Original subtitles

Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest big man in the history of wrestling, Vader.

In the world of professional wrestling, every hero needs a villain. And few

villains were tougher, scarier, or more dangerous than Big

Van Vader.

The most amazing super heavyweight that I've ever seen, ever.

When you looked at him, you'd think, my God, who would ever fight that guy?

He is one of the most sadistic, one of the most physically intimidating

that I have ever seen in my career.

He was 400 pounds and could do moonsaults. Vader was a world champion

every continent on the globe that had professional wrestling. But he had a

reputation.

When he started hammering people, they were like, damn, that had to hurt.

Because it did.

He was the stiffest wrestler I've ever been in the ring with.

He was really good at that style, but it'd be a scary thing.

But the violence that made Vader a sensation also sabotages his career, as

industry's biggest stars turn their back on him.

You've got to remember what showbiz and what's real.

And sometimes Leon had a hard time separating the fact from the fiction.

Out of the ring, the man who became a champion by inflicting pain...

struggles to deal with his own. He lived life hard. He did things that a man his

size shouldn't have been able to do and paid a big price for it. Pain will

change you. Your personality will change. You will change.

Big Ben Vader is the greatest super heavyweight of all time, but he's still

human. And sometimes many of us forgot that.

Vader, he fears no man and he feels no.

If you look at some of the great movie villains, they were just so

overwhelmingly powerful that they were terrifying.

You rooted for your favorite character to survive that encounter.

And in professional wrestling.

Vader was the greatest monster, really, of his era.

My name is Mick Foley. I'm a three -time WWE champion, and I was pummeled by

Vader on many occasions.

Leon was one of those few people who could come in and make it look like not

only might your favorite be losing their title, might be losing their life.

Like they were fighting for something bigger than a victory.

Vader was going to give it to you, and if you didn't give it back, he was going

to eat you up.

My name is Jesse White, and I have the honor and privilege of being the son of

Leon White, a .k .a. Vader.

Dad grew up in Linwood, California, about two miles outside of Compton, in a

house with a lot of violence.

A lot of it revolved around alcohol.

Growing up, he kind of had to step up to take care of his family and become the

head of the family.

He had a rough one. He had a rough one, you know?

I'm Debra White, and I was married to Leon White, a .k .a. Big Van Beta.

The school he went to, he had to pretty much fight every day.

This is the late 60s, and now L .A. is starting to get a little bit more rough.

My dad was probably about 12 years old.

He was at home watching Star Trek with his sister, and someone's coming to

in the house.

Two men had broken the window in the back.

I screamed at my sister and we ran out the front door and they chased us. You

could just tell that they had bad intentions.

So they ran down to the bar where Grandpa was at. Grandpa took them back

ordered up the window, gave them a shotgun and said, if someone comes

you know what to do this time.

He made sure that Leon knew you don't take shit from anybody.

He was trying to make him tough. And obviously, he turned out pretty tough.

Sports is where my dad found his identity.

If it wasn't for football, I don't know if Pops ever makes it out of L .A.

He was a hell of a player.

When he would hit you, even if he was messing around, man, it hurt.

My name is Dave Logan. I played a long time in the NFL.

I met Leon his freshman year at the University of Colorado, and after that

just became fast friends.

His nickname was Baby Bull.

Bull fit him perfectly.

Because he was very, very tough, unbelievably strong.

An incredible, incredible athlete.

He was drafted third round to the Los Angeles Rams.

But unfortunately, due to knee injuries that he had, he couldn't play anymore.

That's what he worked for his whole entire life, was to get there and go

that success.

And this wasn't the success that he wanted.

He was trying to figure out what was next for him.

Being an athlete, he still felt he can contribute something athletically.

So he decided to give pro wrestling a try.

Leaving his NFL career behind, Leon is welcomed into the pro wrestling business

by one of the sport's toughest men.

I went down to the local wrestling show down in Denver, and I put on a pair of

cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and I just walked in.

Everybody just froze.

And Bruiser Brody stood up, walked over, and Brody was about six foot five. He

said, what the fuck do you want in my locker room?

I was scared to death, but I stared him right down in the eye and said, man, I'm

here to get a job. Next thing I know, man, I've got my backpack, and I'm in my

car on my way to Minnesota.

King Kong Brody against Leon the Baby Bull White, and it's underway.

