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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest big man in the history of wrestling, Vader!
00:10In the world of professional wrestling, every hero needs a villain.
00:14And few villains were tougher, scarier, or more dangerous than Big Van Vader.
00:24The most amazing super heavyweight that I've ever seen. Ever.
00:28When you looked at him, you'd think, my God, who would ever fight that guy?
00:33He is one of the most sadistic, one of the most physically intimidating athletes that I have ever seen in my career.
00:39He was 400 pounds and could do moonsaults.
00:42The moonsault!
00:44Vader was a world champion in almost every continent on the globe that had professional wrestling.
00:48But he had a reputation.
00:51When he started hammering people, they were like, damn, that had to hurt. Because it did.
00:56He was the stiffest wrestler I've ever been in the ring with.
01:00He was really good at that style, but it would be a scary thing.
01:04But the violence that made Vader a sensation also sabotages his career, as the industry's biggest stars turn their back on him.
01:13You've got to remember what's showbiz and what's real.
01:16And sometimes Leon had a hard time separating the fact from the fiction.
01:19Out of the ring, the man who became a champion by inflicting pain struggles to deal with his own.
01:25He lived life hard. He did things that a man his size shouldn't have been able to do.
01:31He paid a big price for it.
01:33Pain will change you. Your personality will change. You will change.
01:39Big Ben Vader is the greatest super heavyweight of all time, but he's still human.
01:44And sometimes many of us forgot that.
01:48Vader, he fears no man. And he feels no pain.
02:05If you look at some of the great movie villains, they were just overwhelmingly powerful that they were terrifying.
02:11You were rooted for your favorite character to survive that encounter.
02:19And in professional wrestling, Vader was the greatest monster, really, of his era.
02:25Vader!
02:26My name is Mick Foley. I'm a three-time WWE champion, and I was pummeled by Vader on many occasions.
02:35Leon was one of those few people who could come in and make it look like not only might your favorite be losing their title,
02:41they might be losing their life.
02:44Like they were fighting for something bigger than a victory.
02:48Vader was going to give it to you, and if you didn't give it back, he was going to eat you up.
02:53My name is Jesse White, and I have the honor and privilege of being the son of Leon White, a.k.a. Vader.
03:00Dad grew up in Linwood, California, about two miles outside of Compton,
03:03in a house with a lot of violence.
03:08A lot of it involved around alcohol.
03:10Growing up, he kind of had to step up to take care of his family and become the head of the family.
03:18He had a rough one. He had a rough one, you know?
03:20I'm Debra White, and I was married to Leon White, a.k.a. Big Van Vader.
03:27The school he went to, he had to pretty much fight every day.
03:33This is the late 60s, and now L.A.'s starting to get a little bit more rough.
03:36My dad was probably about 12 years old.
03:38He was at home watching Star Trek with his sister, and someone's coming to break in the house.
03:44Two men had broken the window in the back.
03:47I screamed at my sister, and we ran out the front door, and they chased us.
03:50You could just tell if they had bad intentions.
03:52So they ran down to the bar where Grandpa was at.
03:55Grandpa took him back home, ordered up the window, gave him a shotgun,
03:59and said, if someone comes through, you know what to do this time.
04:03He made sure that Leon knew you don't take shit from anybody.
04:08He was trying to make him tough, and obviously, he turned out pretty tough.
04:15Sports is where my dad found his identity.
04:18If it wasn't for football, I don't know if Pops ever makes it out of L.A.
04:21He was a hell of a player.
04:23When he would hit you, even if he was messing around, man, it hurt.
04:28My name is Dave Logan.
04:30I played a long time in the NFL.
04:32I met Leon his freshman year at University of Colorado,
04:35and after that, we just became fast friends.
04:37His nickname was Baby Bull.
04:39Bull fit him perfectly, because he was very, very tough,
04:45unbelievably strong, an incredible, incredible athlete.
04:49He was drafted third round to the Los Angeles Rams,
04:53but unfortunately, due to the injuries that he had, he couldn't play anymore.
04:57That's what he worked for his whole entire life, was to get there and go have that success,
05:01and this wasn't the success that he wanted.
05:03He was trying to figure out what was next for him.
05:07Being an athlete, he still felt he can contribute something athletically,
05:10so he decided to give pro wrestling a try.
05:14Leaving his NFL career behind, Leon is welcomed into the pro wrestling business
05:19by one of the sport's toughest men.
05:21I went down to the local wrestling show down in Denver,
05:26and I put on a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and I just walked in.
05:30Everybody just froze.
