Remembering the greatest super heavyweight: Big Van Vader

The best way to remember Vader, laying out the Bulldog and Hitman at the same time!

Before 1990, professional wrestling had Heavyweights, Cruiserweights and sometimes, even giants. But at The Great American Bash in the summer of that glorious year, America learned what a super heavyweight was, in the form of the monstrous figure of Big Van Vader. A four hundred pound American in a lucha mask that gained fame in Japan, he was like nothing anyone ever saw in wrestling before.

Leon White, the man behind that mask, died two days ago after pneumonia complicated his long running battle with heart disease. He was only 63.

Back when he first debuted, WCW was the B-league for an old northern boy like me. TBS was that weird southern channel and their talents were nothing compared to the almighty Hogan, Savage and Warrior. But even in my haze of northern viewing, when I did flip through to WCW, two figures always stood out to me as like nothing WWF offered. Cactus Jack was one of them, a figure I liked despite my brother's assurance he was pretty much just a Jim Duggan knockoff, and the beast called Vader.


By that time, he'd lost his crazy smoke shooting outer mask, which probably would have served the Shockmaster better than it ever did Vader. I only caught glimpses of his work in the promotion, usually in squashes to end all squashes. No one could stand against Vader. He would ultimately dominate the heavyweight scene in WCW for most of 1992 and 1993, putting on stupendous matches against Cactus Jack, Sting and Ric Flair. His final reign ended when he lost in a Ric Flair title-vs-career match, which also featured the onscreen debut of the future Charlotte Flair. By the company's finish, only two men would hold the title more than he did: Hollywood Hogan and Flair.

The advent of Hogan brought him into a monumental feud with the company's new babyface champion. He would do his best against the fading glory of Hogan, but Vader clearly didn't care for his presence or Bischoff's new direction with him. He ultimately left for WWF just as Nitro debuted, a decision that would haunt him for much of his life.

His WWF run was anything but spectacular and it would be shown for years afterward by the clear lack of respect Vince McMahon showed for Vader. During his three years up north, he would fail to win a single title and mostly be used as fodder in other people's storylines. Even as WWF struggled with a lack of big names, Vince seemed adamant against using the huge name he picked up from WCW. It basically destroyed Vader's career in the United States. After leaving the fed in 98, he would only make a handful of televised American appearances for the rest of his career.


Instead, Vader's career ended where it started, in Japan. He was a huge part of first All Japan and later Pro Wrestling Noah in the late 90s and early 00s. He would win the All Japan Triple Crown twice in that period as well as the coveted Champion Carnival tournament (think the equivalent of the G1 Climax.) He would become the inaugural Noah's GHC tag champion with 2 Cold Scorpio, a criminally under-rated tag team pairing.

After his Japanese run, he would pop up at various companies around the world, including a couple appearances for both Impact and WWE. He even made one stop here in Iowa for an SCW event back in 2013, teaming with major Iowa wrestling veterans like Marek Brave and Shane Hollister.
Much ado is put into the names that do and don't make it into the WWE Hall of Fame, but it is absolutely criminal Vince would not let whatever grudge he had against Vader go in order to allow the man to be inducted in his lifetime. (Though he did get to induct Stan Hansen in 2016.)


He announced around a year ago that a heart condition meant his time on Earth would be over within the next couple years. Sadly that has come to pass and history's greatest super heavyweight is gone. A better WWE would have Braun Strowman play tribute to him on Raw this coming Monday. I really only hope for a graphic, even if he's been a long time member of the WWE Legends program. Even death doesn't stop Vince from holding a grudge.

Let's look back at the man, the myth, the legend of Vader and remember all the great moments though. His career may not have ended on the highest note, but it's hard to argue against his place as one of the greatest of all time.

MOTW1: Kento Miyahara vs. Naomichi Marifuji

Welcome to a new Friday feature here at The Wrestling Deep End. I scavenge the depths of Youtube to bring you a superstar level match from the last few weeks of wrestling.

