RVD Reacts to Undertaker’s Soft Wrestlers Comment

Pro-Wrestling Veteran Rob Van Dam(RVD) had reacted to the Undertaker’s recent comment on today’s pro-wrestlers “soft.”

The Undertaker commented on modern wrestlers and current wrestling product when he appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast(via Wrestling Inc). Taker said, “The product has changed so much and it’s kind of off. I just think the product is a little soft. There’s guys here and there that have an edge to them but there’s too much pretty and not enough substance I think right now.”

RVD recently joined That 90’s Wrestling Podcast and was asked about Undertaker’s comments. “I think that it’s not the wrestlers themselves so much as the style has changed,” said the former WWE and ECW Champion. “It’s changed so much that a lot of what you’re seeing now that you’ve never seen before. There’s a reason that you never saw it before. You never saw it before because it didn’t fit in the rule book before.”

RVD added that the most obvious change has been in size of the wrestlers.

“The most obvious change that I can point out is like when I got into business in 89, I think the average dresser was 250-260[pounds]. And if you had a jacked body, you could be in the main event. A lot of guys got pushed to the moon just because they looked jacked. Now, the average wrestler is probably 180 pounds and everyone’s in great shape and great condition and jacked.”

RVD also said that wrestlers today have to be really good in the craft to be featuring on TV, unlike the earlier years. He also said they might have been called soft because they have incorporated more athletic style than hard hitting action and have a different lifestyle.

I like to feel like I had a lot to do with that change because everyone’s trying to be RVD, doing more athletic styles and s**t, that I started that, and the marijuana instead of the alcohol and in the party lifestyle. The wrestlers nowadays don’t live like that, so if that’s what you mean by hard, that the guys used to be more hard because they partied all night and then coke and drank and all of that.. If not doing that is soft, then I would say sure this sucks.

Rob Van Dam also pointed out that these changes might also had to do with training. He mentioned that before the pandemic, there were many indie wrestling companies working which gave a lot of fans the chance to transition into wrestlers. But since not everyone is trained in same way, the product is getting diluated.

I don’t want to point out, specifically, things that I was taught, but it has a lot to do with the mind-set. When the [Iron] Sheik trained me, every second of that match I was into, I was fighting. If you grabbed me, I’m trying to kick my feet the whole time. And I believe that and I think that a lot of times because people aren’t trained the same way. Not everyone’s going to be trained by The Sheik or Kowalski or something like that. So, it’s getting diluted.

You can check RVD’s complete interview in the Youtube video embedded at the top of this article. If you are using any quotes from this article, please give a h/t to this article link or itnwwe.com.