Back in my younger and more formative years, I collected WWF Magazines. I couldn’t even read yet, but my dad would take me to the local convenience store to pick up an issue featuring colorful pictures of some of my favorite WWF Superstars. Sure, there was other wrestling magazines on the shelves, but it was WWF all the way.
I was vaguely aware of that “other” wrestling company, mainly thanks to Learning The Ropes and seeing inferior figures at Toys R Us, but it was all WWF when I was little. Things might have been different, though, if I picked up this September 1990 issue of The Wrestler. Maybe I would have become a lifelong WCW fan after reading about “the biggest star of the 1990’s” El Gigante!
Right off the top, the first thing I learned from this article is that Ted Turner is pretty tall, all things considered. With owners and bookers getting more and more involved on-air, it’s a shame we never got Billionaire Ted in the ring. Bonus points if he wore El Gigante’s fabulous headband.
“The most incredible giant wrestling has ever seen.”
A bold statement considering how many giants wrestling had even at that point. Andre and Big John Studd were merely credible as far as wrestling giants go. El Gigante on the other hand? INcredible! What does that make Silo Sam? Outcredible?
Unique talent! Financial boon! Restore order! Are you telling me we could’ve gotten El Gigante as some sort of Million Dollar Man/Big Boss Man hybrid? Just laying down the law against the Horseman and then wearing their fur coats and riding in their limousines? Oh, what could have been.
Biggest star of the decade! A main-event star for many years to come! Jim Herd!
Stop! STOP! I can’t breathe! Ow, my sides.
More mobility! The most dominant athlete this sport has ever seen! And that’s right after the article tells of about his knee injury. Oh, if only we could’ve video of Hiro Matsuda training El Gigante. They wasted so much money on those skits a few years later. They should have gotten footage of El Gigante running up snow-covered mountains, lifting logs over his head, and chasing chickens.
Years before we had Bret Hart infamously asking “Who are you to doubt El Dandy?” we have Sting asking “Who better than El Gigante?” What a great slogan. Put those up on shirts today and it’s a license to print money.
It’s hard to say whether or not this article hyping El Gigante as the next big thing would have made me a fan. It’s not like they put him in a giant bigfoot bodysuit, complete with an airbrushed backside.