WWE: Has RVD’s return been successful?

Rob Van Dam

Two months ago, one man’s name created huge ripples in the world of professional wrestling. During the Payback PPV, a promo aired about the return of a superstar, who until then was forgotten.

That one vignette made him the hottest commodity in professional wrestling; the fans started to chant the all too familiar name of Rob Van Dam, and that continued for the next three weeks. At the Money in the Bank PPV, the much anticipated return of RVD saw the Philadelphia crowd give a hero’s welcome to their most beloved son, who was one of the biggest names of Philly’s own ECW.

As the crowd chanted “RVD” and “ECW”, RVD put on an amazing performance, which showed everyone that “he still had it”. RVD was stuck in TNA and no one cared, but one night in the WWE made him a superstar once again.
 

 
The next night on RAW, RVD was involved in an amazing match against Chris Jericho, as he picked up his first victory on RAW after more than 6 years! As the crowd chanted that the match was awesome, it was clear that RVD was as good as he ever was. Things were looking good for the high flying superstar, as he was setting the stage on fire.

But then, for some odd reason, WWE lost the plot with RVD. He had no authentic feuds, and even though he faced Alberto Del Rio (And defeated him on a couple of occasions), he had no feud going into SummerSlam until the very last week!

If that wasn’t enough, RVD was relegated to the pre – show match at SummerSlam. SummerSlam is the second biggest PPV of the year, and RVD being a major returning superstar should have been on the card.

Although reports came in that RVD had signed a deal similar to Chris Jericho’s, there was no possible reason for the creative department to leave RVD off the main card, and not have a long term feud for him. In hindsight, this doesn’t seem to be a lot, until you take a look at all the other ‘part timers’ in the WWE.