10 WWE Signings That Didn't Live Up To The Hype

3. Vader

vader wwe.jpg
WWE

In the early '90s, the man they called Vader was one of the biggest heels in professional wrestling. I'm not just talking about size either, as The Mastodon was the big bad in WCW and many Japanese promotions, winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship three times as well as holding the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for over a year to open the decade. Vader was big news, and when he signed for the WWF in 1996.

Vader's debut was hugely hyped, and when he made his debut at the 1996 Royal Rumble he was almost instantly considered a favourite to win the whole thing. Of course, he didn't reckon on then-teacher's pet Shawn Michaels summoning the strength to simultaneously eliminate The Mastodon and Yokozuna. Vader came out of that show as a major heel in the WWF.

The WWF then spent the next two years stumbling over themselves with regards to Vader's booking, positioning him as a major monster at one point before being entirely defanged by Shawn Michaels the next. He clearly should have won the WWF Championship at SummerSlam '96, but a HBK temper tantrum put paid to that. Vader slowly moved down the card, eventually being used to put over incoming talent.

It was a huge waste of one of wrestling's top talents at the time.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.