05:31And Bruiser Brody stood up, walked over, and Brody was about 6'5".
05:36He said, what the f*** you want in my locker room?
05:39I was scared to death, and I stared him right down in the eye and said,
05:42man, I'm here to get a job.
05:44Next thing I know, man, I got my backpack, and I'm in my car on my way to Minnesota.
05:49King-Pong Brody against Leon the Baby Bull White, and it's underway.
05:54Whoa! Another one.
05:58When Leon White started, he was trained in the Midwest,
06:01and he had notoriety even as a rookie because of his size and NFL background.
06:08He was close to 400 pounds, but he was amazingly agile and nimble.
06:13He was 6'3", and as wide as a wrecking ball.
06:17So he was very convincing in that he could kick the s*** out of him.
06:23Oh, look at Leon.
06:24At the time, Stan Hansen was a champion for AWA.
06:27Stan Hansen, the biggest, the nicest.
06:30He was teaching my dad the ropes in AWA.
06:33Are you ready?
06:34Well, he was a very impressive guy.
06:37Oh, look at the agility of him.
06:38But I'm pretty aggressive, so when he stepped into the ring, it's on.
06:46Oh!
06:47Hi, this is Stan Hansen.
06:49I'm here to talk about Vader.
06:52Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody introduced Leon to a rough in-ring style
06:56that pushes the boundaries between showmanship and violence,
07:00a style insiders call working stiff.
07:03It was much more physical.
07:05We just decided to go all out as long as we could.
07:10That's what made us strong.
07:11That's where it starts, and that's where it's going to end.
07:14When a guy's stuff lands really well, he's stiff.
07:20It didn't injure you, but it hurt.
07:23But that's the way he was trained live in front of a crowd.
07:27Brody and Stan beat the hell out of my dad,
07:29and my dad took it, didn't complain.
07:31And I think both Stan and Bruiser respected that about my dad.
07:35I never looked at him like a student.
07:38I always looked at him as a very equal competitor.
07:44But Leon Baby Bull White did not exactly set the wrestling world on fire
07:51until he got a deal to go to Japan,
07:53and they made him the character of Big Van Vader.
07:59It was an amazing gimmick.
08:01It was an amazing outfit.
08:03And Vader became an instant sensation.
08:07I'm Jim Cornette, and in the WWF,
08:10I was the manager of The Man They Call Vader.
08:13From Tokyo, Japan, Antonio Inoki.
08:18Antonio Inoki, Japanese wrestling legend,
08:22was the owner of New Japan Pro Wrestling.
08:24And he was always looking for monster foreigners,
08:27monster heels that he could vanquish somehow.
08:31And with Leon's size, he knew he had something.
08:35The legend goes that Big Van Vader was a samurai warrior
08:39who represented an island,
08:40and him and another warrior fought to the death.
08:43Big Van Vader won that battle,
08:46and so Inoki always wanted to make a character based on that.
08:49The samurai warrior come to life for the Japanese fans.
08:53He also created the helmet.
08:54The headgear and the shoulder pads were custom-made in Japan,
09:00and it required a person to operate it remotely.
09:04Where the steam would come out of the shoulder pads and the spikes,
09:08it was something that people hadn't seen before.
09:10And that's what Antonio Inoki needed for Japan.
09:13Antonio Inoki hadn't lost a match in three, four years,
09:18and Big Van Vader comes out and beats him in under three minutes.
09:22The fans were so upset, they rioted.
09:26It's probably the most impactful debut in professional wrestling history.
09:32I sat down in the room with Inoki and Masa Saito,
09:35and they said, listen, just go out there and be a monster.
09:38When you hit somebody, you don't hit them.
09:41And it was successful for me.
09:44I think the Japanese fans started realizing
09:47that this is someone who's special and important.
09:50And my dad was the first American to hold the IWGP championship.
09:54They would bow to him.
09:56He was the Hulk Hogan of Japan.
09:59With interest from Japanese fans at an all-time high,
10:02Stan Hansen and Big Van Vader are scheduled for an epic match,
10:06destined to become one of the biggest of all time.
10:11So it was, in a lot of ways, a dream match for those fans.
10:14Ah, you are a nightmare.
10:19My dad and Stan Hansen are the main event.
10:22There is 60,000, 65,000 people in attendance sold out Tokyo Dome.
10:26There was two big horses in there from opposite stables.
10:31He started hammering me hard, and I hit him back.
10:35It was the real deal.
10:39They wanted it to look real.
10:40Sometimes you didn't know.
10:41The line was really close.
10:43And the result could be scary.