This week we travel to April 30th in Japan. The Champion's Carnival is one of the biggest tournaments in Japanese wrestling. Only the G1 Climax supercedes it in prestige. As AJPW continues to rebuilt, it continues to invite in stars from other brands. In the finals of the Carnival, the ace of All Japan Pro Wrestling, the always amazing Kento Miyahara, takes on the biggest star of Pro Wrestling NOAH, Naomichi Marifuji. It's too future wrestling legends colliding in a truly epic encounter.

How many reboots is this for Impact Wrestling?

Thursday night TNA Impact Wrestling went through yet another of the company's many many reboots. Now firmly under the Anthem regime, they've bled several of their bigger talents due to late contracts, losing Drew Galloway, Mike Bennett, Maria and the Broken Hardys, five individuals that drove much of the storytelling for Impact for the last two years. This left The Wolves, EC3 and Lashley as the credible main eventers in the promotion, although Cody could easily be moved into that role if he was willing to commit to more television time.

This would of course be a great spot to build on existing talent. So the company of course brought in a former WWE star, and one that's damaged goods at best. While Alberto El Patron is certainly capable of great matches, he's not a guy to build a company around. Impact has two men for that role already: the World Champion Lashley and the leader of The DCC and criminally under-utilized talent James Storm. Hope springs a bit with Storm as The DCC seem to be at odds after losing a lackluster tag match to the debuting (and equally lackluster) Reno Scum.

But with a show dominated by arguments between lead announcer Josh Matthews and new third man on commentary Jeremy Borash distracted from the entire program. They do much to ruin a rather pointless X Division match and do more to hurt Rachael Ellering's debut than help her.

The most pushed storyline on the first episode of the new Impact.
Image credit: Impact Wrestling Twitter.

Prolonged chat sessions from Bruce Pritchard and Dutch Mantell don't really help the program get far either, but they did encourage yet more references to WWE programming. I've seen the words WWE mentioned less on episodes of NXT and 205 Live than on this episode of Impact Wrestling.

Dutch has to be the one that thinks Make Impact Great as a slogan is good as well, right? Because only someone that portrayed a racist right winger on television for over a year could think a reference to the current divisive President's campaign slogan is a way to bring in viewers. I can see a good section of the potential audience automatically turned off just by that phrase, never to give the new Impact another chance.

But the women's match was solid as was the main event between the debuting Patron and Lashley, at least up until yet another Dusty finish from a company absolutely obsessed with them. Cody's search for Moose (supposedly in Japan for NOAH despite not having that NOAH match until after the tapings) were superb promo segments, but they were devoted to a part time star prioritizing New Japan over the company.

And the brawl between Richards and Edwards as well as Decay's magic theft of the Broken Hardys' titles were both pure agony.

There's hope in the new Impact Wrestling, but is it an improvement over the last year, where TNA had actually started to solidify a decent project? I'm not so sure. Only the coming weeks will show us for sure.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 20: Hideo Itami versus a WWE star that stole his finisher

Before Hideo Itami made his way to WWE's developmental roster, he had two finishers very different from the Shotgun Kick and double foot stomp he used as his finishers in NXT. The more famous of the moves is one he innovated and helped popularize, a fireman's carry drop knee strike called the Go To Sleep. When CM Punk came into WWE, he adopted the move and the GTS became a hugely popular move the world over.

But it wasn't his only finisher stolen by a major WWE star. His striking finisher long before the Shotgun Kick was a running single leg high knee which was as fast as it was brutal in appearance. The Busaiku Knee Kick put down a ton of opponents in the physical sport-oriented Pro Wrestling NOAH.

Image credit: wrestlinghurts.tumblr.com

Zack Sabre Jr is the 2015 Battle of Los Angeles champion!

After three nights and four matches, Zack Sabre Jr. is Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's 2015 winner of the Battle of Los Angeles.

Image credit: TheSuplex.com.
(Check out his merch there!)

I had an inkling that the British technical wrestling impresario might come out on top in PWG, a promotion he's visited on multiple trips stateside. He had an interesting route there though as the second round featured a shuffling of opponents to keep things even more interesting as the tournament progressed.

After what has been described as a great opening round contest against another regular international star Ricochet, the NOAH and Progress wrestler moved on to a second round match-up against Pentagon Jr. And while Pentagon almost certainly sought to break Sabre's arm, not even Cero Miedo could get him past the eventual BOLA winner.