WWE legend Vader has announced that he’s been release from the hospital. This follows open heart surgery which the former WCW world champion underwent in March.
Vader posted the following on Twitter.
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I Am officially out of the HOSPITAL and in rehab Its a long ROAD BK from here to the RING WISH ME LUCK!!!!
โ Big Van Vader (@itsvadertime) April 13, 2018
Vader discussed his medical condition in an interview with Bill Apter prior to his surgery back in March.
“I literally have 10 blood vessels that are clogged, over 90 percent of my heart. I guess just to put it mildly I’m a walking time bomb. I went in for a routine visit… I was having chest pains. And I go into see him (his doctor), and he says you need to go into the hospital. I go ‘Oh god, when? In the next couple of weeks? I’ve got bookings and I’ve got this and that. He says ‘No, right now.’ So he basically gave me some injectable blood thinners right then.”
Vader noted that the blood thinners kept him from having a heart attack.
“Here’s the deal, I was afraid,” Vader said. “I said, ‘Hey, my heart feels great. I’m wrestling, I’m riding the bike 30 minutes hard. There’s no pain, I’m fine.’ Well guess what, I wasn’t fine. I had blockage, he said the type of blockage that you, over 90 percent in 10 arteries started 15 years ago. So let’s say you came in 10 years, even eight years ago and got checked out and found some blockage. We could’ve gone in there with a catheter, basically stuck a cable into my groin and worked it up through my stomach and cleaned that out.”
Vader was one of the biggest stars in WCW in the early 1990s, having memorable feuds with Sting and Ric Flair. He eventually brough his act to the WWE in early 1996, feuding with them President Gorilla Monsoon and headlining SummerSlam against Shawn Michaels.
He last appeared on WWE television in 2012. There has been a push to induct Vader himself into the WWE Hall of Fame in recent years, though WWE has not chosen to do so.