Rob Van Dam Thinks Tommy Dreamer Helped More With ECW One Night Stand Than He Knows

Nearly four years after ECW went out of business, WWE's One Night Stand PPV in 2005 was primarily produced as a reunion show for wrestlers from the defunct promotion. As is well documented, it was Tommy Dreamer who not only convinced ECW alumni to participate in the event but played an equally vital role in putting together the logistics for the show alongside Paul Heyman.

It was around this time that Dreamer was part of the "WWE Raw" writing team and also served as a road agent for the promotion. According to Rob Van Dam, who pitched the idea of One Night Stand to Vince McMahon, the show may not have come to fruition if not for Dreamer sitting in production meetings and convincing WWE's top brass of his idea. 

On a recent episode of his "1 Of A Kind" podcast, RVD explained why he's grateful to Dreamer for doing all the legwork to make the 2005 supershow a reality. 

"I have the impression that he helped more than I ever knew," RVD said of Dreamer. "I wasn't communicating with him a lot, I would talk to Paul who would then talk to Vince. Maybe that's why Dreamer was in on those meetings, maybe that gave two votes for some of our ideas — I'm not sure. But I know that I pitched it, and went around and asked all the boys to participate, and Vince was really warm on it [the idea]."

Eventually, McMahon was sold on the idea and the WWE machine was put to work, but RVD believes it was Dreamer who bridged the gap between "the suits" and "the boys." Dreamer's backstage role also helped RVD with his own career as he had a friendly spy in the company. "[When] he was part of the meetings, he was the only one who'd tell me, like, if somebody buried me in the meeting [laughs]. And everybody liked Tommy. Nobody ever had an issue with him."