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Who is you're favourite fat guy?


DJ Kris

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Yeah, as much as I liked Bundy and Earthquake, the likes of Bam Bam and Vader was a different animal. Vader had me legit scared as a young child. I thought he lived in Newcastle, as strange as that sounds. Dont know why. He used to grunt and shout and didn't give a fuck. Even Andre used to fear for the referee DQing him. Vader didnt seem to care. In his prime, he was a scary bastard. Earthquake almost ended Hulkamania to be fair though. He was supposed to be light as a feather as well, where as Vader hurt a lot of people. Which made his matches look brutal in fairness. I used to like Bundy as well. Few squashed jobbers quite like the master of the five count. The poor jobbers were like pieces of meat to people like Bundy. It wasnt like he cared if he hurt regulars like Hillbilly Jim or Ricky Steamboat. He wasnt going to give a toss if he injured some factory worker who wrestled on a weekend.

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Bam Bam for me. I remember watching him at the Royal Rumble 93 throw a drop kick and thought that was pretty amazing, then I saw the rest of his moves and was blown away. My favourite Bigelow matches include vs Bret in Barcelona 93, KOTR 93 Final, vs Tatanka Rumble 94, vs Razor Ramon 94 or 95 and vs Marty Jannetty sometime in 93 or 94 off one of the Coliseum Home Video exclusives. Just a fantastic worker.

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The 'blob' style wrestlers were fine in quash matches - they were always good fun. But I often found longer matches with those guys a chore.

 

Bammer and Vader were the shit though. They changed the game for the big dudes and really, even now Big Guys are still compared to them as the benchmark.

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Vader was all about using his mass, anyway. Half of his offense was about just running guys down with his bulk, avalanches in the corner or splashes from the second rope.

 

See, what I remember more about Vader's offence isn't the weight stuff, though it did play a large part - what really stood out for me were the bludgeoning Vader Hammers, the gorilla presses, the ever-so-nasty Powerbombs and throwaway German suplexes and lariats left, right and centre.

 

Mind you, I am going predominantly off his All Japan work.

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Vader was all about using his mass, anyway. Half of his offense was about just running guys down with his bulk, avalanches in the corner or splashes from the second rope.

 

See, what I remember more about Vader's offence isn't the weight stuff, though it did play a large part - what really stood out for me were the bludgeoning Vader Hammers, the gorilla presses, the ever-so-nasty Powerbombs and throwaway German suplexes and lariats left, right and centre.

 

Mind you, I am going predominantly off his All Japan work.

 

 

I've not seen much of Vader's work in Japan but Dirty Eddie seems to be accurately summing up Vader in his WWF run for sure. I actually watched a Vader vs Hogan cage match from WCW in 95 the other night and his main offence was shoulder tackles, corner avalanches and about 4 different variations of a splash from the ropes, he looked basically the same worker that would turn up in WWF 6 months later. He did have a mean powerbomb though.

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Vader was all about using his mass, anyway. Half of his offense was about just running guys down with his bulk, avalanches in the corner or splashes from the second rope.

 

See, what I remember more about Vader's offence isn't the weight stuff, though it did play a large part - what really stood out for me were the bludgeoning Vader Hammers, the gorilla presses, the ever-so-nasty Powerbombs and throwaway German suplexes and lariats left, right and centre.

 

Mind you, I am going predominantly off his All Japan work.

 

His Japanese stuff was definitely more strike-based, though everywhere he went he enjoyed smashing people with those sweet forearms and punches in the corner.

 

His WCW and WWF stuff was a lot more about squashing people though, splashes from running the ropes, the second rope splash and his reverse "Vader Bomb" splash from the corner.

 

I'd love a guy like Vader to come along now, it's probably why I like Kong a lot, despite no real interest in the Ladies normally. She's the closest thing to a Vader type these days, despite how hard Mizark may try.

