WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on Something To Wrestle With, where he talked about a number of topics including if he believes pro wrestling legend Vader is the biggest what-if in WWE history.
JBL said, “Yeah, I think so. There’s no doubt about it. When he came, he had lost a little bit. You know, he lost a step. He had gotten into a fight with [Paul] Orndorff, which I think hurt his confidence. But he also had to get off the gas, and I think that hurt him as well. You know, his shoulders were hurting, he couldn’t take something to make himself feel better. And he was miserable a lot. He was a grumpy guy, but I think a lot of that was because of the pain. But that wasn’t the same Vader that WWE got. That was a Vader from, say, four years before, that we didn’t get the same Vader. I think it is a big what if. You wish Vince would have got him in 91.”
On missed matches with Vader and Bret Hart in the early ’90s:
“He and Bret would have had incredible matches. And then he and Sean, the same with Sean’s ascendancy there. They would have had some absolutely unbelievable matches. There’s a match, a famous match with Otto von Graz in Austria where at one point, Otto says, ‘Break my nose.’ And that’s how stiff they are working, and Vader broke his nose. It was one of the most brutal things you’ve ever seen. But Vader could work. Vader could really go.”
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(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