10:48And boom!
10:49Hits Leon right in the eye.
10:53Stan Hansen knocked Vader's eyeball out of his head.
10:57When he pulled off his mask, I mean, there was a huge reaction.
11:13You could see the swelling and the discoloration had started almost immediately.
11:19I freaked out.
11:21Leon takes it, pushes it back into his head, and goes for it.
11:27After 10 minutes of exchanging blows, I can remember saying, take it easy, Leon.
11:34I was scared to death, but I will tell you, it was a phenomenal match.
11:41The brutality of the match with Stan Hansen cements Vader as one of the toughest and most popular wrestlers in Japan.
11:49Leon was in Japan probably 32 weeks a year.
11:53He was gone all the time.
11:54Growing up, he probably missed half of my childhood.
11:57It's tough for him.
11:58It's tough for my mother.
11:59It's tough for me.
12:00But that's the life he chose.
12:03And it's the life I was born into.
12:04As Leon's infamous match with Stan Hansen circulates among tape traders, a new opportunity opens up stateside.
12:12When 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.
12:19This is one big, big man.
12:21I'm Jim Ross, and my relationship with Leon goes back a good while.
12:27This is big time.
12:28We're signed with Ted Turner, right?
12:30So extremely important for him, for us as a family.
12:34And instantly, he's in the main events.
12:37I mean, you can't put this guy in the second match.
12:39He was just a human demolition machine.
12:42He's the big, bad villain.
12:44He's the one that beat up the pretty boys.
12:48He took pride in his craft.
12:50But what truly separated my dad is his athleticism and his ability to have a 25-minute main event match.
12:57Oh, no!
12:59This guy is just tough, man.
13:01Vader had a big impact on me.
13:04He's...
13:04The irresistible force versus the immovable object, and you wonder which one's going to give first.
13:12Oh!
13:12The stuff Leon and I were doing was a little edgy.
13:16Oh!
13:17Falls back with him!
13:18Look at his moonsault.
13:20Oh, the moonsault was crazy.
13:21Vader going up!
13:24I can say that as a guy who was on the receiving end of it.
13:28Oh!
13:29He's a 400-pound athlete doing a backflip from the top rope.
13:34Moonsault!
13:34How many big men in the business have you seen do that?
13:39At 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 incredibly high.
13:50The intense matches with Cactus Jack elevates Vader into being one of WCW's top attractions.
13:58Nobody was going to be able to stop Vader.
14:03It was extremely big for my dad, right?
14:05Winning a championship for any federation, it's big time.
14:09So this is when things start escalating to a new level of fame.
14:13Vader's here!
14:14Who's the man?
14:16You're the man!
14:18Vader!
14:18Vader!
14:19Growing up and seeing your dad on television three, four times a week, being on Bore Meets World, Baywatch, a couple movies, that's pretty cool.
14:29Accept the talent of Vader!
14:32But it was a double-edged sword because you're trying to develop a relationship with your father and he's constantly on the road.
14:38He wasn't around like the rest of the fathers were.
14:41He enjoyed being on the road because it's a fun lifestyle, right? Rockstar lifestyle.
14:45He worked very, very hard to get there, but he got to where that's all he did was be a star.
14:56I was fascinated by the whole thing about stepping outside of that curtain, and regardless if you're having a good day or a bad day in your life, it just goes away and you become Vader.
15:07And boy, it's just a feeling like none other.
15:09And I got addicted to it.
15:11He'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.
15:19And I'm like, no, no, no, Dad, you're here to watch me, not sign autographs.
15:22Sometimes I think I went overboard in the character and I guess it made me real believable.
15:28You got to be Vader for so long.
15:31At times in my life, I've had trouble turning it off.
15:36He did have a Jekyll and Hyde quality to him.
15:39Very soft-hearted, but he also had the ability to change.
15:43I believe anything you say, I believe him.
15:45And I mean at the flip of a switch.
15:48Don't get him out of here!
15:50He could go from one to ten, like, fast.
15:55There was a side of him you just didn't want to see.
15:59He'd go from being Big Van Vader and trying to be Leon White, and sometimes that was a little bit of a challenge for him.
16:09Pretty soon he just lost Leon, you know, and he just became the character.
16:13And that's not who I fell in love with.
16:15I fell in love with Leon White.
16:17And when he couldn't leave the other one at all, you know, that's when things got pretty rough around the house.
16:25He liked being the tough man.
16:28And, you know, unfortunately, he'd bring it home sometimes.
16:31The one thing is, he never went to Jesse.
16:37It was always me he came to.
