This week’s induction is about a match with incredibly high stakes. Well, high stakes for one guy, and some of the lowest stakes of all time for the other.
Back in February ’98, Kane had sidelined Vader, hitting him in the head with a cartoonishly large wrench.
Of course, the big man hadn’t really gotten his skull caved in, so to cover up the lack of blood and gore, they stretchered him out face down in the most undignified manner possible.
In May 1998, Vader returned to get his revenge; he and Kane would settle their feud at Over The Edge, where the loser would have to remove his mask.
That sounds like a big deal as long as you’ve never seen Vader before.
Or more specifically, if you’ve never seen his mask, which covers only about 20% of his face.
A mask vs. mask match between Kane and Vader was like a hair vs. hair match between Roman Reigns and Randy Orton.
When I heard about it years later, I thought it was a joke. Wasn’t it common knowledge what Vader looked like without his mask?
Hadn’t he appeared in WCW all the time without his mask?
Hadn’t he appeared everywhere from Boy Meets World to Baywatch without his mask?
Hadn’t he taken off his mask in the WWF a year prior?
But if you’d forgotten all that, and you had no imagination whatsoever, the WWF hoped you’d put down $30 to see what Vader really looked like under there.
Of course, it could have been Kane who’d have to unmask…
…except he was only eight months into his run, was in the middle of a main-event push…
…and supposedly had horrific burns all over his face that the WWF would have to account for should he lose the mask.
To the surprise of no one, Kane won the match handily, meaning Vader had to take off his mask.
Paul Bearer celebrated by wearing it himself. Lawler joked, “It’s time, it’s time! It’s Paul Bearer time!”
Just seconds later, Bearer mocked Vader’s pre-match shuffle, then quoted Lawler verbatim.
With his hands in a V shape, Bearer resembled Danny DeVito’s Penguin.
Supposedly, the announcers explained, Vader had some surgical scars on his face after the wrench attack, which is why you should have cared about the stipulation. Indeed, when we got a good look at him without the mask, Jerry Lawler’s amazement at the supposedly historic moment soon turned to disgust. “Ew!”
But there were no scars. That was just his face! Gee, thanks Jerry.
Not only was Vader ugly, he was also fat. Just ask him!
In an incredible post-match promo, Vader absolutely buried himself, calling himself, and I quote, “a big piece of shit…”
“A big fat piece of shit!“
Not only did they have the guy lose, they had him cry. “I guess maybe Vader time’s over”, he said, holding back tears.
Vader may have called the match the biggest mistake of his life, but Jim Ross saw an upside, speculating that we’d see a better, more motivated Vader in the future. “That loss may be the best thing that ever happened to the big man”, he claimed.
It was not.
Instead, Vader wrestled mainly after midnight on Shotgun Saturday Night, where his biggest win came against one of the Boricuas.
When he did appear on Raw, he never beat anybody. His most notable match was one against the Godfather, which he forfeited in exchange for a night with the hos. But by then, Vader was on such a losing streak that he didn’t even get that!
If you’re wondering why Vader was still wearing his mask after losing it to Kane, it’s because the stipulation dictated he take off his mask only the once. It never said he couldn’t wear it again, which is exactly what he did the very next night.
And the stipulation was never mentioned again.
Like I said, low stakes.