Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: impact wrestling, rob van dam, wwe

Rob Van Dam Signs Impact Wrestling Deal

Former ECW, WWE, and TNA Champion Rob Van Dam has signed a longterm deal with Impact Wrestling, the Van Dam revealed in an interview with Sporting News Wednesday. Van Dam is set to team with Sabu to face the Lucha Bros at Impact's iPPV event, United We Stand, in New Jersey on Thursday, but he will apparently be sticking around after that, securing a reasonable schedule for a set term, with an option to extend the contract if it proves mutually beneficial.

It looks like you are going to be seeing my face around for the foreseeable future. We have an agreement to where I will be sticking after the show on Thursday. It does have a beginning and an end, but they can extend, so this is something to start us off. I had agreed to one match, and then we talked about and discussed doing their upcoming tapings after the show on Thursday and a couple of television tapings over the next few months. We looked at the schedule moving forward, and they asked if I was available. I told them I was.

We will see how it goes. It's a pretty friendly schedule, which has always been important to me. I want to be home more and on the road less. That's still something I've done since I left WWE in 2007. Impact with their schedule and the position they want me to fill for my career seems like a perfect situation. Hopefully it will be mutually beneficial, and we will see "The Whole F'N Show" back on television. Let's see how all these new guys matchup to me. I'm not there to compete with the guys who have stolen all my moves (laughs). I'm pretty much there to be myself.

Van Damn also discussed John Oliver's takedown of WWE contracting all of their wrestlers as independent contractors instead of employees on Last Week Tonight, taking an opposing view to Oliver's.

I haven't watched the whole thing. I saw like half of it before this phone call and will watch the rest. That is another subject where I have a different opinion than most of the others. I enjoy being an independent contractor because that gives me more control. It would help a lot of people; we all aren't in the same position. You said especially WWE. When I have had this debate in the past, when people say wrestlers should be independent contractors, it is a general term. They say wrestlers should have insurance. Do you mean all wrestlers? Like the guy who runs one show, once a year at the county fair, should his wrestlers have insurance?

Where do you draw the lines at? Because if you are just talking about the WWE and their monotonous schedule, then you are only talking about one company. Wrestling isn't general enough to have this conversation unless you are specifically talking about one company. It's not like high school, and there is a career day, and you are filling out all this paperwork to know what profession you want to be in. They offer mechanics, being a teacher and a doctor. I don't think pro wrestling is an option when you are in school because it's a very niche, niche career that's controlled by very few people on top that run it. You're an independent contractor trying to get booked, trying to learn the school and the craft and trying to advance. I think that's how it should be.

If you are talking about WWE, if you want health insurance, get it put into your contract. Do you think that Triple H doesn't have health insurance? Of course he does. When you work out your deal, it's your job as an independent contractor to get everything you want out of that deal. You want hotels, and car rentals paid off? Get it put into your contract. As an independent contractor, I have never had a problem with that. I think that it works well.

In retrospect, today was definitely an auspicious day for the return of RVD, at least for this reporter…

Read the full interview here. You can order United We Stand on Fite TV now.

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