Just to be perfectly clear, we're not talking about the laid-back, stoner stereotype Rob Van Dam played in WWE - you know, the one who said "Dude" before and after every sentence. We're talking about the ECW Van Dam - the ungodly athlete who wasn't shy about letting the world know that he was "The Whole Fucking Show." Despite never holding the ECW World Championship, RVD was the company's biggest star. He was the cure for the big two, a whirlwind of combat and cocky that was like nothing you'd see on Monday nights. Rob Van Dam stayed with ECW until the bitter end, all the while doing what he wanted and making no apologies. The yin-yang emblazoned on so many of Van Dam's singlets summed him up perfectly. He was a dichotomy - the marijuana enthusiast and elite competitor, the easy-going guy who thrived on competition. RVD was the ideal face for wrestling's greatest underground organization.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013