11 Legendarily BAD Wrestling Runs (With One ICONIC Moment)
3. Vader Brutally Attacks Gorilla Monsoon
In retrospect, the WWF should've held off on bringing new main event star Vader to TV. He told the company he was injured and needed shoulder surgery ahead of time, but Vince McMahon wanted to load up on major star power for the 30-man Royal Rumble match. Put it this way: The boss didn't want another 1995 Rumble on his hands.
There's only so much babyface Doink The Clown, Kwang, Well Dunn and Dick Murdoch once fanbase can take!
So, Vader debuted at the 1996 Rumble. Then, on the 22 January Raw just 24 hours later, 'The Mastodon' beat Savio Vega before continuing his assault. Unhappy that a new hire was being so reckless, WWF President Gorilla Monsoon came out to put a stop to the attacks, but Vader blasted him with a Vader Bomb just because he could.
Jim Cornette was amazing here. He put across how he was struggling to control his new monster and could sense that Vader was going too far. This was an easy way to write the newcomer off TV so he could go under the knife and get that corrective shoulder surgery he so badly needed.
Credit where it's due: The angle was a cut above the sort of violence fans could expect when tuning into the first 3-4 years of Raw's existence. Vader came across as the single most dangerous man in the industry that night, and there were literal tears shed for the beloved Monsoon. What an introduction for 'The Man They Call...' this was.
Unfortunately, the rest of his run in the fed felt like torture to watch for those who remembered the fire-breathing beast from Japan and WCW.