The Wrestling II-Miss Lilian connection was well known in Georgia circles and the photos made the rounds of the magazines. You only have Johnny Walker's word (never trust the word of a wrestler from the kayfabe era) about the invitation and turning it down, because of the mask. It's possible and it made for a great story for tv; but, it tends to trigger my BS meter.

Carter was a Nuke (US Navy Nuclear Program), and had to go through the interview with Adm Hyman Rickover, which was like facing the Road Warriors, in a handicap match, while wearing vials of steroids taped to your body for them to try to steal. The man was the father of the Nuclear Navy and he presided over the officers who would lead within it and his standards were stratospheric, not just high. General Dynamics, who were bilking the American public and the Navy, with cost overruns on the Los Angeles Class submarines, got him forcibly retired, via Secretary of the Navy (and close friend to the Defense Industry at-large) John Leman, who saw him as an impediment to Ronald Reagan's call for a 600-ship Navy (which was gimmicked more than a table on RAW). They tried to buy him off with a special advisor position and he told the president what he could do with it and walked out of the meeting. The US Navy has never had a reactor accident, because of his standards. The rest of the nuclear industry cannot say the same.

Savage's last WCW match was a Battle Royal on Thunder. Rodman was his last PPV match. He worked against Rick Steiner in Japan and fought Sid Vicious on a house show before the Thunder taping. In theory, Randy could have squeezed a few more years out of his WWF career, but he would have ran into a few problems -- namely the New Generation, the Kliq, and the fact that by and large the WWF wasn't booked very well at the time. 

If it were up to me, I would have sent Vader to Japan. 

It's interesting how much the WWF struggled in the early part of their national expansion. It wasn't an overnight success by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think Vince would have succeeded without Hogan, but I also doubt the territories would have survived. 

The territories were already on life support, with the advent of cable television.  Once you could see a better product, the local promotion lost all interest.  Terry Funk has said that he and Dory decided to sell out after seeing the response to Tommy Rich, on spot shows, due to exposure on WTBS.  It was clear that they couldn't compete.