Scorpio won the grudge feud by defeating Jun Akiyama and Akitoshi Saito on an October 19, 2001 pay-per-view, where they became the inaugural GHC Tag Team Champions. They lost the titles to Mitsuharu Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa on November 30. Having lost the tag team titles, Vader tried to reprioritize himself and pursue Jun Akiyama's GHC Heavyweight Championship (the top title of the company), where it culminated in a much hyped pay-per-view main event on December 9, 2001. Vader lost the match by submitting to Akiyama, and right after the event he took a break from wrestling for two months. Vader returned to NOAH's television programs in March 2002. He and Scorpio continued teaming, and despite them not winning the titles again, they continued having many victories in the tag team and singles division throughout 2002. Vader's last appearance in NOAH was in January 2003. NWA Total Nonstop Action (2003, 2015) On February 19, 2003, Vader appeared in NWA Total Nonstop Action (NWA-TNA) to defend Dusty Rhodes, who was fighting with The Harris Brothers. He and Dusty won a tag team match the next week against the Harris Brothers via disqualification. He then began a feud with Nikita Koloff, whose career Vader ended long ago. However, TNA and Vader soon parted ways. Vader made a one-off return to TNA on the June 24, 2015 episode of Impact! for a singles match against Bram. Vader won the match via disqualification after Bram used a ring wrench to hit Vader in the head. Matt Morgan then entered the ring to save Vader and take out Bram. This was his final appearance for the company. Sporadic returns to WWE (2005, 2012, 2016) Vader returned to the WWF, now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), on the October 31, 2005, episode of Raw when Jonathan Coachman announced that Vader and Goldust would be in his corner for his street fight against Stone Cold Steve Austin the next night at Taboo Tuesday. When Austin decided not to participate, he was replaced by Batista. Vader and Goldust interfered in the match on Coachman's behalf and received spinebusters for their efforts. On the June 11, 2012 episode of Raw, Vader defeated Heath Slater in a singles match. On July 23 on the 1000th episode of Raw, Vader and several other legends prevented Slater from leaving in his match against Lita, which she won. In April 2016, Vader made a