Arn Anderson has not held back in his assessment of wrestling alongside El Gigante, describing the experience as one of the toughest of his career.
Speaking on The ARN Show, the WWE Hall of Famer reflected on working with El Gigante, later known in WWE as Giant Gonzalez, and said the giant’s inexperience made every match mentally and physically exhausting.
“Knowing what you know from me, go back and watch El Gigante’s matches,” Arn Anderson said. “Not only was it physically brutal, but the mental part of him being in there, knowing absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you. I’m a professional; I’m used to being in the ring with the Windhams and the Steamboats and the Flairs and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express and Bobby Eaton and all these guys.”
Anderson then offered an even stronger verdict on wrestling the seven-foot star.
“I’m a pro. I’ve been in the professional wrestling business for a long, long time. El Gigante absolutely blows.”
Arn Anderson Recalls The Importance Of Championship Belts During His Time As A Wrestler
Elsewhere during the podcast, Arn Anderson looked back fondly on the importance of championship belts during his career, singling out the NWA World Television Championship as one of the most respected titles in the business.
“That belt was worth its weight in platinum,” Anderson said. “You didn’t take your eyes off of it; it stayed with you every minute of the day. It was regarded as being a legitimate championship, because it was to us and it was to the fans.”
He explained that wrestlers took great pride in protecting championship belts, with titles only being handed to a designated official before matches and immediately returned afterwards.
“If you didn’t care about it, and it wasn’t important enough to you to protect it and take care of it. You would’ve set it down somewhere, and it would’ve come up missing immediately,” Anderson said. “And it went right back into your bag, and nobody went into anybody’s bag in those days. That was a criminal, cardinal sin. So once it made it into your bag, you were pretty much safe.”
