2. Vader Nearly Loses His Eyeball
If there was a "pro wrestling dictionary", a picture of Vader would probably be included in the entry for the word "monster". 6'5" tall, weighing in at 450 pounds, and one of the roughest, toughest men to ever step foot in a ring, there are countless stories of men who showed up at arenas, saw they were scheduled to face Vader that night, and decided it would be a better idea for them to simply go home. In 1990, Vader would face another notorious "tough guy", Stan "The Lariat" Hansen, in a match over in Japan. Both men were not going to take it easy during the match, and nobody would be crazy enough to expect them to. Before the match even began, Vader had suffered a broken nose, on the receiving end of an errant shot from Hansen's bull rope. During the match itself, Hansen poked Vader in the eye in the middle of a punch exchange, causing Vader's eyeball to pop out of socket. He was forced, at one point, to remove his mask, push his eyeball back in, and hold it in place with his completely swollen eyelid... and he continued the match. Eventually, Vader would require surgery to insert a metal plate under his eye, but hey, this is looked upon as the match that helped WCW decide they wanted to sign him, which led to him being a three-time WCW World Champion, opening doors for him to expand his brand in North America. All it took was a simple injury that he could "fix" with his own bare hands.