Giant Gonzalez: from NBA star to WWE wrestler

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1988, Jorge Gonzalez was a basketball star in Argentina and became the first athlete from this country drafted by an NBA team, the Atlanta Hawks. He was over 2.5m tall due to gigantism, which led to big day-to-day challenges like finding shoes his size. But it also gave him great opportunities.

The Atlanta Hawks’ never put Jorge on the court because he was too heavy to play. But the owner of the team, Ted Turner, proposed an alternative for Jorge, to wrestle for World Championship Wrestling, a predecessor of WWE.

Julio Lamas was one of Jorge’s coach in Argentina, and Bill Alfonso was a wrestling referee and Jorge’s assistant. They tell Stefania Gozzer about Jorge’s rise in both sports and the difficulties he faced.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Jorge Gonzalez visiting the Atlanta Hawks. Credit: AP photo/Neil Brake)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before this BBC podcast kicks off I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy.
0:05.0	My name's Will Wilkin and I Commission Music Podcast for the BBC.
0:08.0	It's a really cool job, but every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs, moments and movements,
0:14.7	stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous.
0:19.2	And the BBC's position at the heart of British music means we can tell those stories like no one else.
0:24.5	We were, are and always will be right there at the center of the narrative.
0:28.6	So whether you want an insightful take on music right now or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and
0:34.4	infamous moments in music check out the music podcasts on BBC Sounds.
0:48.1	Hello you're listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Stefania Gotzer. Today I bring you the story of Jorge Gonzalez, an athlete from an impoverished village in South America whose height took him to the NBA and to some of the most famous wrestling arenas across the globe.
1:12.0	It's April 1993, and a crowd has gathered outside Cesar's Palace, a hotel and casino on the street in Las Vegas. They're shouting and clapped Hotel and
1:12.9	casino on the street in Las Vegas.
1:17.4	They're shouting and clapping, cheering for a two and a half-meter-tall man who's raising his hands above his head.
1:20.4	His name is Jorge Gonzalez, and only four years earlier he was Argentina's most promising basketball star.
1:28.0	But now he's known as Giant Gonzalez, a professional wrestler in the US.
1:34.0	Dressed in a tight-fitting full body suit with airbrushed muscles,
1:39.0	he is about to take part in his most memorable fight.
1:42.0	But we'll come back to this later. First, let's go back to
1:47.2	1982 to El Colorado in the north of Argentina. Less than 10,000 people live there and they're all used to see the
1:56.1	teenagers stand out in the crowd. His name is Jorge and he has giganticism, a condition
2:02.1	that means his body will grow excessively.
2:05.0	At 16 years old, he is more than 2 meters tall.
2:09.0	He doesn't go to school.
	...

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