One October in the early 2000s: Remembering Vader, one half of Pro-Wrestling Noah's first GHC Heavyweight Champion

Big Van Vader as All Japan Triple Crown Champion

All championship belts have a linage.
Noah's GHC Heavyweight is known as "Misawa's belt", but it is a little known fact that the first holders of the GHC Heavyweight Tag Belt, where two gaijin men; 2 Cold Scorpio, and the recently deceased Big Van Vader, who died of pneumonia at the age of sixty-three in June 2018, following a long struggle with heart problems.
I don't intend this article to be a discussion of his time in WWE or WCW or elsewhere in Japan, but rather I wish to focus on his brief time in Pro-Wrestling Noah in October 2001, and the legacy he left behind.

Although not part of the exodus from All Japan, Vader had known Mitsuharu Misawa there, where he was two time Triple Crown Champion (which he lost to both Misawa and Kenta Kobashi respectively), and he came to Noah in 2001, where he participated in "Tug of War 2001" to crown the GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions, where he and 2 Cold Scorpio defeated Jun Akiyama and Akitoshi Saito in the finals.

Vader's run in Noah might not have been a long one, and he and Scorpio held the GHC Heavyweight Tag titles for only forty-two days until losing them to Mitsuharu Miswawa and Yoshinari Ogawa on November 30th 2001. In those early days of Noah it was unusual to see gaijin be given titles (no others would hold any until 2003 when Michael Modest captured the GHC Junior Heavyweight).
Misawa had always loved gaijin wrestlers, and the bigger the better, and they didn't come much bigger than Vader who stood at 6'4 and weighed 456 pounds (Jay Bradley, who was classed as "ultra large" studied his matches), and he had some epic matches against some of Noah's best heavyweights such as his old All Japan colleague, Mitsuharu Misawa and other seniors such as Jun Akiyama and Kenta Kobashi. Young heavyweights and future heavyweights too were thrown into the mix, Takeshi Morishima, Takeshi Rikio (a singles match  with Takeshi Morishima took place in March 2002) and Naomichi Marufuji (both of them would be Champion Carnival winners). His matches were highly rated, and the crowd loved him. A big guy Vader might have been, but he knew how to bump, he knew how to work, and he knew how to hit, and for a man of his size, he was also agile, men of his size and weight were not often seen to be like this or to be able to move like they weighed half of what they did and stood at half the size they were.

His matches with Misawa in All Japan in 1999, would be shown as part of a compilation "Fight with Memory" which was broadcast in Japan in 2017 to mark the ninth year of Misawa's passing, and they also featured on a memorial DVD box set in 2010.

Outside the ring it was a different story, as despite his fearsome appearance, Vader is remembered in Noah as a very kind man, with a big heart.
Following a match in 2001 when he injured his knee when a ligament was ruptured which required immediate hospitalization, Naomichi Marufuji (who was only about twenty or twenty-one), was comforted by Vader, who gave him a hug until the ambulance arrived and told him that everything was going to be okay. And it was. Naomichi Marufuji will be celebrating twenty years in wrestling in September 2018. Vader was sensitive enough to know that this young man was worried for his career, and was kind enough to take the time to comfort him.
He was also game enough to appear in Noah's Christmas videos, singing along to carols while wearing a Santa Hat.

Vader wrestled his last match in December 2002 with Scorpio against Akitoshi Saito and Jun Akiyama, and after that although he returned to Japan, he did not return to Noah.
He was remembered in Noah however as one of the great early gaijin wrestlers who were with this fledgling company, and comparisons were made to him for years afterwards and people (mainly gaijin) were inspired by him, such as Quiet Storm in "Winter Navigation 2015", who it was said would be emulating Vader in the fight against The Suzuki Army. Another inspiration from Vader came from "The Mighty Don't Kneel" when Shane Haste said 2013 after winning the "Best Tag Award" how he admired Vader (and Vader's nemesis Stan Hansen), he also joked that if due to the beard Mikey Nicholls was Hansen, then he had the belly to be Vader!! As far as large gaijin or large wrestlers went, his was the benchmark from where comparisons were set for both size and\or power.

Vaders time in Pro-Wrestling Noah might only have been short, but he is remembered as one of the great gaijins in the company, and no matter who holds the GHC Heavyweight Tag now, and who will hold it next, and who will hold it in the future, one fact will always remain; Vader was one half of the tag-team, who held it first.