Oh, another one.

When Leon White started, he was trained in the Midwest, and he had notoriety

even as a rookie because of his size and NFL background.

He was close to 400 pounds, but he was amazingly agile and nimble.

He was six foot three and as wide as a wrecking ball.

So he was very convincing in that he could kick the shit out of it.

At the time, Stan Hansen was a champion for AWA. He was

teaching my dad the ropes in AWA.

Are you ready? Well, he was a very impressive guy.

Look at the agility of him!

But I'm pretty aggressive, so when he stepped into the ring, it's on.

Hi,

this is Stan Hansen. I'm here to talk about Vader.

Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody introduced Leon to a rough in -ring style that

pushes the boundaries between showmanship and violence.

a style insiders call working stiff.

It was much more physical. We just decided to go all out as long as we

That's what made us strong.

That's where it starts, and that's where it's going to end.

When a guy's stuff lands really well, he's stiff.

It didn't injure you, but it hurt.

But that's the way he was trained live in front of a crowd. Brody and Stan

beating the hell out of my dad.

My dad took it, didn't complain.

And I think both Dan and Bruiser respect that about my dad. I never looked at

him like a student. I always looked at him as a very equal competitor.

But Leon Baby Bull White did not exactly set the wrestling world on fire until

he got a deal to go to Japan.

And they made him the character of Big Van Vader.

It was an amazing gimmick. It was an amazing outfit.

And Vader became an instant sensation.

I'm Jim Cornette, and in the WWF, I was the manager of the man they call Vader.

From Tokyo, Japan, Antonio Inoki.

Antonio Inoki, Japanese wrestling legend, the owner of New Japan Pro

And he was always looking for monster foreigners, monster heels that he could

vanquish somehow.

And with Leon's size, he knew he had something. The legend goes that Big Van

Vader, the samurai warrior who represented an island, and him and

warrior fought to the death. Big Van Vader won that battle, and so Inoki

wanted to make a character based from that. The samurai warrior comes to life

the Japanese band.

He also created the helmet.

The headgear and the shoulder pads were custom -made in Japan, and it required a

person to operate it remotely, or the stain would come out of the shoulder

and the spikes.

It was something that people hadn't seen before, and that's what Antonio Inoki

needed for Japan.

Antonio Inoki hadn't lost a match in three, four years, and Big Van Vader

out and beats him in under three minutes.

The fans were so upset. They rioted.

Probably the most impactful debut in professional wrestling history.

I sat down in a room with Inoki and Masa Saido, and they said, listen, just go

out there and be a monster. When you hit somebody, you know, hit them. And it

was successful for me.

I think the Japanese fans started realizing that this is someone who's

and important.

And my dad was the first American to hold the IWGP Championship.

They would bow to him. He was the Hulk Hogan of Japan.

With interest from Japanese fans at an all -time high, Stan Hansen and Big Van

Vader are scheduled for an epic match, destined to become one of the biggest of

all time.

So is it in a lot of ways a dream match for those bands?

Or a nightmare.

My dad and Stan Hansen are the main event.

There is 60 ,000, 65 ,000 people in attendance, sold out Tokyo Dome. There

two big horses in there from opposite stables.

He started hammering me hard, and I hit him back.

It was the real deal.

They wanted it to look real. Sometimes you didn't know. The line was really

close. And the result could be scary.

And boom! Hits Leon right in the eye.

Dan Hanson knocked Vader's eyeball out of his head.

When he pulled off his mask, I mean, there was a huge reaction.

You could see the swelling and the discoloration had started almost

I freaked out.

Leon takes it, pushes it back into his head, and goes for it.

After 10 minutes of exchanging blows, I can remember saying, take it easy, Leon.

I was scared to death.

But I will tell you, it was a phenomenal match.

The brutality of the match was Stan Hansen cements Vader as one of the

and most popular wrestlers in Japan.

Leon was in Japan probably 32 weeks a year. He was gone all the time.

Growing up, he probably missed half of my childhood.

It's tough for him, it's tough for my mother, it's tough for me, but that's

life he chose and the life I was born into.

As Leon's infamous match with Stan Hansen circulates among tape traders, a

opportunity opens up stateside.

When I was at WCW, somebody sent me some footage of the Hansen match, and that's

what gave me the idea to bring him in.

