Because he was the biggest player in the league (or close to it) in the early-mid 1970s, at least until Bob Dailey and Willie Huber arrived on the scene.
Under-rated player historically. Outside of the 'big 6' (Robinson, Savard, Lapointe, Park, Potvin, Salming) he was maybe the next-best defender of the mid-1970s.
I found a Bio on him that has him at 6'3" 220 lb.....reason enough I guess to be called King Kong.....just thought there might be some other story to it.
That was *huge* for that era.
Nowadays 6'5" players are pretty commonplace, but prior to 1975 they were unheard-of. When Bob Dailey broke in in 1973, he was the first 6'5" player in the history of the league.
Guys who were 6'1 190 were really big players in that era, whereas now it's about the league average size.