16:39But if I tried to leave, it wouldn't have turned out well.
16:44Leon loved me to death, but he loved me to death.
16:48You know, so either he's in prison and I'm dead, or you know what I mean?
16:52It looked like a beautiful life, but you never know what's going on behind closed doors.
17:04Leon understood one of the most important things of our business, and that's the psychology of it.
17:10His role in the ring was that of a really violent man.
17:14But as good as Vader was, he always had the reputation of being that stiff guy that could hurt you at any time.
17:20Hey, everybody, Gerald Briscoe here, better known as Jerry Briscoe, WWE Hall of Famer.
17:26A lot of guys bitched and complained about how stiff Leon was.
17:29If he wasn't stiff and snug on you, you weren't having a good match.
17:33When he manhandled you, you knew you were being manhandled.
17:36That's one of the reasons why Vader looked so impressive.
17:39He broke Stain's ribs, Nikita Koloff, he ended his career, gave Cactus Jack a concussion.
17:48On more than one occasion, I saw young men whose entire lives were built around this goal of becoming professional wrestlers.
17:57When they saw their name against Leon White, they just looked at their friend and said,
18:02I don't think this is for me.
18:04Especially after Leon temporarily paralyzed a kid named Joe Thurman.
18:11Thurman is going to be coming in to big man Vader.
18:13Oh, all the power in the world.
18:16This is something that I've never talked about this to anybody.
18:23Vader does just what he wants.
18:25He wants to do it.
18:27Oh, my goodness.
18:29Growing up, the only thing that I ever wanted to do was to be a pro wrestler.
18:38I had just turned 20.
18:40This is the very first time that I had got to work for WCW.
18:43This is the biggest night of my career.
18:45I'm living the dream, literally.
18:49I'm Joey Thurman.
18:50I was a professional wrestler for WCW.
18:53The biggest claim to fame in my wrestling career was the incident with Big Van Vader.
18:57Right before we're getting ready to go out, Vader goes, hey, I'm working you.
19:02It's going to be quick.
19:03You good with a powerbomb?
19:04I was like, yeah.
19:05And he's like, okay, cool.
19:06See you out there.
19:08Introducing first, Big Van Vader.
19:14I found the hard camera, done a big smile, get in the ring, and he does the Vader grout.
19:21I went and bounced off of him.
19:23Oh, all the power in the world.
19:25And I don't know, I don't know what changed.
19:36And this is the part that has really bothered me for 32 years and the part that I will, there's
19:45no way that I'll ever find the answer to.
19:47This is the first time that I realized that something was different, because he leans down
19:51and he goes, you better jump, you little motherfucker.
19:55And we're going to do the choke slam.
19:58Went up, come back down, took a big crash.
20:01Oh, my goodness.
20:01And as I'm getting back up from that, it was something to the effect of, come here, you
20:09little piece of shit.
20:11He's just absolutely too much, man.
20:13The mood absolutely changed.
20:16He sets up, we go to do the powerbomb.
20:18I mean, the carelessness is obvious.
20:21Anybody can do it.
20:22Look at that.
20:24Right on the back of the neck of my shoulders.
20:28The way that I land, the impact, it was like a rifle.
20:31It was that pow.
20:33And I remember just feeling the numbness.
20:40Nobody's taking care of anybody.
20:45When he comes down for the pin, he's not even touching me.
20:50Whatever had switched between backstage and in the ring had now switched back.
20:57You could see that there was concern at that point.
20:59I remember the ref saying, holy crap, are you all right?
21:05I told him, I said, I can't feel my legs.
21:08Broke my back in two places.
21:11The trauma was so great that it almost severed my spinal cord.
21:19I was there and I saw Leon crying, you know, backstage.
21:23You know, I saw it.
21:24He felt terrible about it.
21:25And I know he visited him in the hospital that night.
21:29About all he got out of his mouth was, hey, brother, are you okay?
21:38And I unloaded on him.
21:42I called him everything that I could think of.
21:46He's crying and I couldn't care less.
21:50Because they just told me, you'll never get in the ring again.
21:53Yeah, he would cry.
22:00It broke my heart, you know, because he never showed that side very often.
22:05And I would hold him and say, it's okay, baby, it's okay.
22:12I was told later that he was under a lot of pressure.
22:16He was supposed to be that big beast that nobody could beat.
22:19But if I'm working hand to hand with another guy, his safety is my responsibility.
22:23It just felt like having your dream put in your hand.
22:31But before you can close your fingers around it, it's snatched away.
22:38Word got around that this was what he did.