This is one big, big man.

I'm Jim Ross, and my relationship with Leon goes back a good while.

This is big time. We're signed with Ted Turner. Right. So extremely important

for him, for us as a family.

and instantly he's in the main event.

I mean, you can't put this guy in the second match. He was just a human

demolition machine.

He's the big bad villain. He's the one that beat up the pretty boys.

He took pride in his craft, but what truly separated my dad is his

and his ability to have a 25 -minute main event match.

Vader had a big impact on me.

The irresistible force versus the immovable object, and you wonder which

going to get first.

This stuff Leon and I were doing was a little edgy.

Oh, the moonsault was crazy.

I can say that as a guy who was on the receiving end of it.

He's a 400 -pound athlete doing a backflip.

From the top rope. How many big men in the business have you seen do that? At

about the exact time that Vader debuted his moonsault, it was like the whole

complexion of that company changed because he just raised the bar

high.

The intense matches with Cactus Jack elevates Vader into being one of WCW's

attractions.

Nobody was going to be able to stop Vader.

It was extremely big for my dad, right? Winning a championship for any

federation, it's big time.

So this is when things start escalating to a new level of fame.

Vader's here!

Who's the man?

You're the man!

Vader! Vader!

Growing up and seeing your dad on television three, four times a week,

Boy Meets World, Baywatch, a couple movies, that's pretty cool. Accept the

challenge of Vader!

It was a double -edged sword because you're trying to develop a relationship

with your father and he's constantly on the road. He wasn't around like the rest

of the fathers were.

He enjoyed being on the road because it's a fun lifestyle, right? Rock star

lifestyle. He worked very, very hard to get there, but he got to where that's

all he did was be a star.

I was fascinated by that.

The whole thing about stepping outside of that curtain, and regardless if

having a good day or a bad day in your life, it just goes away, and you become

Vader. And boy, it's just feeling like none other, and I got addicted to it.

He's coming to my basketball games, and we have a line of, you know, 20, 25

people asking for autographs, and I'm starting to get jealous.

And I'm like, no, no, no, Dad, you're here to watch me not sign autographs.

Sometimes I think I went overboard in the character.

I guess it made me real believable. You got to be Vader for so long. At times in

my life, I've had trouble turning it off.

He did have a Jekyll and Hyde quality to him. Very soft -hearted, but he also

had the ability to change.

I believe anything you say, I believe it. And I mean it, the flip of a switch.

Don't get him out of here. He could go from one to ten like that.

There was a side of him you just didn't want to see.

He'd go from being Big Van Vader and trying to be Leon White, and sometimes

was a little bit of a challenge for him.

Pretty soon he just lost Leon, you know, and he just became the character.

And that's not who I fell in love with. I fell in love with Leon White.

And when he couldn't leave the other one at all, you know, that's when things

got pretty rough around the house.

He liked being the tough man.

And, you know, unfortunately, he'd bring it home sometimes.

The one thing is, he never went to Jesse. It was always me he came to. But

tried to leave, it wouldn't have turned out well.

Leon loved me to death, but he loved me to death.

You know, so either he's in prison and I'm dead, or, you know what I mean?

It looks like a beautiful life, but you never know what's going on behind closed

doors.

Leon understood one of the most important things of our business, and

psychology of it. His role in the ring was that of a really violent man. But as

good as Vader was, he always had the reputation of being that stiff guy that

could hurt you at any time.

Hey everybody, Gerald Briscoe here, better known as Jerry Briscoe, WWE Hall

Famer. A lot of guys bitch and complain about how stiff Leon was. If he wasn't

stiff and snug on you, you weren't having a good match.

When he manhandled you, you knew you were being manhandled. That's one of the

reasons why Vader looked so impressive.

He broke Stane's ribs.

Nikita Koloff, he ended his career.

Gave Cactus Jack a concussion.

On more than one occasion, I saw young men whose entire lives were built

around this goal of becoming professional wrestlers. When they saw

against Leon White, they just looked at their friend and said, I don't think

this is for me.

Especially after Leon temporarily paralyzed a kid named Joe Thurman.

This is something that

I've never...

talked about this to anybody.

Growing up, the only thing that I ever wanted

to do was to be a pro wrestler.

I had just turned 20. This was the very first time that I had got to work for

WCW. This is the biggest nod of my career.

