‘Boy Meets World’ Star Will Friedle Recalls Vader’s Guest Spot on the Series

Boy Meets World star Will Friedle took to social media to recall the guest spot that Vader made on the series, in the wake of the former wrestling superstar’s death.

“He was one of the kindest people I have ever met,” Friedle said in a tweet. “Thank you for teaching me how to wrestle and ‘make it look good for the camera’s.’ Rest well, sir.”

The tweet was Friedle’s follow up to a tweet from Wrestling Sheets’ Ryan Satin, in which he shared a clip of an episode that Vader appeared in.

In the show, Vader played Francis Albert Leslie ‘Frankie’ Stecchino, Sr., the father of Ethan Suplee’s school-bully-with-a-hidden-heart-of-gold Francis Albert “Frankie the Enforcer” Stechino.

While he made appearances in four different episodes of Boy Meets World, the most memorable is certainly “The Thrilla’ in Phila,” which is the same one the clip Friedle retweeted originated from.

In the episode, Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) joins the wrestling team but soon realizes he is not quite cut out for it. A series of unfortunate events transpire, resulting in Friedle’s character Eric Matthews ending up opposite Vader in the ring.

The WWE icon tosses Eric over his shoulders and lays a formidable smackdown, eventually being saved by Mr. Feeny.

After Friedle retweeted the clip, a number of his fans began sharing messages of sympathy, with the majority of them expressing how much they loved seeing the wrestler on Boy Meets World.

“I thought of you first Will because I loved those episodes of boy meets world,” one fan tweeted. “Sorry for the loss of your friend.”

“I remember this episode from when i was growing up,” another fan said. “He was a beast of a character, but i met him in real life once and was the nicest dude.”

Vader, known as Leon Allen White, died on June 18 after reportedly being hospitalized for a month with pneumonia at the age of 63.