22:41Guys like you make me sick getting up here bragging upon the fact that you take young guys like Joe Thurman and break their back.
22:48Leon was a nice, caring man, but you have to turn that side of yourself off when you're in front of the camera.
22:55And that man is lucky.
22:56That's all he got was a broken path.
22:58That's what they wanted.
22:59They needed a killer.
23:00And he gave it to them.
23:03You know, they had to play that up.
23:05But if you didn't, then what a waste of time.
23:08It just advanced my dad's aura of being a badass and being real.
23:12Although WCW embraces Vader's vicious reputation in the ring, his actions alienate him from the rest of the locker room.
23:22What happens when Hulk Hogan shows up?
23:24That wasn't a good thing.
23:25Talk about two people that didn't like each other.
23:29Hogan was the massive star baby face.
23:32And Leon was the killer heel.
23:35It's a marriage made in heaven.
23:38And then why does it go wrong?
23:41Egos.
23:43Hulk is a different type of wrestler.
23:46And Leon was not going to be Hulk's type of wrestler.
23:49My dad's matches with him were respectfully a watered-down version of my dad, unfortunately.
23:54What you got?
23:55Oh, my goodness!
23:56I was told to give it to him.
23:58He was in later.
23:58He's got a power buff.
24:00Oh, God!
24:00Oh, no!
24:02Next thing I know, he got up.
24:04Look at that!
24:06Hulk gets back up!
24:07This is how these guys get over it.
24:08They backstabby.
24:10He goes better go wrong.
24:15And wrong it went.
24:17Egos are a terrible enemy of a lot of wrestlers.
24:20Vader's conflicts with other talent reach a breaking point behind the scenes.
24:25Paul Orndorff, who had retired from the ring because of nerve damage in his arm, had become a producer for WCW.
24:33They needed to do interviews at a TV taping.
24:35And Orndorff went back, hey, Vader, you got interviews.
24:38I'll be there in a minute.
24:39And he didn't come, and then Orndorff says, hey, get your fat ass in there and do the interviews.
24:46Well, then that's when Leon stood up and said, you ain't going to call me a fat ass.
24:50And Paul Orndorff, bad arm, wearing flip-flops, punched the shit out of Vader.
24:57Bam!
24:57And then when he went down, he started kicking him with those flip-flops.
25:03One of the guys in the locker room said, it sounded like you were slapping two dead fish together.
25:08Somebody had to take the fall for that, so Leon had to go.
25:13And that brought his WCW career to an end.
25:16That was the beginning of him making bad decisions and bad mistakes.
25:23That was the beginning of the end, pretty much.
25:31Following a humiliating backstage fight with Paul Orndorff, Leon White is let go from WCW.
25:39Leon was never quite the same emotionally after the Paul Orndorff incident.
25:43Everybody in the whole wrestling world was talking about Japan, everywhere.
25:47It took away from his aura of being this invincible monster.
25:52Vader's status as a free agent quickly results in a new opportunity from an old friend.
25:58I was in charge of talent relations in WWE, and I just believed he was a great addition to our team.
26:04If we could keep him sane and healthy.
26:08All of us in the WWF office, we're thrilled.
26:11This guy's a major star.
26:12He's going to be a champion here.
26:14Who is a man of a man?
26:16They debut Vader at the Royal Rumble, where he makes a huge splash.
26:22Then the next day on Raw, when I introduce him, it's time.
26:26It's Vader time.
26:27It's Vader time!
26:31The people are cheering.
26:32They're going ballistic because one of the biggest stars from the only opposition
26:36has now come to the WWF, and the fans are going crazy.
26:40They do a deal where Gorilla Monsoon, legendary wrestler, who was then the president of the WWF,
26:47Vader beats him up and lays out Gorilla Monsoon.
26:50That's the president of the World Wrestling Federation!
26:54Holy, I got goosebumps right now that this was the start of making the first monster heel of the modern WWF era.
27:05I thought, but Vince McMahon had no clue who Vader was because Vince McMahon never watched any other wrestling besides the WWF.
27:17And Vince thought, pal, let's call him the Mastodon!
27:22Called him what?
27:23Vince didn't get it.
27:26So this began a relationship where neither one of them got the other one.
27:32Beyond the creative differences, Leon fights to live up to his own reputation in the ring.
27:39Dad was injury prone at this point.
27:41Vader had a bad shoulder and needed surgery.
27:43And his weight had started to balloon because he was off for so long.
27:48He's going to get too heavy.
27:50It's going to put additional pressure on his joints.
27:53It's going to slow him down.