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I would have loved to have seen Vader from the early 90s wrestle late 90s Goldberg. Goldberg showed in the match with Steiner at Fall Brawl, he was hard enough to take what he dished out. These two would batter the fuck out of each other. Shame there wasnt any monster heels like Vader around when Goldberg was about. Someone like Vader would have been a massive draw for Goldberg. They tried it with Bam Bam, but Bigelow's stock had been lowered by the time he debuted for WCW.

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How the hell did I forget Akeem?

 

Also, as this thread is about "fat guys" and not "fat monsters" then the Bam Bam/Vader market is open for business.

 

I will also throw in a curve ball and say Dusty Rhodes would be an option...

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Didn't Vader leave the WWF in about 1998? I'm sure it was around then he called himself a fat piece of shit on PPV after jobbing to Mark Henry and we never saw him again?

 

He should have gone straight to WCW. Hell, a brief ECW run would have been amazing too!

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He went to All Japan again, I assume because of the money and because he had name value over there. Bischoff hates Vader. He's on list dick list, so Bischoff would never hire him. He mentioned in his post WWF shoot interview, he'd like to work for ECW, but I imagine the Japan money was to big for him to turn down. ECW seemed perfect for him to reinvent himself in the US. But WWF really killed Vader off. After calling himself a fat piece of shit, he spent the next few months getting jobbed out by every member of the Nation clean. He lost to Mark Henry in a horrid match at Fully Loaded. He was as buried as you could bury someone. I bet he regrets the WWF move now.

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You can't write Vader off in a thread about 'Fat Monsters' imo, he was the very epitome of the term.

 

If others were fat but didn't come across as powerful, then that's their problem and I don't see it as something to praise them for. If you're a 400lb+ fatboy in wrestling, you should be strong and intimidating

 

Besides, most of Vaders US offence consisted of some kind of fatboy belly flop anyway, whether the opponent was on the ground, in the corner or running the ropes. He even sat on them, like vs Razor Ramon! Sure he had a couple of power moves like the powerbomb and face eraser but so did most fat guys whether they were brick shithouses or beached whales.

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He always seemed to enjoy working for the Japanese so fair enough, especially if the money was good.

 

I didn't know he and the Bisch didn't get on. That's a shame as I'd like to have seen what they could do with him.

 

I certainly remember his WWF burial. His whole run annoyed me really, save for the fun Summerslam match with Michaels. When he lost to Sid (who I've always disliked) I was genuinely pissed off. I was at the age where I had started reading the smarter mags and getting the odd fanzine, i was also well aware of how fucking awesome Vader had been in WCW. Vader is one of the first cases of me getting annoyed at the booking, rather than just the actual product in a wrestling company.

 

Vader in ECW would have been epic!

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Didn't Vader leave the WWF in about 1998? I'm sure it was around then he called himself a fat piece of shit on PPV after jobbing to Mark Henry and we never saw him again?

 

He should have gone straight to WCW. Hell, a brief ECW run would have been amazing too!

I think his last match was a job to Edge on Heat. It was after summerslam, probably around September time.

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You can't write Vader off in a thread about 'Fat Monsters' imo, he was the very epitome of the term.

 

If others were fat but didn't come across as powerful, then that's their problem and I don't see it as something to praise them for. If you're a 400lb+ fatboy in wrestling, you should be strong and intimidating

 

Besides, most of Vaders US offence consisted of some kind of fatboy belly flop anyway, whether the opponent was on the ground, in the corner or running the ropes. He even sat on them, like vs Razor Ramon! Sure he had a couple of power moves like the powerbomb and face eraser but so did most fat guys whether they were brick shithouses or beached whales.

 

As I was saying to Wrasslin in the other thread, it's the distinction between being fat and wrestling a "fat style". There's nothing wrong with praising them for wrestling that style - being a big fat bastard who knows how to throw his bulk about is something to be scared of. Most fat monsters were strong, most wrestlers are, compared to the average human, but the point is that they're fat monsters because of their reliance on their weight, rather than their strength, to give them the advantage in a match.

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