"It was my fault and I f****d up" - WWE legend reflects on incident with Triple H
Rob Van Dam (RVD) admits he should not have attempted to land a risky frog splash on Triple H during WWE’s first Elimination Chamber match.
Shawn Michaels defeated Booker T, Chris Jericho, Kane, RVD, and Triple H to win the World Heavyweight Championship at Survivor Series 2002. The match featured a spot where RVD accidentally injured The Game’s throat after mistiming a frog splash from the top of an Elimination Chamber pod.
On Rene Dupree’s “Cafe de Rene” podcast, RVD said he had reservations about performing the high-flying move:
“It wasn’t my idea and I wasn’t comfortable, but I believed in myself enough to think it’s just gonna work out, I’ll be able to pull it off. That was a mistake on my part. I didn’t know how to judge how far to jump out because the cage wasn’t gonna give me any bounce, and is the extra height gonna make a difference in my arc? It was my fault and I f****d up.” [1:12-1:45]
Triple H discussed the incident on WWE Network show “Ruthless Aggression” in 2021. He said the match went “in the wrong direction” after the frog splash spot. From that moment on, he struggled to breathe every time he had a physical altercation with anyone in the match.
RVD explains why the frog splash on Triple H went wrong
Rob Van Dam often jumps halfway across the ring when he lands frog splashes on his opponents. However, the low ceiling of the Elimination Chamber structure prevented him from executing the move in the same way he would from the top rope.
remember when RVD just tried to end Triple H's life #wwe02 https://t.co/zrBs55MJrX
As a result, the 2021 WWE Hall of Fame inductee’s knee inadvertently connected with Triple H’s throat:
“It wasn’t like my everyday frog splash where I know, ‘This is what I do and I got you. Don’t worry, don’t spin, I got you wherever you’re at,’” RVD continued. “I’ll go to the furthest corner sometimes for my benefit. This wasn’t like that. I was like, ‘You can do this, Rob!’ In retrospect, I shouldn’t have done it, maybe, or I should’ve worked on it earlier in the day or something.” [1:49-2:13]
WWE redesigned the Elimination Chamber structure in 2017. The current design has a higher ceiling, which means superstars have more space to move around on top of pods.
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Please credit “Cafe de Rene” and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.