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The year was 2006 and, against all odds, ECW alumnus Rob Van Dam was poised to take over the wrestling world as one of if not the single top pushed star in WWE.
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To be fair, The Whole F’N Show was a star before 2006, arguably being groomed to be the man in the original ECW, and riding that wave of momentum to be the most over ECW alum during WWE’s Alliance storyline.
However, as time marched on, RVD became largely just another guy—an upper mid-card face with a flashy move set who could transition in and out of the main event when needed. Overall, though, he wasn’t treated as a top talent and was as likely to be featured chasing tag team championship gold as going after a world title...
Perhaps it was John Cena’s popularity faltering, or the smash success of WWE’s The Rise and Fall of ECW DVD set, but come 2006, the company gambled on pushing RVD hard. He beat John Cena for the WWE Championship at the second One Night Stand, ECW themed PPV event.
In so doing, Van Dam became crowned the first champion of the relaunched ECW brand (not to mention the first man to reign over both brands in the era of multiple active world championships in WWE.
However, RVD then he got arrested for possession of drugs. WWE's worst fears about his persona and personal life were realized just as Van Dam most prominently represented the company. As a result, WWE suspended him for thirty days and it completely derailed the push of a lifetime.
So what if RVD hadn’t gotten into trouble with the law? This article takes a look at what might have been.
5. Rob Van Dam Is The Face Of ECW
When the original ECW couldn’t support itself anymore and sold off to WWE, Rob Van Dam had looked poised to be the promotion’s top star and was in good position to get a head start on a big push in WWE. That push didn’t really come together, but when WWE relaunched its own version of ECW, Van Dam looked like an optimal fit to plug in as the face of the third brand.
Indeed, RVD started out that way when he beat John Cena for the WWE Championship to kick-start the new ECW. He may well have represented an ideal hybrid of WWE and ECW booking as an organic, original ECW star who could nonetheless play the top face who fended off heel challengers.
After Van Dam’s drug bust, however, WWE clearly seemed to feel he’d had his chance. While he was still an upper mid-card talent, he never got a shot at being the guy for ECW or any other WWE brand again.
3. No Vince McMahon ECW Championship Reign
One of the most inauspicious pieces of the ECW Championship’s legacy is the fact that Vince McMahon himself won the title. While it’s true that McMahon also held the WWE Championship, that reign was toward the peak of his celebrity as an on-air character, and nicely fit his heated feud with Triple H at the time. WWE—and particularly its ECW brand—was not hot when McMahon won that title off of Bobby Lashley.
Had RVD never gotten into trouble, he may well have stayed on top of ECW for the brand’s first year. McMahon may have still feuded with Lashley, but perhaps WWE would have let the angle go after their WrestleMania showdown involving Donald Trump and Umaga.
Even if the feud had gone out, it hopefully wouldn’t have involved the ECW Championship, and the title could have avoided at least that particular tarnish, which might have made some difference in the longer run.
2. CM Punk’s Push Changes
The ECW Championship moved from Rob Van Dam to The Big Show to Bobby Lashley. After a year, it was as if WWE consciously decided to change directions, treating ECW less as an equal third brand, and more as a developmental division not altogether different from what NXT is now. That included spotlighting a mix of up and comers and veterans who were reasonably over but not in contention for main event positions.
Lashley relinquished the title when he moved to the Raw brand, and there was a tournament to replace him as champion, with a final round slated to happen between Chris Benoit and CM Punk (before John Morrison replaced Benoit after his family tragedy). Punk would spend the months to follow chasing, and finally getting the better of Morrison for the title.
Had RVD stuck around, it’s likely CM Punk still would have found his way to the top of the ECW brand. However, as the two represented the old and new guards of Paul Heyman guys, there’s reason to believe RVD ultimately would have passed the torch to Punk, either as respectful rivals or after a heated feud, in either case changing Punks’ road to the title.
1. ECW Lasts Longer
WWE’s ECW can be viewed as a brand killed by mixed creative visions and accidents. There’s little question that Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman would eventually butt heads to the detriment of the brand, and the seeds of dissension were there from the start with the inclusion of the Zombie character in the first episode, and how early matchups like Batista vs. The Big Show were headlining the TV show. But might ECW have had a longer life had RVD not messed up so soon after it launched?
Maybe the ECW Championship was cursed, for the Benoit family tragedy and John Morrison’s Wellness Policy suspension that demanded changes in plans at the top of the card. But everything got off on the wrong foot when Van Dam got suspended and the relinquish the title before it had gotten off the runway.
With RVD on top, ECW could have picked up on Heyman’s creative vision where he’d left on Philadelphia years earlier, or have changed with the times to build fresh faces like CM Punk and Mike Knox. None of this was in the card. Call it RVD’s responsibility or RVD’s bad luck. Regardless, his suspension was not only a huge hit to his career but to WWE’s entire ECW brand.
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