It's Vader Time - The Story of a Modern-Day Gladiator

[7.0] "A very enjoyable read which I would definitely recommend. While, in my opinion, it's not up there with Foley/Jericho/Hart, I'd still say it was towards the higher end of the autobiography spectrum, and provides some great insight into all aspects of Vader's life from his formative years right through to his final days, and it's engaging the whole way through. One thing to note is that it's a Kenny Casanova book and shares some of peculiarities of his other works; namely that there's some spelling and grammar issues, captions are often slighlty mislabeled (for example a picture of Dynamite Kid standing on the left with Rip Taylor on the right will say "Dynamite Kid (right) standing with Rip Taylor (left)") and most noticeably recycles stories from OTHER wrestlers... So in this book he reuses stories from his earlier Brutus Beefcake book including Buddy Landell and the Yakuza, Bill Watts advice from Jerry Jarret. I guess there's no "harm" in plagiarizing yourself, and with Vader passing away maybe they were short of material, but it's weird none-the-less. Anyway, those peculiarities aside, I'd give it a thumbs up."

[10.0] "One of the most fascinating autobiographies I've ever read, and right up there with Mick Foley's Have a Nice Day in terms of must-read wrestling books. At 400 pages, this provides a comprehensive look at the career of Vader as he goes into detail about every promotion he worked for (which covers a lot of ground considering he worked in almost every major company at the time. ) He was there in New Japan when the crowd rioted and started tearing up the building, he was there in the WWF when the Montreal Screwjob went down, he was in All Japan when Giant Baba passed away and Misawa formed NOAH. The Japanese wrestling stories in particular were of interest to me because I've never heard from anyone who was there first-hand to recount those events. What was most intriguing however were not the wrestling stories, but rather the personal stories Leon White tells. He talks about growing up in the city of Compton, his dealings with the Yakuza in Japan, and being in a diabetic-induced coma. I went in wanting to read about Vader the wrestler, but came out of it more interested in Leon White the man."