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Alan Wojcik Reviews "Ringside With Vader" DVD

Posted: Apr 8th 2009 By: mikeiles

It?s time, it?s Leon White time. Bet you?re asking yourself who the hell is Leon White? Well wrestling fans around the world know him by another name; Big Van Vader, the former world heavyweight champion in several promotions in America and overseas. He has been in some high profile matches over that career, so the people at KayfabeCommentaries.com sat him down to talk about them with Sean Oliver for their debut RINGSIDE DVD. The concept sounds great. Take a pro wrestler, sit him down, make him watch the matches and talk about them. The following are the matches White & Oliver talk about over the one hundred minute program:


Leon "Baby Bull" White vs. Bruiser Brody (May 13, 1986 St .Cloud, MN, AWA)
Big Van Vader vs. Antonio Inoki (December 27, 1987, Tokyo, debut of the Vader character in NJPW)
Big Van Vader vs. Shinya Hashimoto (April 24, 1989, Tokyo, Vader wins IWPG championship tournament)
Big Van Vader vs. Stan Hansen (February 19, 1990 Tokyo, AJPW/NJPW Superfight)
Big Van Vader vs. Sting (July 12, 1992, Great American Bash in Albany, GA; Vader wins the WCW World title)
Big Van Vader vs. Thurman & McCoy (November 1992, Vader "breaks" Thurman?s back during a match taped for WCW TV)
Big Van Vader vs. Cactus Jack (March 16, 1994 Munich, Germany; Mick Foley/Cactus? ear comes off in the ring on WCW tour)
Super Vader vs. Nobuhiko Takada (August 18, 1994, Tokyo, Vader wins UWFi "Best of World" Tournament)
Vader vs. Shawn Michaels (August 18, 1996, WWF Summerslam, Cleveland, OH)


Unlike some reviewers I will not break this down segment by segment. The good news is White is a great interview and Oliver helps him keep on track. White has some great stories of working the late Brody, the birth of Big Van Vader and who almost became the character, thoughts on having his nose broken by Hansen before the match started then suffering an interesting eye injury (glad there?s no footage of that), being managed by the legendary Harley Race, brawling with Paul Orndorff, watching Foley?s ear come off in Germany, the differences between the AWA, NJPW, WCW and WWE plus who was the best wrestlers he faced over his career. The bad news is this since the fed up north owns nearly all the video rights the format only allows for the interviews as opposed to the two men doing alternate commentary on the matches. That makes me give a mixed choice on the review grading. I like the interview with White but with no matches to see what?s the point of the format. You be the judge when you purchase the DVD from www.KayfabeCommentaries.com where you can send in questions for the next YouShoot interview with New Jack and see a sneak of the Timeline Series on the History of the WWE.

Tags: Vader, Leon White, Bruiser Brody, AWA, Stan Hansen, Sting, WCW, Cactus Jack. Mick Foley, WWF, Paul Orndorff, WWE