Rob Van Dam on Jon Moxley’s Weapon Usage & AEW’s Creative Freedom Being ‘The Inmates Are Running The Asylum”

A recent episode of the Wrestling with Rip Rogers podcast featured WWE Hall of Famer and ECW legend Rob Van Dam as the guest. One of the topics discussed included RVD’s thoughts about him being written off TNA television in 2010 being a “stupid way” over Abyss “killing” him with his piked wooden plank named Janice. RVD also compared it to Jon Moxley’s weapon in AEW and claimed AEW’s creative freedom was as “inmates running the asylum.”

“Are you telling me that you think that Moxley was given this idea from a writer and they just went along with it? Maybe he thought it was stupid. I don’t buy that because I think the inmates are running the asylum. I think that’s what AEW is about, is the wrestlers get to do more of what they want. And that’s why there’s more variety, and that’s why, overall, in the big picture of things, it’s going to be a different style that to me is more amateurish, just like backyard matches than WWE, who seems to be going back to telling the stories with the wrestling, keeping it simple and making it make sense. It was getting so out of hand for a while that with AEW they burnt someone’s house down and I’ve never liked that when someone put staples in their face and stuff. “

RVD also gave his thoughts about how wrestling has evolved since his early days in the business and his criticism of modern performers for relying on elaborate setups that can disrupt the flow of a match and criticized AEW again over his belief that if talents have more creative power, the more power they have.

“If the move that you want to do out in the ring, if the setup for it takes so long that it kills the whole match and kills the feeling of competition, then don’t do it because it exposes the business. And now it’s so obvious watching the guys, the young guys. And, you know, especially in the smaller company of the two, I’m getting heat for bashing AEW, and I’ll talk about that in a second, which I don’t do. But that is a place where it seems more like the inmates are running the prison, you know? And it’s always been that way. I think that’s the idea with them: the boys have more control and power.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com