Intriguing news as RVD has been pulled from WrestleMania 40. The WWE Hall of Famer was scheduled to appear in some capacity at the 2024 "Showcase of the Immortals." However, Rob Van Dam recently revealed he was "unbooked" from a show in Philadelphia. "The Whole F-N Show" informed listeners on his 1 of a Kind with RVD podcast:

“I got a phone call, I picked up because it was from ‘the big company’, and had a little talk, got officially unbooked from Philly,” RVD stated. “Then about 30 minutes later, I got another message, got officially rebooked in Philly from another company. So that was pretty good. In the meantime, I’m just reading letters: A. E. It happened when I got there and before I left, before I even had a chance to even think about the first message, and so that’s just the universe doing what it does which is pretty awesome.”

H/T-Haus of Wrestling

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According to the Haus of Wrestling report:

WWE previously advertised RVD for WrestleMania weekend as part of an ‘ECW Experience’ within one of its Priority Pass packages.

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The ECW Original took the high ground and didn't name names during his discussion of the situation:

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“The reason I don’t want to put too much detail on that is because word got out when I said before that I was unbooked,” Van Dam admitted. “It kind of worked against me because then I had someone inside trying to do some damage repair and then I got people on Twitter saying, ‘let’s pass this around, man, we need RVD rebooked.’ I was trying to not give that much attention because I had someone working on it. But either way, different dates, same town and the one is becoming more and more valuable than the other one to me each time anyway.”

H/T -Haus of Wrestling

Business as Usual for the WWE

It doesn't take a wrestling sage to speculate that the WWE apparently was upset that Van Dam dared to appear and wrestle in AEW. Obviously, the WWE doesn't want RVD at WrestleMania if he's working for AEW. What's interesting about this situation is that RVD originally said he taking things with AEW on a day-to-day appearance. Nonetheless, he seems happy working there and fans could see him in a bigger role.

The WWE's decision to pull RVD from WrestleMania 40 isn't a shocker. Although the WWE occasionally cooperates with other promotions (such as when then-IMPACT wrestler Mickie James appeared at the 2022 Women's Royal Rumble or when it allowed Shinsuke Nakamura to wrestle The Great Muta in Japan at a NOAH show), these are rare.

The WWE seems to have a one-way street policy when it comes to cooperating with other promotions. For example, the WWE has had AEW stars appear on WWE programming such as when several AEW stars sent video tributes to honor the careers of Randy Orton and John Cena. It's also brought in AEW talent for WWE documentaries and even had Chris Jericho appear on "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions.

Are you surprised by the WWE pulling RVD from WrestleMania weekend?

Photo Credit: WWE