WWE Has Signed Enormous German Soccer Goalkeeper Tim Wiese

A plethora of former athletes have turned to professional wrestling after their careers in their chosen sports wound down. Bill Goldberg briefly played in the NFL. Ron Simmons, a.k.a. Farooq, had his football number retired by Florida State. And, of course, The Goon joined the WWF after he was kicked out of every hockey league on the planet. Now, the most recent former pro athlete addition to the WWE roster is a German soccer goalkeeper.

Tim Wiese has accepted an invite to join the WWE Performance Center in Florida, generally the training ground for talent before moving on to NXT. There have been murmurings of Wiese signing with WWE since at least 2014, so the big man has been on the company’s radar for a couple of years. Now Triple H and WWE finally got their man.

The 34-year-old netminder actually had a very successful career playing soccer in Germany. He ended his career with the club 1899 Hoffenheim, although spent the bulk of his playing days with Werder Bremen. He also got six caps with the German national team.

Since he stopped playing soccer, though, the 6’4 gentleman has gotten super jacked, and looks, well, like a pro wrestler. Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not he can really hack it in the squared circle. The Performance Center currently has quite a few former athletes who are learning the pro wrestling trade from the ground up. It may be some time before we see Wiese in NXT, if ever.

(Via WWE)