Every now and then in professional wrestling, the audience takes on a role that surpasses the usual performer-fan interaction. Such was the case at One Night Stand 2006, the second event promoted under WWE’s ECW brand. The show’s pinnacle was the unlikely WWE Championship victory of Rob Van Dam, who defeated the company’s poster boy, John Cena, much to the delight of the heavily anti-Cena crowd.
On his podcast One of a Kind, Van Dam looked back on the electric atmosphere of the Hammerstein Ballroom during that memorable night.
“I felt indestructible,” Van Dam recalled. “There’s never been a crowd quite like that. The fans were incredible, and it was a moment of vindication for me sticking to my beliefs and values after [15 years] of people trying to change me.”
Despite his monumental victory, Van Dam’s time as champion was short-lived. He and fellow ECW alum Sabu were arrested for drug possession shortly after the event, leading WWE Chairman Vince McMahon to strip Van Dam of the WWE Championship. Following this setback, Van Dam found himself falling down the card, and he admitted that his passion for wrestling began to waver at times during his WWE run. He pointed to moments when WWE would try certain creative directions only to later abandon them.
“As soon as ECW was brought back, my vibe changed so much,” Van Dam explained. “I didn’t want to go to WWE when I did in 2001, [but] there wasn’t anywhere else to go. I had no idea I’d end up representing ECW. Tommy Dreamer gave me an ECW shirt, and we were coming in representing ourselves. We were adding to our legacy instead of erasing it. But that only lasted so long, and then it was gone. Pretty soon, I was unmotivated again.”
Though his WWE Championship reign was brief, Van Dam’s victory at One Night Stand 2006 remains one of the most iconic moments in ECW history, marking the night when the fans truly became a part of the show.
