The WCW Conspiracy Iceberg EXPLAINED!

6. The Real Reason Vader Got Fired

In his last years, Vader sat down with Hannibal for a shoot interview, during which he offered his take on his firing. 

Vader was obviously bitter, which was well within his rights. Vader was a monster heel that defined the most over-used word in modern wrestling parlance: aura. The guy was terrifying, legitimate, and he was so good at crafting a dramatic and epic ass-kicking that he was one of very few big men with actual longevity going for him. Hulk Hogan dropped the leg on his WCW run in pathetically quick time. Hogan was booed at SuperBrawl 1995 for his transparent attempts to give Vader “something”, when he patently no-sold Vader’s best stuff and couldn’t even lose the first match clean to set up an incredible return bout. Vader reckons that he was perceived as such a threat to Hogan’s spot that a company-wide conspiracy did him in. 

In the shoot with Hannibal, Vader talked about the time when Eric Bischoff threatened to fire him in the event that he didn’t complete a photo shoot. The photo shoot, per Vader, ran suspiciously long. Vader was late to a TV taping as a result. This enraged Paul Orndorff, working as an agent at the time. He confronted Vader and dressed him down for a lack of professionalism. A heated argument, and then an infamous backstage fight, erupted. Vader reckons that, since Orndorff had nerve damage in his arm, he thought he could kick his ass so brutally that he was likely to end up in jail for assault. Vader says he slapped Orndorff once and refused to retaliate afterwards accordingly. (Every other eyewitness who has spoken publicly about the incident disagrees, stating plainly that Orndorff simply kicked the sh*t out of him.)

Vader is inclined to believe that the photo shoot was a ruse, and that Orndorff was in on it, feigning anger in order to lull Vader into the assault that would act as pretext to fire him - and it all came from Hogan. 

That’s probably a bit much.