On the road to RAW 1000 (the 1000th episode of RAW in 2012), Heath Slater faced Legends every week and lost.
During an interview with Steve Fall of Wrestlingnewsco, Slater revealed the backstory about this angle.
Here’s what the former Tag Team Champion said:
“The whole thing was RAW 1000 is coming up. You hear rumors about, ‘Oh, we’re going to bring some legends in. Who knows who it’s going to be. They’ll do some backstage stuff.’
Literally starting the road to RAW 1000, I go to the building. I put my bag up. I go get some food. Next thing you know, you go to talent relations and in talent relations, you got to check in and sign papers if you got to sign papers and all the BS.
In talent relations, they have the rough draft always up on there, so you can probably go in there and see what they are kind of thinking. I look and it’s like Heath Slater versus Vader.
I look over to [Mark] Carrano and I’m like,’Hey, man, is this just like a joke? Like, is [Hornswoggle] gonna be dressed up as Vader or something and come down and beat me up? Like, what’s happening?’ He’s like, ‘You’re gonna be working with Vader tonight.’
I said, ‘Hold on, like Big Van Vader?’ He was like, ‘How many Vaders do you know?’ He said, ‘They’re talking about leading up to RAW 1000 bringing in a legend each week for someone to wrestle. I said, ‘Am I gonna be the guy they wrestle each week?’. He’s like, ‘No, probably whoever’. I was like, ‘No, man, like, I need to be that guy’.
I literally just went and I knocked on Vince’s door; I walked in and Vince was like, ‘Hey, come on in’.
I’m like, ‘Hey, man, I see that I’m working with Vader. Can I have that every week with these legends? Let me be like an anti-legend. Like, You old dudes get the hell out. It’s my time to shine, the young kid’s time to shine’.
He was like, ‘Are you willing to do that?’ I said, ‘Damn right I am.’ He’s like, ‘okay’.”
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