I'm living the dream, literally.

I'm Joey Thurman. I was a professional wrestler for WCW.

The biggest claim to fame in my wrestling career was the incident with

Vader.

Right before we're getting ready to go out, Vader goes, Hey, I'm working you.

It's going to be quick. You good with a powerbomb? I was like, yeah.

And he's like, okay, cool. See you out there.

Introducing first, Big Van Vader!

I found the hard camera, done a big smile.

Get in the ring, and he does the Vader growl. I went and bounced off of him.

And I don't know, I

don't know what changed.

And this is the part that has really bothered me.

32 years, and the part that I will, there's no way that I'll ever find the

answer to. This is the first time that I realized that something was different.

Because he leans down and he goes, you better jump, you little mother.

And we're going to do the choke slam.

Went up, come back down, took a big crash.

And as I'm getting back up from that, it was something to the effect of, come

here, you little piece of shit.

He's just absolutely too much, man.

The mood absolutely changed.

He sets up. We go to do the powerbomb.

I mean, the carelessness is obvious.

Anybody can do a bomb. Look at that.

Right on the back of the neck and the shoulders.

The way that I land, the impact, it was like a rifle. That pow.

And I remember just feeling the numbness.

Nobody's taking care of anybody.

When he comes down for the pin, he's not even touching me.

Whatever had switched between backstage and in the ring had now switched back.

You could see that there was concern at that point.

I remember the ref saying, holy crap, are you all right?

I told him, I said, I can't feel my legs.

Broke my back in two places.

The trauma was so great that it almost severed my spinal cord.

I was there and I saw Leon crying, you know, backstage. You know, I saw it. He

felt terrible about it. And I know he visited him in the hospital that night.

About all he got out of his mouth was.

Hey, brother, you OK?

And.

I unloaded on him.

I called him everything that I could think of.

And he's crying, and I couldn't care less.

Because they just told me, you'll never get in the ring again.

Yeah, he would cry.

It broke my heart, you know, because he never showed that side very often.

And I would hold him and say, it's okay, baby, it's okay.

I was told later that he was under a lot of pressure. He was supposed to be that

big beast that nobody could beat. But if I'm working hand -to -hand with another

guy, his safety is my responsibility.

It just felt like having your dreams put in your hand, but

before you can close your fingers around it.

It snatched away.

Word got around that this was what he did.

Guys like you make me sick getting up here bragging upon the fact that you

young guys like Joe Thurman and break their back.

Leon was a nice, caring man, but you have to turn that side of yourself off

you're in front of the camera. And that man is lucky.

That's all he got was a broken back.

That's what they wanted. They needed a killer, and he gave it to them.

You know, they had to play that up.

But if you didn't, then what a waste of time.

It just advanced my dad's aura of being a badass and being real.

Although WCW embraces Vader's vicious reputation in the ring, his actions

alienate him from the rest of the locker room.

What happens when Hulk Hogan shows up?

That wasn't a good thing. Talk about two people that didn't like each other.

Hogan was the massive star baby face, and Leon was the...

Kill or heal.

It's a marriage made in heaven.

And then why does it go wrong?

Egos.

Hulk is a different type of wrestler, and Leon was not going to be Hulk's type

of wrestler.

My dad's matches with him were respectfully a watered -down version of

unfortunately.

I was told to give it to him, give it to him later.

Good thing I know he got up.

This is how we've got to get on with it.

They backstab you.

Ego's better go wrong.

And wrong he went.

Ego's a terrible enemy of a lot of wrestlers.

Vader's conflicts with other talent reach a breaking point behind the

Paul Orndorff, who had retired from the ring because of nerve damage in his arm,

had become a producer for WCW.

They needed to do interviews at a TV taping.

And Orndorff went back, hey, Vader, you got interviews.

I'll be there in a minute.

And he didn't come, and then Orndorff says, hey, get your fat ass in there and

do the interviews.

Well, then that's when Leon stood up and said, you ain't going to call me a fat

ass. And Paul Orndorff, bad arm, wearing flip -flops, punched the shit out of

Vader. Bam!

And then when he went down, he started kicking him with those flip -flops. One

of the guys in the locker room said it sounded like you were slapping two dead

fish together.

Somebody had to take the fall for that, so Leon had to go.

