WWE legend Rob Van Dam has criticized modern wrestlers for not kicking out properly, citing a recent controversy in WWE NXT to support his claim.
Blake Monroe recently lost the NXT North American Women's title after she didn't kick out of a pin by Thea Hail.RVD discussed the topic during a recent YouTube live stream on his channel, noting that wrestlers failing to bring their shoulder up for a kickout is one of his biggest pet peeves in wrestling.
"You saw the botch with NXT where the wrong girl became champion, right?That's one of my pet peeves. In fact, if you listen to me enough, youknow that I try not to have pet peeves," he said. "[My pet peeve] It's when someone doesn't get their shoulder up on a kick out. It's so lazy. And [when the referee counts] one, two, [count] and they'll just like kick their legs. And I point it out to Katie [Forbes] all the time. All the time. It happens so much. I'm always rewinding it, and I'm going, 'Watch, they got pinned. The match is over. Watch.' They don't get off of them. All they do is kick their legs. Their shoulders are still down, and the person is still on top of them."
The WWE legend believes that this is one aspect of modern pro wrestling he takes issue with, as wrestlers don't think they're in a real fight when in the ring.
"And that's what's wrong with the fu**ing business right now is that they don't ... it's their mindset. They just think about their part like it's a movie instead of feeling like they're in a fight and feeling like they're competing, and that changes everything," he added.
RVD also stated that referee Felix Fernandez did the right thing by counting to three and hopes that he doesn't have any heat for doing so. Recent reports have suggested that Fernandez has no heat with WWE management for declaring Hail the winner.
