WWE Daily

Here is part 2 of the interview with Rob Van Dam.

Here are a few Highlights;

What are your thoughts on the drug testing in WWE?

From personal experience, being tested probably five or six times at least in the year, year-and-a-half that I was there and they were testing, it felt like it was very violating. For them to actually go inside my body and take my urine and then tell me if they’re OK with what I’m taking, it’s all very violating. At the same time, I do realize the goal behind it, hopefully, is to help people. And there are a lot of irresponsible wrestlers, there’s no doubt about that. I’m responsible myself; I can take care of myself. I’m an independent contractor, which means that I show up to work, I do my job, and then I leave. I’ll see you tomorrow – different place, same job. And that’s what I do. It’s a very onerous contract that they’ve amended several times since signing it. I signed the deal, then a little while later they said, “Oh, OK, by the way, now we’re going to add a dress code.�? Then a little while later they said, “Oh, if you’re late, you’re going to get fined. Now we’re going to add this drug testing.�? It’d be kind of like hiring a painter to paint your house and then every couple of days adding work for him and telling him it’s under the same deal. “Hey, by the way, we decided you’re going to paint my neighbor’s house, too.�?

It does help people because, as I said, there’s some irresponsible guys there that don’t know how to take care of themselves. I do think that the drug screening does help people like that. I look at it like security at the airport. We’re not all going to blow up the airplanes, but because there’s a few bad apples, we all have to bend over and get the anal probe and have all of our private property searched. That got completely monotonous, but it’s a similar thing. Obviously, the wrestling lifestyle is very stressful and very taxing on the body. It’s unreasonable not to understand how some of the wrestlers could benefit from medicine such as pain pills, or even something to wake them up and give them energy. Testosterone is actually a highly accepted medicine that helps them recuperate, helps them heal, helps give them the drive. Not to mention, the older we get, our own testosterone level drops.

To try to be a professional athlete and work out when you’re not sleeping right, you’re traveling day to day, not to mention the bumps and bruises in the ring and you’re trying to eat right, it’s a very, very challenging job. And the list on that drug test is so long. There are even things that other people can take over the counter like ephedrine that the wrestlers aren’t allowed to take. I’m a strong believer in modern medicine. I think it has its use in society. I think it adds longevity to our life expectancy. Go back a couple hundred years, we used to live to be 30 years old before penicillin, so I’m very much into proper usage of medicine when it’s appropriate. Abuse, that’s something else. You shouldn’t have abusers and people that are on deathwatch living day to day like everybody else trying to carry on the job.

With Congress making their demands and looking into it, I don’t really know exactly what to expect out of that. .. I think it’s strange for them to mandate over something as vague and uncontrolled as pro wrestling, because it even changes from state to state whether it’s a sport or entertainment. Pro wrestling is as inside, behind-closed-doors and as protective a business as is there is next to the mafia, so for them to oversee it from the outside and actually put control on it, it’s strange to me. I think they’ve blurred the line between WWE and wrestling, too. They’ve blamed Vince for a lot of stuff that just has to do with wrestling in general. The truth is most wrestlers aren’t working at the top with WWE.

With so many wrestlers dying at a young age, what do you think the industry should do to address the situation?
I think it’s education. I think it’s about making smart decisions. And when we get into a business like this we look at our role models, we look at the older wrestlers and what they do. Back in ’89, ’90 when I got into wrestling, it was a party business. The wrestlers, for the most part, were drinking and doing drugs. I’d compare it more to a rock and roll tour than I would to a football organization. When it comes to the drug abuse they always want to compare it to other sports, but really it’s like the Barnum & Bailey Circus. There’s like 22 of those big tractor trailer trucks and they haul the show from town to town. It’s not like MMA where someone’s really trying to knock your head off, so you can relax a little bit and your comfort zone can get kind of wide. I think it’s in education and I think it’s in people representing the right image. Somebody like CM Punk, who stands up and says he’s completely sober. He doesn’t even take a drink of champagne in a toast because that’s just not him. He’s a man that’s completely full of integrity; you’ve got to respect that. He’s going to have a lot of wrestlers getting into the business that are going to look up to him and want to be like him. He’s unique, but if there were more wrestlers that were not abusive, then eventually I think we’d see a change.

For the full Interview, click here.