And that brought his WCW career to an end.

That was the beginning of him making bad decisions and bad mistakes.

That was the beginning of the end, pretty much.

Following a humiliating backstage fight with Paul Orndorff, Leon White is let go

from WCW.

Leon was never quite the same emotionally after the Paul Orndorff

Everybody in the whole wrestling world was talking about Japan everywhere.

It took away from his aura of being this invincible monster.

Vader's status as a free agent quickly results in a new opportunity from an old

friend.

I was in charge of talent relations in WWE, and I just believed he was a great

addition to our team if we could keep him sane and healthy.

All of us in the WWF office, we're thrilled.

This guy's a major star. He's going to be a champion here.

Who is it? They debut Vader at the Royal Rumble where he makes a huge splash.

Then the next day on Raw, when I introduce him, it's time.

It's Vader time.

The people are cheering, they're going ballistic because one of the biggest

stars from the only opposition has now come to the WWF and the fans are going

crazy. They do a deal where Gorilla Monsoon, legendary wrestler, who was

the president of the WWF, Vader beats him up and lays out Gorilla Monsoon.

Holy,

I got goosebumps right now that this was the start of making the first...

Monster heel of the modern WWF era, I thought.

But Vince McMahon had no clue who Vader was because Vince McMahon never watched

any other wrestling besides the WWF. And Vince thought, pal, let's call him the

Mastodon.

Call him what?

Vince didn't get it.

So this began.

A relationship where neither one of them got the other one.

Beyond the creative differences, Leon fights to live up to his own reputation

the ring.

Dad was injury prone at this point. Vader had a bad shoulder and needed

And his weight had started to balloon because he was off for so long.

He's going to get too heavy. It's going to put additional pressure on his

joints. It's going to slow him down.

And now Vince got upset about his weight.

And Leon began taking it personally.

Vince probably was on him more than he was on most guys.

He didn't fit in the program.

Duke University in North Carolina had a well -renowned weight loss facility.

And it was Vince's idea to send Yokozuna and Leon.

We're weighing them in on a regular basis, and they're gaining weight. How

the hell are you gaining weight at the Duke Weight Loss Clinic?

Figure that out.

Then you find out they cheated. They're smuggling fried chicken into their dorm.

You're going to eat yourself out of a job, man. Act like an adult.

Then came Shawn Michaels. He is the leader of the new WWF

generation.

Shawn Michaels was Vince's anointed babyface hero that needed monsters

to try to menace him, try to take that title away.

They should have had wonderful matches.

But some things are just not meant to be.

Michaels was a prima donna. He didn't like working with Leon because Leon was

stiff with him.

He was Vince's boy and Leon's was nobody's boy and ended up being a pretty

situation on both sides.

Sean said, you know, if you keep roughing me up like that, I'm going to

fired. And my dad rolls out of the ring and has, like, tears in his eyes.

You know, you don't upset the golden boy.

Shawn's pissed off because Leon didn't always wash his gear.

It was a regular discussion.

God damn it, you've got body odor.

People don't want to work with you.

And Leon's offended.

And Shawn Michaels was bitching about it all the time, every day.

Crazy, isn't it?

Body odor.

Michaels had already buried...

Vader to Vince.

I want to work with this guy, blah, blah, blah, whatever he said. Now

nervous wreck, and he can't be Vader.

And then the SummerSlam match happened.

When you go back and look at that SummerSlam match, it's a good match.

But there's a couple points, and one of them, Michael plants Vader

in the middle of the ring.

And he's going to go to the top rope, and he was going to come off with an

drop, and he wanted Vader to move.

Well, either Vader didn't hear it, I don't know.

So instead of being a professional, Michaels changes position in midair,

on his feet right over Vader, and then screams at him so all the fans can hear,

I said move, and kicks him in the head.

He's an unprofessional asshole.

But after that match, that's when Michaels really went.

Sean not wanting to drop the title to my father, he convinced Vince that he's

not ready. He's not the guy.

That day, yeah, more than anything, changed him to a very angry

human being.

You'd think a guy like him would be armor -plated, but he wasn't.

He had feelings, and he was very sensitive.

I mean, you kind of saw Leon's career just end in that moment as a

main eventer. He never worked in that main event level again.

Despite his demotion, Vader remains a star attraction until his aggressive

behavior threatens his career and freedom.