27:55And now Vince got upset about his weight.
27:58And Leon began taking it personally.
28:01Vince probably was on him more than he was on most guys.
28:05He didn't fit in the program.
28:07Duke University in North Carolina had a well-renowned weight loss.
28:13facility.
28:14And it was Vince's idea to send Yokozuna and Leon.
28:19We're waiting them in on a regular basis and they're gaining weight.
28:22How in the hell are you gaining weight at the Duke Weight Loss Clinic?
28:26Figure that out.
28:28Then you find out they cheated.
28:30They're smuggling fried chicken into their dorm.
28:33You're going to eat yourself out of a job, man.
28:35Act like an adult.
28:36Then came Shawn Michaels.
28:39He is the leader of the new WWF generation.
28:45Shawn Michaels was Vince's anointed babyface hero that needed monsters to try to menace him,
28:53to try to take that title away.
28:55They should have had wonderful matches.
28:57But some things are just not meant to be.
29:03Michaels was a prima donna.
29:04He didn't like working with Leon because Leon was stiff with him.
29:09He was Vince's boy and Leon's was nobody's boy and ended up being a pretty nasty situation on both sides.
29:18Shawn said, you know, if you keep roughing me up like that, I'm going to get you fired.
29:21And my dad rolls out of the ring and has, like, tears in his eyes.
29:25You know, you don't upset the golden boy.
29:28Shawn's pissed off because Leon didn't always wash his gear.
29:32It was a regular discussion.
29:34God damn it, you've got body odor.
29:36People don't want to work with you.
29:39And Leon's offended.
29:40And Shawn Michaels was bitching about it all the time, every day.
29:44Crazy, isn't it?
29:46Body odor.
29:47Michael's had already buried Vader to Vince.
29:51I want to work with this guy, blah, blah, blah, whatever he said.
29:54Now Vader's a nervous wreck, and he can't be Vader.
29:57And then the SummerSlam match happened.
30:01When you go back and look at that SummerSlam match, it's a good match.
30:07We've got Michaels up in the air.
30:09Michaels from behind again.
30:10And again, a clip and a jump.
30:11But there's a couple points, and one of them, Michaels plants Vader in the middle of the ring.
30:17And he's going to go to the top rope, and he was going to come off with an elbow drop, and he wanted Vader to move.
30:23Well, either Vader didn't hear it, I don't know.
30:26So instead of being a professional, Michaels changes position in midair, lands on his feet right over Vader,
30:34and then screams at him so all the fans can hear, I said, move, and kicks him in the head.
30:42He's an unprofessional fucking asshole.
30:45You're a godless, no-good coward!
30:48You knew you couldn't!
30:49But after that match, that's when Michaels really went.
30:53Sean, not wanting to drop the title to my father, he convinced Vince that he's not ready.
30:59He's not the guy.
31:00That day, yeah, more than anything changed him to a very angry human being.
31:08You'd think a guy like him would be armor-plated, but he wasn't.
31:14He had feelings, and he was very sensitive.
31:17I mean, you kind of saw Leon's career just end in that moment, as a main eventer.
31:26He never worked in that main event level again.
31:30Despite his demotion, Vader remains a star attraction until his aggressive behavior threatens his career and freedom.
31:39The WWF was big on international tours, and the last thing Vince wanted was international incidents.
31:45All of the Middle East opened their arms to the ambassadors of goodwill, the world over, the WWF superstars.
31:53We got this big, elaborate tournament where Vader's supposed to be the star.
31:57So we get Undertaker and Vader booked on the most popular talk show in Kuwait.
32:02The host had asked, you know, is wrestling fake, or is that stuff you do?
32:06It's not real, right?
32:07Whatever.
32:07They say this wrestling is not real.
32:10Is it like you act, or...?
32:12Leon took it to heart.
32:14Find your remark and your question insulting.
32:17It's not my question.
32:18It's somebody who...
32:18Does that fucking feel fake, huh?
32:22Does that feel fake?
32:23Now that's physical assault, and it becomes an incident.
32:28Why don't you come down tonight, and before I kick his ass, I'll kick your ass.
32:32This is Kuwait.
32:33It's a foreign country.
32:34They don't have laws like ours.
32:36Okay.
32:37All right?
32:37Just tell them, though.
32:38Don't...
32:38Hey, we're not here to be insulted.
32:40I'm not here to be insulted.
32:41But at the same time, I'm back at the office in Stanford, and that's when I found out Leon's
32:47being detained in Kuwait.
32:49Is it just for the wrestling shows that...
32:57Excuse me.
