Shaquille O'Neal
Starting off this list is one of the few basketball players to ever step in a wrestling ring and actually compete in a match. In 2009, O'Neal appeared on Monday Night RAW during a time where every week, RAW had a celebrity guest host, such as megastars Jeremy Piven, Verne Troyer, and Al Sharpton. It was a truly awful time to be alive. One of the first celebrities to host was Diesel himself. He ended up actually getting into a fight with the Big Show, who also stands at 7 feet tall and weighs almost 400 pounds. That wouldn't be the only time Shaq would go face-to-face with Big Show, as he competed in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 32 in 2016. O'Neal managed to get one elimination (poor Damien Sandow) before fighting with Big Show again until everyone else in the match dumped them both over the top rope. It looked like Shaq & Show would face off one last time at WrestleMania 33 in an actual match, but nothing ever came of it. Shaq has also appeared in the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling and the somehow still running Total Nonstop Action, appearing in segments with Hulk Hogan on both shows.
Lonzo Ball
Going from a couple of great appearances to an absolutely terrible one, Lonzo Ball was just four days into his NBA career when he, his father LaVar, and brother LaMelo appeared on Monday Night RAW in 2017. LiAngelo was not invited. Appearing on an interview segment with The Miz, what followed was one of the biggest sh*t shows I've ever seen. LaVar Ball was at his most...Lavar Ball...with everything from the way he ran to the ring-
to arguing with the Miz was over the top and completely outrageous. It got even more ridiculous when LaVar took off his shirt and started doing fake karate. I'm not kidding.
Dean Ambrose then came out to interrupt the trainwreck, which only prompted LaMelo Ball to yell into a live microphone "Beat that (word I'm too white to say) ass!"...twice. The only member of the Ball family who didn't cause any problems...was Lonzo himself. He didn't really do anything. Everything around him was just utter chaos.
Mark Cuban
As one of the more vocal and bombastic personalities among the NBA owners, it's no surprise Mark Cuban that has made not one, but two appearances in the WWE. The first was at Survivor Series 2003 in Dallas when Cuban showed up in the crowd. Cuban was then invited into the ring and went face-to-face with Monday Night RAW General Manager Eric Bischoff. After Bischoff shoved him, Cuban shoved Bischoff out of the ring, only for Cuban to take an RKO from Randy Orton. Cuban would appear yet again on WWE TV six years later, acting as the celebrity guest host on RAW in 2009. Cuban acted as the special guest referee during a match between Orton and Kofi Kingston, during which Cuban got his revenge when he cheated Orton when he gave a fast count on a Kingston pin attempt. However, Cuban would not escape the night unharmed, as he was driven through a table by Sheamus after shoving him down. I'll give credit where credit is due, not many non-wrestlers were as willing as Cuban was to take bumps like that.
"Stan Kroenke"
Unlike Cuban, an NBA owner who is not known for his big personality is Stan Kroenke. The owner of not only the Denver Nuggets but also the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, the Premier League's Arsenal F.C., and just about every professional sports team in Colorado, Stan Kroenke is not the character that Cuban is by any stretch of the imagination. The man is even nicknamed "Silent Stan" because of how rarely he ever does interviews. Now knowing that you might be wondering what prompted a wrestling company to bring him in for an appearance, and what prompted a reclusive man like Kroenke to appear on a wrestling show. And the answer is...he didn't. Why is he included on this list then? Well...it's a long story.
In 2009, Monday Night RAW was supposed to take place in the Pepsi Center, but because the Nuggets made the playoffs, they need the arena for a home game against the Los Angeles Lakers. WWE moved the show to the Staples Center in Los Angeles and, in a segment that only happened because Vince McMahon is a bit mental, a Stan Kroenke impersonator kicked off the show and ran down the fans before McMahon came down to the ring himself, mocked Kroenke and his real first name of "Enos", and shoved him out of the ring. The Nuggets mockery didn't end there, as the main event of the night saw a ten-man tag match, where the babyface (good guys) wrestlers sported Lakers jerseys while the heels (bad guys) rocked the jerseys of those dastardly Denver Nuggets. Why did any of this happen? Because, as I said before, Vince McMahon is a crazy person.
Jorge Gonzalez
The name Jorge Gonzalez might not be a name many basketball fans have heard of. In fact, wrestling fans are more likely to know who Gonzalez is, as he has gone down as one of the more infamous, worst, & strange gimmicks in the history of the WWE. Standing at 7'7, Jorge Gonzalez caught the attention of the Atlanta Hawks scouts as part of the Argentine national team. Despite seemingly only having a basic understanding of basketball and being barely mobile, the Hawks drafted Gonzalez with the 54th pick in the 1988 NBA Draft. Gonzalez would never play a game in the NBA due to the league's physical demands and a serious knee injury. With basketball out of the question, Hawks' owner Ted Turner found another use for the giant Argentinian in one of his other ventures; professional wrestling.
