During the debut episode of his “Oh…You Didn’t Know” podcast, The Road Dogg commented on Vader’s stiff in-ring style and how he got him to stop during his matches.
For those unaware, Vader was well-known to anyone who worked with him to be an extremely stiff wrestler.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his experience working with Vader: “Same as everybody else’s. It takes a good man to beat me but it doesn’t take long, Vader beat me in 90 seconds. I worked with Vader on a couple loops and finally I called my brother, Steve, who worked with him in Japan and I said ‘man, he’s beating my brains out.” Every night, I just get beat up for six minutes.’ And he said ‘well, you’ve got to get his respect.’ I said ‘how do you do that? Carry his bag? What do you want me to do?’ He said ‘you’ve got to punch him in the head as hard as you can.’ I said ‘wait, what? Big Van Vader, you want me to punch him in the head as hard as I can?’ He said ‘yeah, I promise you, if you get his respect physically, it’ll be easy smooth sailing.’”
On getting Vader to stop stiffing him: “Truth be told, I’ll never forget it as long as I live, he got me back in the corner and he’d hit you with those fists, he hit me with like four or five of them that were good, good snug shots. I dugged out from under one and I just peppered him in the forehead with not my closed fist, but kind of my fist, and I hit him about six times really, really hard in the head. I backed all the way to the opposite turnbuckle and put my hands up and just looked at him and I was saying, ‘hey man, I’m sorry but if I’m getting my butt beat, I might as well get some punches in.’ My brother was not lying, it was smooth sailing from then on. Every match, even later in that match, it was better. Every match after that it was, ‘hey man, what do you want to do?’ He was a good guy, he really was, but you just had to get to know him because he was a baby bull for sure.”
On how often that tactic works against stuff workers: “It always works that way but just be prepared because the guy might start firing back at you. I was hitting him safely, I didn’t hit him in the face or the nose or the eye socket or the mouth. I was clubbing him in the hardest part of his head, I was just clubbing him really hard. I do think nine times out of 10, it works how it’s supposed to.”
(h/t – Wrestling Inc)