Remember when Ricardo Rodriguez was the manager for Rob Van Dam in WWE?
Not many fans do, as they associate Ricardo Rodriguez’s WWE career with Alberto Del Rio, but there was a brief time he did work as the manager of RVD. Ricardo recently spoke with the It’s My House podcast and talked about how the idea even came up, and why he thought it was a joke at first.
“So I didn’t get it at first, I really didn’t get it. We were sitting on the bleachers and it was myself, the Matadors—and the little bull, I loved [El Torito]— Alberto [del Rio] and I think Sin Cara, then Malenko comes up and he goes “Hey, did they tell you?”, I’m like [wondering], ‘No… no sir.’ He’s like, ‘You’re with RVD today.’ ‘Huh?’ It was funny,” he noted, “but unless you know Malenko and his sense of humor, it’s gonna be like, ‘okay, yeah…’ Malenko has a weird sense of humor where you can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He’ll tell you something and it’s said all serious, but then he’ll walk away and you’re like, ‘wait, what?’ So it’ll sit in the back of your head and he’ll come back in an hour and tell you, ‘no, I was just kidding,’ but by then I’m already doing these mental jump rope games. So I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I’m trying to do the whole [nervous laugh] and trying to get him to tell me yes or no, and eventually, he told me [it was legit] and he gives me the run sheet.”
Ricardo said he was just happy to be back on television at this point, so he agreed to do it. He still wasn’t sure why it was this pairing in particular but says it clicked once Malenko told him the plan about two weeks later.
“I didn’t question it at first, at least not out loud, but I questioned it in my head. Two weeks pass, and I go to Malenko, and I’m like, ‘Hey I appreciate the opportunity, thank you, because I’m pretty sure you’re the one that vouched for it… but why?’ Just so I can kind of get an idea of how to vibe with Rob. I knew Rob for many years prior but Rob is very off to himself. He’s so relaxed that he’ll come say hello and then go away for a while,” he explained, “whereas for me and Alberto and the Puerto Ricans, the bull, Sin Cara, we’re loud and always talking and all that stuff.
“So with Rob, it was one of those things—I asked Malenko, and he told me what they wanted to do was they wanted to build a bridge between Rob, and the title, which Alberto had at moment,” Ricardo said, “and the bridge was this guy [points to himself]. Then that’s when I was like, ‘Oh okay I get it.’ So yeah, so I was basically the bridge between Alberto and RVD for the title.”
Ricardo Rodriguez once again stated that it was just a case of him being happy being back on TV and he took it, but he didn’t realize how short-lived it was going to be. The RVD and Ricardo Rodriguez alliance began in August of 2013, but quietly dissipated after the feud with Del Rio ended in October.
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