15 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Vader
3. Leon Claimed He Was Set Up In Kuwait
In April 1997, Vader was on tour with the WWF over in Kuwait and appeared on a morning talk show alongside The Undertaker. Host Bassam Al Othman asked some tame questions about whether wrestling was fake or not, and Vader flipped out. He ended up being detained in the country and couldn’t go home with the rest of the crew once the tour was over.
Leon claimed in 1998 that he’d been told to “go crazy” and “turn over some tables” during his appearance, because the producers wanted to cause a stir and boost ratings by appearing edgy. Unfortunately, none of this was relayed to the interviewer. The bottom line is that White put his hands on the guy, which was physical assault, and he was in big, big trouble.
His career tanked (or at least took another nosedive) after this.
There was another side to all of this. Debra didn’t hear from her husband for weeks, and she didn’t even know for sure whether or not he was still alive. It was hard to get any intelligence from the WWF about what had actually happened, and she couldn't get in touch with Leon to confirm that he was OK. That had to be such a stressful time for Debs and her young son Jesse.
Ideally, Vader would've confirmed with Al Othman that he was going to rough him up slightly, but that wasn't really the way wrestlers did things back then. Leon likely just assumed that Bassam would be in on the work. Of course, that's also assuming the story about his actions being part of a staged work is spot on.
Vader thought he'd been set up.