WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam has shared his thoughts on the violent clash between Raja Jackson (son of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson) and wrestler Stuart “Syko Stu” Smith at a Knokx Pro event, and his take was both nuanced and controversial. RVD opened his podcast by expressing sympathy for Stu, who was hospitalized after the attack. “Best wishes to Syko Stu Smith,” Van Dam said. “Hopefully he will regain his health quickly. He definitely didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
But RVD also cautioned fans against jumping to black-and-white conclusions. “If you thought that me saying that was somehow hypocritical because my text said that I back Raja, then you are one of the basic thinkers that can’t understand how those can both be true in the same universe,” he explained. “I’m not picking a side. All I’m saying is I see the pathway that he took that led to what happened.”
Central to RVD’s breakdown was the moment before the show when Syko Stu hit Raja with a beer can. According to Van Dam, Raja didn’t seem to know it was coming. “If that is the story, then let me just pose this question: if Raja would have punched Stu in the mouth right then, how many people would say, ‘Well, that’s fair’?” he asked.
RVD emphasized that in wrestling culture, blindsiding someone like that isn’t acceptable. “The wrestling dressing room is not an environment where somebody could go up to somebody they don’t know and hit them in the head with a can without them knowing it. That would not be acceptable,” he said.
After reviewing footage, Van Dam suggested both Raja and Stu were put in bad positions. “It looks like Stu was set up, and it also looks like Raja was completely set up by everybody the whole day,” RVD argued.
He pointed to backstage conversations where Raja was told he could get “payback” later. “He’s not a wrestler. He doesn’t know how the business works. And they’re telling him, ‘You can get your licks back.’ He’s saying, ‘Okay, as long as I get my licks back.’”
Later, RVD cited Raja’s own words from the livestream: “They told me to keep punching until they pull me off, and I’m going to punch him as many times as I can.”
Van Dam agreed that Raja went too far, but argued it wasn’t surprising given the circumstances. “True, what he did was way out of proportion… but in his mind, he’s like, ‘Man, I’m going to beat this guy’s a$$.’ And if you’ve convinced me that we’re fighting, sportsmanship is out. I’m fighting to survive at that point.”
He also compared Raja’s flurry of punches to MMA ground-and-pound situations where fighters don’t stop until the referee intervenes. “The idea is you don’t stop until you’re pulled off… and if you’ve never seen that, you might not understand why he kept going,” RVD explained.
Van Dam stressed that Raja isn’t a trained pro wrestler and was dealing with his own issues, including concussion symptoms. “He’s concussed… and he doesn’t seem like the sharpest. He looks like a kid who really wants the approval of his dad. There’s a lot of pressure there,” RVD said.
While acknowledging Raja is 25, RVD described him as immature. “He is a kid. He’s a dumb kid who did a really, really dumb, awful thing,” Van Dam said, even adding: “I honestly think he should go to jail.”
Ultimately, Van Dam placed responsibility on miscommunication and poor judgment by those around Raja. “No one smartened the kid up. He was obviously a psycho with anger issues, and they told him, ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to get him back, do what you want.’ They pushed him out there to the ring and said, ‘Yeah, do it.’”
Also Read: Mark Henry Reveals Who’s At Fault: Raja Jackson or Syko Stu