32:57Excuse me.
32:58Excuse me.
32:58I'm sorry.
32:59Yeah.
32:59You gave him a chance to respond to that question.
33:01This is the question I'm going to ask you, man.
33:03I'd like to respond to the same question.
33:05Okay, please.
33:06Go ahead.
33:06They told me when I walked in there and listened.
33:08We went to the highest rated show in the history of the show.
33:11Can you go crazy and turn over the tables and jump up?
33:14Does that fucking feel fake, huh?
33:17But the announcer was live on set, and they did not go over this with him.
33:23He snatched the guy, and the guy freaks out.
33:27Especially in a foreign country, you can't physically manhandle somebody.
33:32They can just keep you.
33:33They wanted to put him in one of those Kuwaiti jails.
33:36The company exhausted every resource that they had just to get him under house arrest.
33:42They kept his passport.
33:45Vince got everybody out, got on the plane, and left Leon there.
33:49Now, I'm at home, and I'm finding out about this.
33:53And it was very scary for me and Jesse.
33:55I had no idea, no communication, no nothing.
33:58I didn't know if he was still alive.
34:01And I believe he spent the next two weeks under house arrest.
34:07Leon's lucky he didn't get put in prison.
34:09We were lucky to get him out of the country.
34:11This incident really set things on a bad path.
34:15Because now, when Vince loses interest in something, Vince loses interest in something.
34:21Following the incident in Kuwait, Leon's status in the company tumbles as his physical and mental health deteriorates.
34:30Leon wanted to be treated like the star.
34:33He thought he deserved more.
34:35And he may have.
34:37I guess you could say he might have overstayed his welcome.
34:40But he was getting older.
34:42Time ran out on him.
34:43He got to become too high maintenance.
34:45We couldn't get him happy.
34:47Couldn't get him healthy.
34:48When you play that hard, it catches up to you.
34:53Knees, elbows, shoulders.
34:55You know, just pain.
34:57Pain from his neck down.
35:00Going back to football.
35:01My dad was in an era of, hey, you got a sprained ankle, try these new things.
35:05They're called pain meds.
35:06And then, so now, fast forward.
35:08Hey, I got a match coming up here tonight.
35:10Let me take pain pills.
35:11I was taking 6, 8 Percocets a day.
35:13Just to sleep, I had to take 2 or 3.
35:15And I was going through a lot of pain.
35:18And, I mean, pain alters personality.
35:21Pain will change you.
35:23If you've ever been in pain, and I mean pain, you will become somebody you've never known before, ever seen before, and probably never wanted to be.
35:33Leon could be all over the place with his emotions.
35:38When you get into the chemicals and pain and all that stuff, that's just like pouring gas on the fire for a depression.
35:44And I'm pretty sure that Leon had fallen into that.
35:48He's self-destructive.
35:50And it just got worse and worse and worse.
35:52He saw he was human.
35:58Talking about one of the great monster heels of all time.
36:00He just couldn't handle it anymore.
36:02It could be bitter, time's over.
36:05Ain't nothing but a big piece of shit.
36:07A big, fat piece of shit.
36:10Those words came from Vince or Kennedy McMahon.
36:14So, to be honest, I haven't been able to give you what you guys deserve because I'm a big piece of shit.
36:20That's the way that Vince thought of it.
36:23It was a big, fat piece of shit.
36:25And he just got mad and went all the way with it.
36:27And it killed the character of Vader.
36:30His career was zilts after that.
36:33He wants some more.
36:34Come get some.
36:35Man, it's like what could have been.
36:39He was just browbeaten to the point where he lost his mojo.
36:46And was trying so diligently to please everyone that he lost track of who he was and what made him Vader.
36:59Vader's career bottoms out as his issues spill over into his on-screen persona.
37:04It was devastating for him.
37:08He's not used to not being on top.
37:12He blew it.
37:13That's all I can say.
37:14He actually blew it.
37:16At one time, he was on top of the world.
37:18And then he just started spiraling and went downhill.
37:24I wish he would have taken better care of himself, eating healthier, losing weight.
37:29I started realizing, like, hey, I don't need to be this 350-pound monster anymore.
37:34But for my father, that was always a part of his identity.
37:38I 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.
37:46There was sort of a great unknown in terms of, what am I going to do?
37:52He was done.
37:53I mean, he was cooked.
37:53Nobody wanted to talk to him.
37:55I mean, he burned a lot of bridges, a lot of bridges.
38:00It came to a point when Jesse went to college.
38:03I just, I'd had enough.
38:06I'd had enough.
