10 Greatest WWE Super Heavyweight Wrestlers

The wearer of wrestling’s least flattering mask never got a fair shake in WWE. Arriving with great fanfare, his booking was baffling (as a result, it’s rumoured, of Shawn Michaels’ politicking, the star not wanting to work with the notoriously stiff big man), and he was soon jobbed out and on his way.

Network subscribers can enjoy Big Van’s glory days, though. Tangling with the likes of Sting and Ric Flair in WCW, this is how you used Vader: as a monster, a hard hitting brute who can inspire real fear in an audience.

Vader was a great technician, too, able to execute stunning moonsaults (that must have absolutely wrecked) and work a wince-inducingly snug style. His aura and intensity got him over everywhere he went (except, stupidly, WWE), and his Japanese work remains some of the best in-ring activity for a man his size.

He also wrestled a match to completion after Stan Hansen inadvertently popped his eye out of its socket. A frightening, opinionated purist to the last (see: his daft feud with Will Ospreay), Vader was an old fashioned worker whose matches still hold up.