10 Wrestlers Who Saw WWE As A Vacation
6. Rob Van Dam
Rob Van Dam's oddball 2013 comeback was greeted with significant excitement, not least as 'Mr Monday Night' was announced as surprise returnee for that year's Money In The Bank match. Thoughts immediately rushed to the athletic extremist's best moments a decade earlier, and why wouldn't they? It felt like he'd barely been seen since then anyway.
Van Dam's original run existed under something of a cloud after Triple H pulverised his push once and for all in 2002, particularly after his 2006 WWE Championship went up in smoke just weeks after it began. With a 2007 departure well-stuck to outside of a brief TNA run (that was itself something of a vacation), RVD's true decline wasn't evident until he settled back into the mithering midcard after the aforementioned promising return.
Paired with Ricardo Rodriguez after his split with the freefalling World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio, Van Dam listlessly went through the motions against the titleholder before offering himself up as a jobber-to-the-stars in 2014 after a mid-run sabbatical. By the following August, he was gone again.
It was probably some of the easiest McMahon money he'd ever made - it was just a bit dispiriting that it looked that way too.