8 Unfairly Maligned Wrestlers From The Monday Night Wars
1. Vader
Vader is arguably one of the best wrestlers of the nineties not to win a major World Championship in North America. Likewise, despite the recent influx of American talent to New Japan, Vader remains to this day one of Japan’s greatest gaijins.
What began as a monster push in WWE throughout 1996 never quite manifested the way it should have done, with political machinations undermining his planned journey to the World Title. He would float around the upper mid card for a few years, never quite reaching the heights predicted when he first signed from WCW.
Vader would spend the majority of his final year with the company, 1998, jobbing to anyone and everyone, even losing pay-per-view matches to the then irrelevant duo of Mark Henry and Bradshaw.
His return to Japan at the end of the century proved that, despite his age, Vader could have been better utilised as one of Vince McMahon’s foils to Steve Austin, as opposed to putting over undercard talent that the company had no plans to capitalise on.
However, as far as North America goes, it was his stint in WCW that deserves the most attention. His list of great matches and feuds is a lengthy one, from having some of the better matches of Sting’s career, such as their strap match at SuperBrawl 1993, helping rejuvenate Ric Flair following his return from WWE, and his excellent battles with fellow behemoth The Boss.