Rob Van Dam commented on the rebirth and demise of Extreme Championship Wrestling’s original spirit in the first part of a new multi-part interview series with the UK Sun yesterday. During the interview, Van Dam recounted his conversation with Vince McMahon where McMahon took credit for ECW’s “popularity” after it’s death, including fans chanting “ECW” before the One Night Stand concept was launched:

“I had some great matches with Test, Bob Holly and Big Show. But almost right away they added “credibility” — as Vince put it — to the show, by adding rules.So then it became that Extreme Rules would be one match out of the night, like a lottery drawing. It watered down the rest of the card. I lost faith at a very precise moment, when I lost an argument with Vince over it. I told him: “In ECW you have a product that is different, you should capitalise on that difference. That’s why the fans like it and are attracted to it.” That’s when Vince told me that nobody remembered the old ECW and he created this enthusiasm for this new ECW.

I said: “Wait a second, didn’t we bring it back because of the success of the DVD and One Night Stand. Didn’t that tell us there’s a lot of support still.” He said: “Well Rob, there’s a lot of support because they’re watching WWE promote ECW. They weren’t around back then. People grow up, have kids, things change.” I replied: “That doesn’t make sense. Come on Vince, why do you think they chant ‘ECW’ when we’re doing something out there.” He said: “Well, because I spent the last five years training them to chant ‘ECW’. We’ve got to have credibility Rob and that means we have to listen to the referees.” I realized I can’t tell Vince McMahon what is best for a global product. You have to dumb things down to hit the mainstream, and if you only target the hardcore then you’re going to have a much smaller cult following. That wasn’t what he wanted. I even put it like that, and he agreed! That was the moment I thought: “OK, bye bye old ECW. At least we still have the DVDs and the memories.”

You can read the complete interview, which features Van Dam discussing the frustrations of Paul Heyman during that time period, the December to Dismember PPV and more at this link.