10 Wrestlers You Didn’t Know Have Bad Reputations
1. Vader
Ending on something of a lighter note, Vader was actually known as a sensitive and bashful fella behind the scenes.
He was stiff as it gets (and awesome as a result), but other than Shawn Michaels, few wrestlers had an issue with that. It was the byproduct of making money with the most formidable heel of his day, and at least his opponents made some. In the ‘90s, countless talented losers would take liberties with green opponents for sport.
Vader was tagged with a bad reputation for an altogether different reason: his body odour was so foul that few of his peers were ecstatic over the prospect of working with him.
On his podcast The Snake Pit, Roberts was asked whether Vader simply didn’t wash his attire regularly. “Ring gear my ass,” Roberts replied. “It was him.”
Vince Russo, hardly a reliable narrator, it must be said, echoed Jake’s opinion: “He smelled like vomit.” Russo, with rare insight, elaborated that Vader’s lack of personal hygiene developed into a running backstage joke, which likely affected his confidence.
Arn Anderson and Jerry Lawler have also chimed in, the latter claiming on his Dinner With The King podcast that he thought an animal had somehow crawled into the boot of his car and died.
This didn’t happen; Vader had simply thrown his gear in there.