RAW, May 2002)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Benoit (Summerslam 2002)
  • Inaugural Elimination Chamber Match (Survivor Series 2002)
  • Rob Van Dam vs Christian IC Title Ladder Match (RAW, Sep 2003)
  • Money in the Bank Match 2006 (Wrestlemania 22)
  • Rob Van Dam vs John Cena (One Night Stand 2006)
  • Rob Van Dam vs AJ Styles TNA World Title Match (IMPACT! Apr 2010)
  • Money in the Bank 2013
  • Money in the Bank 2014

0 voters

I like his little car

1 Like

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.

Has had plenty of barn burners though

1 Like

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

3 Likes

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.

1 Like

Played a part in one of wrestling’s greatest angles (no not you Kurt)

4 Likes

Only seen him a couple of times and have no idea what the attraction is. Hated him on that PS2 game where he just somersaulted everywhere.

1 Like

Never understood him at all, bored the crap out of me

1/5

1 Like

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.

5 Likes

The first time I saw his frog splash or the Van Damminator were genuine jaw drop moments, which is a lost art really

3 Likes

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

2 Likes

3

Big fan of frog splashes though

I’m just going to use these threads to post my favourite random wrestling Youtube videos really.

1 Like

His current thing with Katie Forbes on Impact makes me cringe a bit though

Don’t want to interrupt this thread, but can we jump straight into the Marty Jannetty edition of this?

3 Likes

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.

5 Likes

PICK A HAND

5/5

3 Likes