Rob Van Dam Reflects on His WWE Hardcore Championship Run

WWE legend and Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam, who is slated to be a part of AEW's "AEW Collision" later today, recently spoke about his experience with the WWE Hardcore Championship on his podcast, "1 of a Kind". Van Dam held the now-defunct title on four separate occasions while with WWE from 2001 to 2002.

In his podcast, RVD stated, "That was one of my favorite championships to defend. And it helped me adjusting to WWE, because when I was the hardcore representative, I was able to be myself within limitations. You know, within their guidelines and their time limit and whatever, but I was able to express myself in the way that RVD needs to be showcased, so that was really cool."

Van Dam added that he played a pivotal role in adding significance to the WWE Hardcore Championship. "I started making the belt mean something, adding prestige to it, credibility, which it didn't have before. I mean, it was a joke. A hardcore match before was going to the hotdog stand and squirting mustard all over each other. And pretty soon I'm main eventing the live events, and so they had to get rid of that belt."

The Hall of Famer also touched on his historic match against Tommy Dreamer on the August 26, 2002, episode of "WWE Raw", where he unified the WWE Hardcore Championship with the WWE Intercontinental Championship.