The WWF was big on international tours.

And the last thing Vince wanted was international incidents.

All of the Middle East opened their arms to the ambassadors of goodwill the

world over, the WWF superstars.

We got this big elaborate tournament where Vader's supposed to be the star.

we get Undertaker and Vader booked on the most popular talk show in Kuwait.

The host had asked, you know, is wrestling fake or is that stuff you do?

not real, right? Whatever.

They say this wrestling is not for real. Is it like you act or?

Leon took it to heart.

Find your remark and your question insulting.

It's not my question.

Does that feel fake, huh?

Does that feel fake?

Now that's physical assault.

And it becomes an incident.

Why don't you come down tonight, and before I kick his ass, I'll kick your

This is Kuwait. It's a foreign country. They don't have laws like ours.

Hey,

we're not here to be insulted. I'm not here to be insulted.

But at the same time, I'm back at the office in Stanford. And that's when I

found out Leon's being detained in Kuwait.

Is it just for the wrestling show? Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. I'm

yeah. You gave him a chance to respond to that question.

Yeah, this is the question I'm going to ask you now.

I'd like to respond to the same question. Okay, please, go ahead.

They told me when I walked in there and listened, we want the highest rated show

in the history of the show. Can you go crazy and turn over some tables and jump

up?

Does that feel fake, huh? But the announcer was live on set, and they did

over this with him.

Hey, that's the guy.

And the guy freaks out, especially in a foreign country.

You can't physically manhandle somebody.

They can just keep you.

They wanted to put him in one of those Kuwaiti jails.

The company exhausted every resource that they had just to get him under

arrest. They kept his passport.

Vince got everybody out, got on the plane, and left Leon there.

Now, I'm at home and I'm finding out about this. And it was very scary for me

and Joseph. I had no idea, no communication, no nothing. I didn't know

still alive.

And I believe he spent the next two weeks under house arrest.

Leon's lucky he didn't get put in prison.

We were lucky to get him out of the country.

This incident really set things on a bad path.

Because now...

When Vince loses interest in something, Vince loses interest in something.

Following the incident in Kuwait, Leon's status in the company tumbled as his

physical and mental health deteriorates. Leon wanted to be treated like the

star. He thought he deserved more.

And he may have.

I guess you could say he might have overstayed his welcome.

But he was getting older.

Time ran out on him.

He got to become too high maintenance.

We couldn't get him happy.

Couldn't get him healthy.

When you play that hard, it catches up to you.

Knees, elbows, shoulders, you know, just pain.

Pain from his neck down.

Going back to football, my dad was in an era of, hey, you got a sprained ankle,

try these new things. They're called pain meds. And then so now fast forward,

hey, I got a match coming up here tonight.

Let me take pain pills.

I was taking six, eight Percocets a day. Just to sleep, I'd have to take two or

three. And I was going through a lot of pain, and pain alters personality.

Pain will change you. If you've ever been in pain, and I mean pain, you will

become somebody you've never known before, ever seen before, and probably

wanted to be.

Leon could be all over the place with his emotions.

When you get into chemicals and pain and all that stuff, that's just like

pouring gas on the fire for depression.

And I'm pretty sure that Leon had fallen into that.

He's self -destructive, and it just got worse and worse and worse.

The biggest moon in the world!

We saw he was human.

Talking about one of the great monster heels of all time.

We just couldn't handle it anymore.

Give me a minute, time's over.

Ain't nothing but a big piece of shit.

Big fat piece of shit.

Those words came from Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

So to be honest, I hadn't been able to give you what you guys deserve because

I'm a big piece of shit.

That's the way that Vince thought of him. He was a big fat piece of shit.

And he just got mad and went all the way with it. And it killed the character of

Vader. His career was zilch after that. He wants some more.

Man, it's like what could have been.

He was just browbeaten to the point where he lost his mojo

and was trying so diligently to please everyone that he lost track

of who he was and what made him Vader.

Vader's career bottoms out as his issues spill over into his on -screen persona.

It was devastating for him.

He's not used to not being on top.

He blew it.

That's all I can say. He actually blew it. At one time, he was on top of the

world, and then he just started spiraling and went downhill.

I wish he would have taken better care of himself, eating healthier, losing

weight. I started realizing like, hey, I don't need to be this 350 -pound

monster anymore.

