Brian Marshall & The ROCK 108 Morning Show - "Rob Van Dam"

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had

the opportunity here over the weekend to speak with WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dampe.

He was in the in Des Moines for a signing here yesterday and we had talked on Saturday a little bit about what was going on with his current wrestling stuff because AEW and then I saw him on WWE television.

I needed to know more so.

Welcome to the show, Rob Van Dam.

Thanks, Brian.

I wanted to thank you for this.

It was many, many years ago, a house show in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

John Cena and Goldust had finished up doing, you know, meet and greets with some fans backstage.

And you kind of, kind of happened upon the location and talked to one of the agents at the time, asked what was going on.

They said, autograph session.

And you said these three words, autograph session.

Cool.

It's always been a big part of my career.

And, um,

I have years of stories from fans telling me that I was the only one that came out the back door when everyone was surrounding the parking lot and screaming over the fence.

And I've always enjoyed getting that energy.

I get enough of just being around the other wrestlers, the wrestler jargon, the egos.

So my ego needs to hear everyone else tell me why they think I'm the best.

It's it's awesome and when it can mean like so much for a fan forever to have a picture of us together.

Some fans will show me pictures that they took with me 20 years ago.

And I don't look that much different, but they do, especially if they were like six at the time, right, makes the travel worth it.

Because it's it'd be different if everyone came up to tell me how much they hate me, but doesn't quite go that way.

You had mentioned

AEW here early on wrestling and then I see you on SmackDown.

So I know it's on your terms.

You just kind of a free agent right now.

What's going on?

I am as far as wrestling goes, you know, I've got certain obligations tied up with different merchandise.

So besides that, I am free to wrestle wherever it was really cool to be on SmackDown and to see how that

business and that style and the whole vibe has changed in a way that I didn't realize till I was right there seeing it.

Would you consider another run in WWE if offered?

Well, that was easy for me to answer because everything is worth considering.

You know, like, I don't like to ever like jump at decisions and no matter what it is, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't like fish, but if you say, hey, do you want a piece of fish?

I don't want to just say, no, get away.

At least in that in that multi moment in my brain, I'm weighing out the options.

Is there any reason to eat this fish?

No, you're not going to enjoy it.

I mean, it does have protein.

It's good for you.

It's got omega.

But at the same time, you know, it's not something that I want to do.

No, that's something that I think we all do subconsciously.

Some of us need to do it more than others because there's a lot of empaths out there or people that seem to have a lot of apathy and they can't really think of.

the consequences results of other people being affected by what they're doing.

But yes, obviously I would consider it and then we'd go from there.

Pantera, walk your entrance theme in ECW and you're using it now.

Did you ever get a chance to meet with Pantera or see them live and have conversations with them about walking out to one of their classics?

No, I never did.

Being a radio guy,

I can probably almost assure you that I'm like the least musically inclined person that you would talk to.

It's something that makes me, I think, maybe one of a kind.

man I can't have a conversation with you and talk about no dude they were better when this guy was the lead singer man are you crazy it's all subjective and for me when I what even when I hear music I don't get dancing you know what I mean like I heard Sylvester Stallone what was this character I guess Tulsa King like he said

Tough guys don't dance.

Come on.

And I was like, he gets me.

I think, yeah, you know, I like seeing girls dance.

They seem to want you to a lot of them are they don't mind you looking at them.

They want to look all gorgeous.

And that's cool.

But I couldn't feel manly on the dance floor.

I don't know if you could picture that or not, but I don't need you to because I don't.

We'll leave that alone for that.

Rob

Van Dam

joining us.

Now, one of the reasons that Rob is on the show, our mutual friend Tom Garland, you guys work together on a project called Headstrong and you are still talking about CTE to this day.

Yeah, so Tom put together a couple of comedy tours for me and I did The Road with him.

He was driving and I was like, wow, it's like starting over with wrestling, doing all the small independent shows and

it was it was fun though and you know the artist in me likes i like to uh just like with wrestling you know i visualize and come up with material and then go out and deliver it and and get that instant gratification payback and so in a lot of ways

it's the same and uh so meantime at that relationship going on and he picked me up for a tour and I showed up with a concussion and had double vision and it lasted for the better part of two years so so yeah I we filmed it it was you know time's idea I think um we're gonna record the comedy tour but it definitely took a turn headstrong it's on amazon at first I didn't want to share all my vulnerabilities but I thought you know

it's it is what it is and people might get might benefit from seeing it and it was the right thing to do so now yeah I am completely committed towards sharing all honesty actually I like to be transparent with everything especially because there's so many people that benefit from realizing that we have

things in common, like getting our heads rocked, you know, or going through depression or certain things like that that I love talking about because I connect deeper with people.

So the movie that we made follows me through the MRIs, the neurological reports, the vision therapy, all that.

And more than ever, right now, I'm finding that my

specific purpose in this whole thing is hope because there's so much fear and you know there's hope and there's hype and like people don't even know what cte is like it's a common term now like uh like like Kleenex you know for for all brands of paper and it's like a lot of my peers

think that they have CTE and they don't.

They have concussion damage, but there's a huge difference.

CTE is a degenerative disease, you know, it's like Alzheimer's, it gets worse.

And definitely not all my peers have it.

And a lot of people listen to this that think they have it, don't have it.

And so it's cool to get checked out, you know, since you, and you might just be fine, you know, it could take, it could take most of the times I got my head rock that took like 10 seconds.

for my senses to come back to me.

Sound would go out, I'd see slow motion, I'd see floaters, all kinds of different things, maybe depending on where in my brain it was hit.

Usually goes right away, once in a great while it lasts the rest of the night.

I was asking the doctors, is this going to get better?

And they'd say, yeah, I'd say when?

I don't know.

But I mean, years or days, we don't know.

And that's where the study is.

They don't know, but it's worth getting checked out.

And since you brought it up, it's CLFhelpline.org is something that I've been promoting because the Concussion Legacy Foundation, they can get you help, they can put you in support groups, they can find you doctors, all that stuff, because it can be overwhelming.

to find the right path to go down when you're in the middle of

that.

Rob Van Dam, our guest here on Rock 108.

Looking forward to having you back on the show sometime again soon.

Right on, Brian.

The Rock 108 Morning Show.