Hulk Hogan recently spoke with Bill Apter about Vader’s passing; you can read a few transcribed highlights and listen to the interview below:
(Transcription credit to Bill Pritchard for Wrestlezone.com)
Former World Heavyweight Champion Vader Passes Away At The Age Of 63
Well, number one, it’s a sad day in the wrestling world when someone as talented and as big of a star as Vader passes away. Leon was not only a star domestically, but internationally—his appeal went around the world-it was a great loss today. Such a great human being and a great wrestling star passed away.
I had a chance to become friends with Leon, probably the last five or six years when I was working on a regular basis. It was funny how it happened because he was such a big star in Japan—he was such a big star overseas—when I got the news I was going to wrestle him, all of the sudden Fumi Saito and all of the Japanese friends of mine started telling me Vader was telling everybody in Japan that he had no respect for me. He said he was going to beat me up ready bad in Baltimore when he saw me. Of course he was hyping it up and working because that was his style.
We got in the ring—I was so used to getting beat up Japanese-style that it wasn’t that big of a deal to me—I thought we had a great match. We had a ton of respect for each other after that match—we really did just lay into each other—and we because really good friends. He was nothing but respectful, nothing but kind, never had a bad word to say about anybody. He had a great sense of humor, and he was such a kind and nice man.
I liked working with him, and even though he was really snug in the ring, and he’d really lay it in and ring your bell, he never hurt you. He made sure that you were tough enough to stick with him, but never—I would never go out of the ring and go ‘Oh my God, he hurt me so bad. I can’t wrestle again!’ He made it fun to have that type of heavy handed, heavy artillery type of connection in there. You really felt like you were in a war, so you were proud when you would come out of the ring from working with him. He was the consummate professional, and [his death] is a huge loss.
