Over the years there is one superstar who has creeped under everyone’s radar. Arguably the most successful superstar in professional wrestling to date, I am of course talking about Vacant.
Vacant has had a huge amount of success over many years in the business. Born in 1956, Vacant was a largely unloved child. He was always ignored for his other siblings. It was almost like he was invisible. But this turned him into the determined character we all know and love today.
Vacant started out in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, which was run by Jim Crockett Jr. and he ended up winning his first title without even having to compete. Scheduled to fight against Johnny Valentine, that match was never to be when Valentine sadly was involved in a career ending plane crash. A bittersweet moment to start his career, but it wouldn’t slow Vacant down in the slightest. He held on to the United States Championship for just over a month, before cruelly being beaten in a triple threat match between himself, Terry Funk and Paul Jones. He never even got pinned to lose his first title.
After that, Vacant decided he was going to move on to bigger and better things, and he went on to move from Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling over to the WWWF. When he first switched, he did something nobody had ever done before. He won the Tag Team Championships all by himself! When The Executioners used more than two members, Vacant managed to win the titles by disqualification – something which is incredibly rare by todays standards. He would be a two time Tag Team Champion by the end of the 1970s, but he really hit his stride right at the end of the decade.
December 6th, 1979. At just the tender age of 21 years old, Vacant beat all the odds and took the WWWF title from Antonio Inoki in Japan. But it wouldn’t stop there. This was just the beginning of Vacant’s relentless rule over the pro wrestling industry.
Since that day, Vacant has gone on to be a 10 time WWE Champion, a five time World Heavyweight Champion, a nine time Intercontinental Champion, a twenty time United States Champion, a ten time Tag Team Champion (all by himself), and to top it off, he did what Chyna did back in 2000 and crossed the gender barrier to become a one time Divas Champion.
He is rivalling John Cena for title wins, has the most amount of Intercontinental Championships along with Chris Jericho, and nobody could even think of rivalling his US title reigns. He made Edge and Christian look comparatively weak with his Tag Team Titles and is nowhere near done yet.
Legendary superstars such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, HHH, The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Bret Hart and even Bruno Sammartino can not compare to the amount of WWE titles Vacant has held.
Over those combined ten title reigns, he has held the WWE title for longer than the likes of Edge, Ric Flair, Eddie Guerrero, Mankind, Batista, The Iron Sheik and of course, Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
And yet despite all these successes among the years with multiple different promotions, he has still yet to achieve the recognition he deserves. For me though, Vacant will never retire, and will probably live longer than any of us mere mortals.
58 years young, Intercontinental Champion and one hell of a guy. Vacant, here’s to you!
– By Dan Lloyd
