cOn a recent edition of his “Something To Wrestle” podcast, WWE executive Bruce Prichard discussed Rob Van Dam’s getting arrested in 2006 while holding the WWE Championship, the revival of the ECW brand, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On RVD’s 2006 arrest: “It was embarrassing, it was horrible. And you think about where we are today. And the different countries that you go to. You can go to Amsterdam, marijuana is legal. There are places in the Caribbean where it’s legal. All over the United States of America. Vegas, in Nevada it’s legal. Here in Connecticut, it’s legal. Massachusetts, it’s legal. New York, it’s legal. It’s a plant, it’s an herb that you smoke and makes you feel better. Doesn’t get you drunk, drunk and doesn’t get you hungover…. Rob was partaking, everyone knew Rob partook. Rob liked to smoke a joint and chill out.
“It was unfortunate timing. But you know what man, it was bad for the company. It was bad for Rob and it was bad for the company to be pulled over by the cops. And the fact that it was a Rob Van Dam, of course made their news cycle, made them big deals. So that’s what it was. And it was something that probably, had it not been Rob, may not have made the papers. But it did. And that’s what you have to deal with. You know, you don’t have to deal with the what-ifs, what could have been, what should have been or anything else. You have to deal with what it was. And what it was was Rob got busted for having drugs on him and made the papers, and he was our brand new champion.”
On RVD’s reaction to it: “Yeah, I don’t think Rob realized that it had become as big as that did. It wasn’t Rob was like, ‘Oh, this is no big deal.’ No, I don’t think that Rob was like that at all. I think that Rob didn’t realize that hey, everybody knew and that it was a big deal. And then it had caused embarrassment, and it had done all this other s**t. So he just didn’t know that. He thought, ‘Man, we got pulled over. Got to pay a fine, I got to do this, and life goes on.’ It wasn’t the case.”
On how it impacted RVD: “I think there was a big time trust issue. Because anytime that you are the champion of whatever it is, you’re the billboard for the company. You’re what everybody looks at, what everybody strives to be at that point in time. So when you’re the billboard of the company and there’s a mark all over it, that reflects poorly on the company. That’s where we were at this point.”