But for my father, that was always a part of his identity.

I do think he struggled trying to figure out what the next 15 to 20 years was

going to look like for his family, for him professionally.

There was sort of a great unknown in terms of, what am I going to do?

He was done. I mean, he was cooked. Nobody wanted to talk to him. I mean, he

burned a lot of bridges, a lot of bridges.

It came to a point when Jesse went to college.

I just, I'd had enough.

I'd had enough.

Leon, at that point, was pretty much gone. And, you know, I tried to get him

go to rehab.

I tried everything I could to save the marriage.

But by then, he'd stay in bed for three, four, five days, maybe get up to drink

and then go back to bed.

He had been a diabetic for some time, and we did not know this. With low blood

sugar, you need insulin to get back to normal levels, but my dad would just

naps and kind of power through it.

He got an opportunity to go to Japan.

Decent little payday for him. Well, on this particular trip, he had been

drinking, and...

levels were low enough to where he needed to take a nap,

he went into a diabetic coma.

That was the most scared I ever was.

He's potentially on the other side of the world, and I don't know how I'm

to get to him.

Following a brief resurgence in Japan, Leon's health issues continue to take a

toll.

I could just see his health declining.

It was having a lot of breathing issues, a lot of chest pains.

We knew something was wrong with his heart.

So I immediately set up a meeting with one of my doctors.

Dad had congestive heart failure.

And it was so bad, the doctor says, Haley and I, I think we need to, you

operate pretty quick. So we were having a quad bypass.

My days in the WCW, I was 417 pounds.

The heart was going to be strained because of the weight.

And the heart was basically worn out. We finally get him home.

Unfortunately, dad had a very aggressive case of pneumonia.

I had to break into his place.

Find him unconscious.

911, whole bit.

We had to put him in a medical -induced coma.

Jesse kind of was his saving grace at the end.

We had three weeks of the coma, and we had a tracheectomy. So when he woke up,

he couldn't speak.

It was hard watching your father, who was King Kong, he was Superman, and now

not be who he was mentally or physically.

You know, my dad was feeding me at one point, and now I'm feeding him.

Bull was so appreciative of how Jesse had stepped up. He really did the right

thing by his dad.

The day after Father's Day, when I walk into the room, the first thing he says

is, I love you.

It's the first time I'm hearing him speak in about a month and a half.

And I said, hey, I'm going to see you after work tonight.

And he said, cool.

Later that night, I get a call from the nurse, and she's like, hey, your dad

wants to talk to you.

And he's like, hey, I love you so much. Thank you for everything that you've

been doing for me.

And I said, I love you, and I'll see you in a couple hours.

Unfortunately, that was the last time I talked to my dad.

Leon and I had an agreement. We promised each other, if that ever happened, that

we would pull the plug.

And that was my call, and it was the right call.

That was very hard.

Yeah, he lived a short life. He lived a full life.

He got to experience some things most people can't even fathom.

Unfortunately, it's just he was 63 years old and too young.

Don't feel sorry for me, man, because I've lived, I mean, I've literally been

around the world 10 times.

I've lived a great life, and I'm thankful for the time I've had.

Big Van Vader was the greatest monster heel.

the greatest big man that I ever saw, and I've been doing this for 50 years.

Vader's legacy in wrestling is for a period of almost 15 years the most

big man in the sport of wrestling, and that's what people remember.

He was a good man, conflicted man, who wanted to bring it every single night.

Even though he was one of the biggest stars of the era, I just don't think

gotten the credit he deserves.

And the lesson to me is that you should never let anyone or anything define to

you what being a success is.

Before he died, I mean, we would talk every now and then, and he actually

Leon White at the very end.

He felt very bad about how our life could have been and how it ended up.

There was a lot of bad, but gosh, there was a lot of good, too.

And it was a lot of fun to be able to be part of that.

The reason I am so successful, my lovely wife, Debbie.

Without her, I could be nothing.

And to my little boy, someday he will be champion.

Because through him, I get my strength and I am young again.

I think he is the bar for big men in this business.

And I got to be front row center for a lot of it.

I'm proud, blessed to be his son. And I hope that he's proud of the man that he

raised.

As crazy as death is and as dramatic as this whole process was, there was beauty

in it.

The love I had for my father and the love he had for me, that never changed.