Pro wrestling is full of awesome and amazing feuds, and one of the bests had a classic match on July 12, 1992 at The Great American Bash to cement this day in wrestling history.
There were few feuds that were better than Vader and Sting. The two had so much respect for each other and chemistry they were nearly flawless at times.
What makes this a really cool moment is their rivalry began because Vader was destroying everyone he faced and Dusty Rhodes had an urge to see how he’d match up with Sting.
Vader has a reputation to this day of being very stiff at times, and there have been numerous claims that he legitimately beat up some of his opponents.
It’s nothing new and not surprising as that happened more often than we may think it did. The Road Warriors were like that with Animal saying once they sent people into legitimate helicopter spins with their clotheslines.
There’s even a story that while in Japan, Hulk Hogan didn’t want Hawk to gorilla press him, but Hawk did it anyway.
Running with an opportunity
Of course, there’s more to the story than Vader just mauling people as he could have a gentle touch when needed, as Vader mentioned in an interview in 2014.
Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the following transcripts.
“One night Dusty said, ‘Hey, let’s try Sting and Vader because he’s just manhandling everybody.’ It was more of a respect thing with Sting because I knew what kind of a star he was and I had seen him wrestle and I said, ‘Wow, this is my chance to show these guys that I can tone it down and not just murder people.’ and we had a 10 minute match on TV and that was it. Dusty saw it and said, ‘There it is.’ Let’s face it: Dusty Rhodes knows talent. He knows what he knows. Then we lit that company up, me and Sting.” – Vader, WrestlingInc interview, September 24, 2014.
Dusty wasn’t the only one that saw something in Vader, and Bill Watts had high praise for him.
“Vader was an interesting guy. I was impressed with him. He could cut a great promo and he had a great gimmick. He’d been an All-American football player at the University of Colorado so he had that athletic background. He had great presence and was a pretty good guy to have in the ring.” – Bill Watts, The Cowboy And The Cross book.
Vader was a dominate force that was as fun to watch as it must’ve been terrifying to face him if he was in a foul mood.
His run in WCW was one of the best of the day, and makes his time in WWE pale in comparison, and that could be why he’s often overlooked as WCW wasn’t on WWE’s level during his heyday there.
What’s your favorite Vader memory? Let us know in the comments below.
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