“It’s time, it’s time, it’s Vader time.”

Those were the only words that echoed in the legendary, Big Van Vader’s final WWE theme music. Over twenty years later, those same words ring out once more and oh so poignantly as ‘the Mastodon’ prepares for surgery on his heart.

In 2016, the man behind the mask, Leon White, was diagnosed with congestive heart failure after an automobile accident. He was told by doctors that he only had two years left to live.

After White’s diagnosis, the man continued to live life to the fullest. His in-ring career didn’t even come to an end until April of 2017, where he wrestled for the last time in Japan. During that match, White passed out due to a head injury.

Vader has defied science for decades. Weighing close to 450lbs, he is a man who should not have been able to push his body to the cardiovascular extremes that he did night in and night out in the ring.

With that in mind, we hope White will undergo successful heart surgery and that we will see him return to professional wrestling thereafter, perhaps not as an in-ring performer but certainly in some capacity.

 

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