On Wednesday night, March 29, WWE superstar "Mr. Monday Night" Rob Van Dam joined hosts Brian Fritz, Dickerman, and Vito DeNucci live on Between The Ropes on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team to chat about WrestleMania 22, Money In The Bank, his health since returning to the ring, and much more.

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Rob joined the guys live from Chicago fresh off a crazy WrestleMania autograph signing at Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits. The turnout was so huge that despite staying past the allowed time, he had to leave with several hundred fans in line.

Asked how his surgically repaired knee is doing, Van Dam said it's holding up. He's experienced some discomfort in the thirty-five or so matches he's had since returning at the Royal Rumble, but it's nothing worth mentioning. He realizes he's no longer completely indestructible in the ring. During his year off, he did a lot of appearances and autograph signings for the first couple of months and did some international promotional work in Australia and England for the company. He spent some time with friends in Las Vegas in the latter months while rehabbing and getting ready to return.

Van Dam said the first week back in the ring, his body and his brain and his stamina probably weren't on the same page. Since then, it hasn't been a problem. He noted that he's been on every Raw house show and every TV since returning at the Rumble, except, as he pointed out, Saturday Night's Main Event. "Apparently they only had three matches and it was geared toward promoting the matches that they care about at WrestleMania."

Asked if he feels any pressure going into the Money In The Bank match on Sunday, he said he's looking forward to it since it will be more of a hardcore environment, ECW style match. He feels more pressure going out there in the confines of a traditional wrestling match. He doesn't mind sacrificing his body in these types of matches to show off how tough he is. He's looking to incorporate some ladder spots that WWE fans may not have seen from his ECW days. One unique game plan he has in mind, "I thought that maybe if the ladder was tall enough, if I got a chance, I might be able to use it to get my head through that glass ceiling." He added that there's no better place to try to break through than WrestleMania.

Asked about working with Ric Flair in a ladder match, Van Dam said he gained a lot of respect for Flair after watching his performance in the ladder match against Edge on Raw. He became even more of a fan of Flair that night. He talked about cracking heads with Flair in the three-way on Raw two weeks ago. Flair had a black eye and a bloody nose and didn't miss a beat. Rob considered Flair as tough as a 20 year old. Rob needed ten stitches to close the gash under his eye from that spot.

RVD's promo from ECW One Night Stand was brought up and whether it's going to lead to additional promo time on TV as everyone expected. "That's a good question. I don't know. So far I haven't been too impressed with the freedom on the mic that was so hyped up and talked about on my time off. About when I come back, they're going to capitalize on that because I expressed myself and they want to capture that spirit....I don't know exactly for sure. I got on the mic on Monday before Flair hit me in the head with the ladder and that felt really good because Shelton was on the mic and Ric was on the mic. I thought if I don't get on the mic, for sure this is pretty much saying, 'whatever.'"

Rob was asked for his thoughts on the new WWE Wellness Program. "Basically, I believe that some of young guys who haven't been around years ago when all of our peers were dropping dead commonly, because of that, I think they can use some guidance so they don't abuse substances. I think there should be some way to do that. On the other hand, as far as everybody across the board and having control of everybody like that, I'm not sure that's going to help out everything and not make some things worse. I don't know. I definitely like the idea of getting everybody checked out. They're talking about doing the heart scans and all that. I think that's a great idea. I've already gotten all that done myself. I've gotten everything done myself on my time off to make sure everyone's cool here. I don't feel like I need it as much and being part of the program, we'll see how it goes. I guess if there are guys with problems, this will and should anyway detect that and hopefully keep some people alive."

Rob finished off talking about the new season of his favorite television show, Scrubs on NBC, and mentioned he will be in attendance at UFC 59 on April 15 at The Pond in Anaheim to see Tito Ortiz fight Forest Griffin. He also plugged his comic book store, which can be found online at www.5starscomics.com.

To listen to the Rob Van Dam interview, including his comments on the possibility of winning the Money In The Bank match and challenging for the title at the ECW PPV as well as his thoughts heading into this year's WrestleMania, and the entire March 29 edition of Between The Ropes in streaming audio, visit the show online at http://www.BetweenTheRopes.com. In addition, you can now subscribe to receive the Between The Ropes podcast via iTunes. Details are available on the brand new BetweenTheRopes.com. Join us for Between The Ropes for two hours every Wednesday night at 10:00pm ET on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team and worldwide