The journey of any real hero requires overcoming all odds to accomplish his goals. To become a champion he must inspire the people, the audience, to buy into his charisma. This was often earned over the years as a professional wrestler worked his way up a card. A hero has to learn some lessons, perhaps start out in a team before branching out to become his own man.
The beauty of the heel is that no such learning curve or character arc is required. In the case of Big Van Vader, with a face only a mother could love and a build, as Jesse the Body Ventura noted “lacked in definition but makes up for it in mass”, there would be no babyface turns. Leon was a second team All-American center in Colorado and his pro- football career shut down after one year due to a broken kneecap. He was only two years into his pro wrestling career before he was given the moniker “Big Van Vader” in Japan. Offensive lineman like Leon are always more popular in Japan since they basically look and act like Sumo Wrestlers.
Pure monsters like Vader don’t need to play to the crowd. They ARE the remorseless and cruel obstacle the hero must face. I place him second only to Andre the Giant on the list of great big men and especially heels. His monster / machine gimmick was most certainly stolen and handed to Kane, who unlike Vader understood very little about the psychology of the mask. Taker and Kane were both great big men that served in the capacity of gatekeepers, keeping the champion, whether it was Stone Cold, Rock , or HHH, safe from mid-tier guys. Taker even cut a promo on McMahon about this. But the tombstone piledriver was so comically fake I never was completely sold on it.
By comparison, Vader put on hellish matches that took the fight directly to the champion, the guy on top of the promotion. Despite his frame, he was the first agile big man, his finishing move being a MOONSAULT! He held the WCW for extended period as a heel and always provided stiff challenges to reigning champs while dispatching all other comers. A quick recap of some of those matches from worse to first.
Vader Vs Shawn Michaels
Can someone good at booking please help me fix my promotion?
First of all let’s dispatch with the myth put forward mostly by WWE employees that Shawn was “the best in-ring performer of all time”. This is as comically laughable as his frequent passive aggressive overselling. The Vader-Michaels match exemplifies the difference between strong Japanese style Vader excelled at, and the Pat Patterson-era WWE. Shawn is the perfect vessel for Patterson as he posed nude in Playgirl and referred to himself as a boy-toy. Michaels oversold to the point of ridiculousness for 10 seconds and kipped right back up again like nothing happened. His time as champion cost WWE tremendously as they weekly got trounced by WCW. His defeat at the hands of Stone Cold finally brought WWE into the black. He did not want to drop the belt to Austin and was passive aggressive throughout the match and even dialed his comic overselling to 11 in his only match to Hogan. This despite the fact that both champs were way more over (popular) with the fans than Shawn Michaels by any metric you can provide. This petulance was on display in the Vader match as well. Vader missed a cue and Michaels throws an in-ring tantrum. Not exactly a mark of a good in ring performer.
Hogan vs Vader
By comparison Hogan displays maturity and effective storytelling. At WCW , wisely booked in Baltimore, Hogan delivers a nervous monologue to Mean Gene, lacking his usual confidence and charisma.
In the match, Vader no-sells the leg drop.
Vader chokeslams Hogan, powerbombed Hogan, suplexed Hogan all over and even landed a body press or two. Hogan actually sold here, a rarity. Hogan won, by the skin of his teeth and NOT from his cartoonish leg drop. Compare this to the countless times John Cena dropped Big Show with an attitude adjustment over the years. The WCW crowd was always a bit more skeptical of hulkamania which had waned quite a bit in the mid-90s and Vader definitely elevated Hogan’s status here.
Vader vs Flair Starrcade
This is a must watch and the kind that gets accolades. Vader had destroyed the roster for an entire year and was set to keep chugging along here until his scheduled opponent Sid Vicious gets stabbed in real life by Arn Anderson. Vader was in the hotel bar when a profusely bleeding Vicious walks over doing the Frankenstein walk. Vader saved both Sid’s life and Arn’s career by holding onto Sid’s artery while an ambulance arrived. Sid was replaced in Starrcade by Ric Flair and WCW made the rare wise booking decision to put the belt on Flair one last time. Flair gave one of the best promos of his career and backed it up with one of the best matches. Vader is a true monster and displayed the psychology of the mask. As the masked machine he tears through Flair , but through perseverance and a few underhanded tactics Flair starts working on Vader’s knees and Vader’s mask comes off. Stripped of his persona Vader is Leon White, failed NFL ball player forced to suffer and inflict pain on others. Flair punches Leon right in his fat face and you almost feel sorry for the guy. But dropping the persona of Vader, Leon White the human fights back even more brutally, he must have suplexed and slammed Flair a dozen times, until he gassed out for a quick 3 count. It was wrasslin, strong style, and Raleigh North Carolina went wild in a way I’ve never seen in the modern era. The mask was a simple device, one Kane never seemed to understand as it always stayed on after he ate finisher after finisher from guys half his size and constantly lay flat on his back for the end of matches.
It’s hard to sell a move without facial expressions and if you keep dying (losing matches) without selling than there is no believability that the hero or baby face accomplished anything. Oh so CM Punk defeated the dumb robot again LOL.
Muta vs Vader
Japan. Five stars. Muta was the most popular champion in NJPW, but strangely, in the entrance , Vader, a gaijin, received a lot of applause. As in, end of Rocky IV style applause. The footage of this is from an old camcorder and lacks all the accoutrements of a professional broadcast team. It’s quite refreshing actually. No goofy jump-cuts that avoid showing actual impact.
The Japanese audience claps for the big monster.
Unlike previous matches on this list, Vader took off the mask on the outset against Muta. Muta would not face the persona of Vader, but of the Man himself.
Vader brutalized Muta with forearms, and Muta bounced back with a flurry of chops. Vader would slap Muta during the clinch and you just wince. Muta always bounced back but with a lariat Vader would flatten him. Vader would hit three forearms and pin Muta, just rubbing it in. The amount of respect the Japanese gave to the sport adds so much to the aura of the match. The ref keeps tight control over the match, it FEELS like a shoot.
For example, the legion of cameramen taking pictures for magazines, the polite Japanese crowd with their applause and “oooohs”, it was the beauty of pre-”worked” wrestling with scripted finishes. Muta stops trying to fight the monster, and instead just tries to pin the big man. I suggest you watch the match for yourself, but Muta succeeded by a hair and the crowd did something very strange. They threw their seat cushions at the ring, which is the equivalent to tearing down a goalpost after a huge upset in college football.
For any man to accomplish great things requires both courage and the fortitude to withstand the worse his circumstances offer. Starting your own business risks bankruptcy, often multiple, before success hits. Changing jobs, venturing to ask out the prettiest woman in the room, climbing Mt Everest all have a worse case scenario. RIP to Leon White AKA Vader who epitomized the worst obstacle a winner must overcome to become a champion.