38:10Leon, at that point, was pretty much gone.
38:12And, you know, I tried to get him to go to rehab.
38:15I tried everything I could to save the marriage.
38:19But by then, he'd stay in bed for three, four, five days.
38:23Maybe get up to drink and then go back to bed.
38:28He had been a diabetic for some time.
38:30And we did not know this.
38:32With low blood sugar, you need insulin to get back to normal levels.
38:35But my dad would just take naps and kind of power through it.
38:39He got an opportunity to go to Japan.
38:42Decent little payday for him.
38:43Well, on this particular trip, he had been drinking.
38:47And levels were low enough to where he needed to take a nap.
38:51He went into a diabetic coma.
38:54I was the most scared I ever was.
38:55Because he's essentially on the other side of the world.
38:57And I don't know how I'm going to get to him.
39:05Following a brief resurgence in Japan,
39:09Leon's health issues continue to take a toll.
39:11I could just see his health declining.
39:14He was having a lot of breathing issues, a lot of chest pains.
39:19We knew something was wrong with his heart.
39:21So I immediately set up a meeting with one of my doctors.
39:25Dad had congestive heart failure.
39:27And it was so bad, the doctor says,
39:29Haley and I, I think we need to, you know, operate pretty quick.
39:32So we were having a quad bypass.
39:34My days in the WCW, I was 417 pounds.
39:37The heart was going to be strained because of the weight.
39:41And the heart was basically worn out.
39:43We finally get him home.
39:45Unfortunately, Dad had a very aggressive case of pneumonia.
39:48I had to break into his place.
39:52Find him unconscious.
39:559-1-1, whole bit.
39:57We had to put him in a medically induced coma.
40:03Jesse kind of was his saving grace at the end.
40:07We had three weeks of the coma, and we had a tracheectomy.
40:10So when he woke up, he couldn't speak.
40:13It was hard watching your father, who was King Kong.
40:17He was Superman.
40:19And now not be who he was mentally or physically.
40:23You know, my dad was feeding me at one point, and now I'm feeding him.
40:29Bull was so appreciative of how Jesse had stepped up.
40:34He really did the right thing by his dad.
40:37It's the day after Father's Day.
40:38When I walk into the room, the first things he says is, I love you.
40:43It's the first time I'm hearing him speak in about a month and a half.
40:45So, and I said, hey, I'm going to see you after work tonight.
40:51And I said, cool.
40:53Later that night, I get a call from the nurse, and she's like, hey, your dad wants to talk to you.
40:58And he's like, hey, I love you so much.
41:00Thank you for everything that you've been doing for me.
41:03I said, I love you, and I'll see you in a couple hours.
41:05Unfortunately, that was the last time I talked to my dad.
41:09Leon and I had an agreement.
41:10We promised each other, if that ever happened, that we would pull the blood.
41:15And that was my call, and it was the right call.
41:17That was very hard.
41:23Yeah, he lived a short life.
41:28He lived a full life.
41:30He got to experience some things most people can't even fathom.
41:34Unfortunately, it's just, he was 63 years old and too young.
41:37Don't feel sorry for me, man, because I've lived, I mean, I've literally been around the world 10 times.
41:50I've lived a great life, and I'm thankful for the time I've had.
41:55Big Van Vader was the greatest monster heel, the greatest big man that I ever saw, and I've been doing this for 50 years.
42:03Vader's legacy in wrestling is, for a period of almost 15 years, the most dominant big man in the sport of wrestling.
42:13And that's what people remember.
42:16He was a good man, conflicted man, who wanted to bring it every single night.
42:20Even though he was one of the biggest stars of the era, I just don't think he's gotten the credit he deserves.
42:26Fuck me, all right?
42:27And the lesson to me is that you should never let anyone or anything define to you what being a success is.
42:34Before he died, I mean, we would talk every now and then, and he actually became Leon White at the very end.
42:43He felt very bad about how our life could have been and how it ended up.
42:51There was a lot of bad, but gosh, there was a lot of good, too.
42:56And it was a lot of fun to be able to be part of that.
43:01The reason I am so successful, my lovely wife, Debbie, so without her, I could be nothing.
43:12And to my little boy, someday he will be champion, because through him, I get my strength, and I am young again.
43:20I think he is the bar for big men in this business, and I got to be front row center for a lot of it.
43:26And I'm proud, blessed to be his son, and I hope that he's proud of the man that he raised.
43:32As crazy as death is, and as dramatic as this whole process was, there was beauty in it.
43:40The love I had for my father and the love he had for me, that never changed.
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