Rob Van Dam on Celebrities in Wrestling: ‘For Me, It’s Always Offensive’

Rob Van Dam isn't a fan of celebrities coming into the world of pro wrestling. On an episode of his podcast, 1 of a Kind with RVD, the ECW legend and former WWE champion spoke out on entertainers like Jelly Roll stepping into the squared circle.

“For me, it’s always offensive. I take the perspective of... in order to have a celebrity take a spot on a wrestling card, everyone else has to work around them to make it look like anybody could do it," RVD said. "I don’t like that, because not everybody can do it. The fact that Logan Paul picked it up and is so good is really rare. Jeremy Piven, not so much. The Jackass kids… anybody.”

After Travis Scott's name got brought up, along with reports that WWE are no longer working with him because he wasn't able to pick up on the business quickly enough, RVD added, “If one of those guys... if I can kick him in the mouth just like I kick Bubba Dudley or anybody else in the mouth, if they’re like, ‘Ok cool man, I really enjoyed that,’ maybe they’d win me over then."

"It’s always insulting for me when people feel like it’s easy, like we’re just playing or like just anybody can do it. That’s way back from when I got into the business and they were still kayfabing it and protecting the business. Now it’s like people want it to be so wide open, they want to believe it’s way, way softer than it is. And they’ve made it way softer ... I’m gonna always be biting my tongue and say, ‘Well, I hope the fans enjoyed it.’ If the fans enjoyed it, cool, at least there’s that.”

RVD also looked back on when he wrestled the Insane Clown Posse back in the ECW days.

“When Insane Clown Posse came to ECW, me and Sabu beat the shit out of them," the wrestler recalled. "We didn’t take it easy on them at all and I broke [Violent J’s] eardrum, he wrote about it in his book, it’s a fact, everyone knows that. I didn’t go exceptionally hard on them, but I didn’t hold back either. And they had wrestling training, but we looked at them like they weren’t us, because the only matches they had were the ones they booked themselves on their own shows … I’m not gonna try to hurt those guys, no, but if they didn’t respect what we’re doing before, they’re gonna respect it afterwards.”

Finally, RVD spoke about Jelly Roll, who recently chokeslammed Logan Paul through a table on Jimmy Kimmel to promote his upcoming match at Summerslam.

“Imagine Jelly Roll going through the training that we saw on the Tough Enough show," RVD said. "Remember that, when they hit the ropes, drop down, leap frog… 20 of those? Now get up on the top rope and balance and do squats. When I saw that I was like, ‘How many wrestlers can even do that?’ When they were training, they put them through the hardest courses possible to prepare them for anything during their matches … Work out ’til you puke, then work out ’til you puke again. You think celebrities are getting that kind of training? No, so they’re not gonna respect it as much.”

Watch RVD speak about celebrities in wrestling at 44:52 in the video below.