Wrestlers With The Most World Titles (Across All Major Federations)

3 IWGP Heavyweight Championships

3 WCW Championships

2 Triple Crown Heavyweight Championships

1 UWA World Heavyweight Championship

Anyone who's seen Vader perform in the ring surely had no problem guessing he would be the one we heralded earlier as the best big man in the history of the sport. Think Keith Lee's the first super-heavyweight able to do a Moonsault? Think again. Way before the NXT star ever stepped foot in a ring, Vader was the one wowing audiences with his agility and physical prowess.

Big Van Vader was a hit everywhere he went, except in WWE. It's astonishing they didn't manage to capitalize on him. By the time he signed with the WWF in 1996, he was already a seven-time world champion. He had won world titles in Japan (becoming the first gaijin to do so in NJPW), Mexico and America. He arrived with a ready-made gimmick, a star aura and a craft that was more than honed. The WWF were handed a potential WrestleMania main-eventer on a plate, and they turned him into a (gargantuan) side salad.

It would've been a shame for a star of his calibre to end his career on such a disappointing note. In 1998 Vader returned to Japan and was rightfully handed one last run as a main-eventer in AJPW, winning two more world titles, then making the switch to Pro Wrestling Noah and becoming the inaugural GHC Tag Team Champion with 2 Cold Scorpio. He died on 18 June 2018, having never been inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame in his lifetime.