Gonzalez found himself in Turner's World Championship Wrestling, debuting as El Gigante in 1990 at Capital Combat, a show that also featured the WCW debut of RoboCop, freeing Sting from a shark cage.
Wrestling is super serious business, guys. As you can guess, a guy who is barely mobile was not very entertaining to watch as a professional wrestler. Gonzalez did little of note in WCW, most famously taking part in the infamous Chamber of Horrors match, where the goal was to shove a wrestler into an electric chair and light them up.
WRESTLING IS SUPER SERIOUS BUSINESS, GUYS! Following his two-year run in WCW, Gonzalez made the jump to the World Wrestling Federation in 1993, becoming Giant Gonzalez, being billed as 8 feet tall, and wrestling in one of the ugliest attires of all time, as seen above. Needless to say, an even less mobile Gonzalez was no more pleasant to watch in the WWF. Gonzalez would debut at the 1993 Royal Rumble, attacking the Undertaker. This led to Gonzalez becoming the third man to fall to Taker at WrestleMania as part of his legendary 21-win streak on the grandest stage of them all, losing by disqualification at WrestleMania 9. After losing to Taker yet again SummerSlam 1993, Gonzalez did nothing of note before leaving the WWF for Japan, wrestling for another two years before retiring in 1995. Minus the chokeslams and bodysuits, his run in wrestling was likely exactly what we would've seen if Gonzalez stepped on an NBA court.
Gonzalez found himself in Turner's World Championship Wrestling, debuting as El Gigante in 1990 at Capital Combat, a show that also featured the WCW debut of RoboCop, freeing Sting from a shark cage.
Karl Malone
In the 1998 NBA Finals, the Chicago Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz to win their sixth title in eight years, and also beat the Jazz in the finals for the second straight year. This match-up pitted Karl Malone of the Jazz against Dennis Rodman of the Bulls, a rivalry that would boil over off the basketball court and into a wrestling ring. At WCW's Bash at the Beach show in 1998, Malone wrestled his one and only wrestling match in the main event of the show, teaming with Diamond Dallas Page to take on Hulk Hogan & Dennis Rodman (more on him shortly). In a 23-minute match where Malone & Rodman showed a basic knowledge of wrestling and how to wrestle (which is better than some non-wrestlers who have wrestled a match) Hogan & Rodman picked up the win with Hogan pinning Page, but Malone did manage to hit Page's Diamond Cutter on Rodman during the match. While he didn't wrestle another match, Malone did pop up in the crowd at a WWE SmackDown show earlier this year, celebrating with Bobby Roode, the man with the greatest entrance music in wrestling history. While Malone's involvement in the wrestling business was brief, it was certainly one of the more memorable appearances by a basketball legend.
Dennis Rodman
And lastly, we have the basketball player that contributed the most to the professional wrestling business out of anyone. Following his suspension in 1997 for kicking a cameraman, Rodman traded in his basketball sneakers for wrestling boots when he popped up at World Championship Wrestling's Uncensored pay-per-view. Joining the New World Order (nWo) as a celebrity member, Rodman was one of the few celebrity members of the group who actually stepped in the ring and competed. Rodman's first wrestling match took place at Bash at the Beach in 1997, teaming with nWo leader Hulk Hogan in a loss to the team of Lex Luger & the Giant in the main event. Rodman would pop up again at Road Wild a month later, helping Hogan win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Luger.
Following the 1997-98 season, Rodman would return to WCW and wrestled another Bash at the Beach main event tag match with Hogan in the aforementioned match against the team of Diamond Dallas Page & Karl Malone in 1998. Rodman would take another year off from in-ring action, wrestling his only singles match in WCW in 1999, losing to Randy Savage at Road Wild.
Rodman would wrestle one more professional wrestling match, this time in the short-lived Austrailian promotion i-Generation Superstars of Wrestling in 2000. Headlining the company's sole pay-per-view titled Rodman Down Under (I'm not joking), Rodman challenged i-Generation World Heavyweight Championship Curt Henning (better known as Mr. Perfect in the WWF) for the belt in a no disqualifications match, losing by disqualification. No, that is not a typo. I'm not sure how that works either.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to share if you enjoy!
Thanks for reading! Be sure to share if you enjoy!
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