The Amazing True Story Of Victor, The Wrestling Bear
In the 2008 Will Ferrell movie Semi-Pro, which centers on a fictional ABA basketball team, there's a scene where Jackie Moon, played by Ferrell, wrestles with a grizzly bear at halftime of a game. It's an absurd, ridiculous, preposterous scene, and it was, believe it or not, based on a real promotion. On Apr. 2, 1975, at halftime of an ABA game between the Utah Stars and the Indiana Pacers, an Alaskan brown bear came out onto the court to wrestle some people and entertain the Indiana crowd. The creature's name was Victor—or, rather, Victor The Wrestling Bear.
"I mean, my God," Chet Coppock said. "We're 35 years removed from this, and I still have people who when I go to Indianapolis will see me and go, 'You know, I still remember the night you wrestled Victor the Bear.'"
Coppock, the sports director at local CBS affiliate WISH-TV, was Victor's opponent that night. He wanted to give the interspecies bout more juice, so he came onto the court in a wrestling outfit pro wrestler dikk the Bruiser had given him, with a pair of Flash Gordon-esque "slave girls" at his side to emphasize his role as the heel. Victor, sporting a weight advantage of at least a quarter-ton, won easily.
The crowd loved it.
Victor was rarely unsuccessful in wrestling. He was de-clawed, de-fanged, fitted with a muzzle and drugged out of his mind, but he could still throw down anyone who stood before him, and he knew a few professional moves to boot. Victor was often listed as being eight feet tall and 650 pounds wide, although those figures varied greatly over the years. A 1970 feature in Sports Illustrated listed him at six foot, 450; two years earlier, the Milwaukee Sentinel had him pegged at 527 pounds; in the '80's, some outlets had him at 800 pounds. However much he weighed, it was more than enough to make him an unbeatable wrestling opponent. Most of his matches barely lasted a minute, and when he finished, Victor would race over to his owner, Tuffy Truesdell, and receive a fresh bottle of Coke, which he would inhale in a manner of seconds.
Victor's gift was not kept hidden from the public. Truesdell drove across the country with the ursine grappler, displaying him at sports shows and county fairs and asking crowds if anyone wanted to tangle with him. If no one wanted to get in the ring with Victor, Truesdell would wrestle the bear himself; if there was a volunteer, Truesdell would serve as the referee. Of course, anyone who challenged the behemoth first had to sign a waiver that Truesdell could not be held legally responsible for what happened. As noted in Sports Illustrated's piece on Victor:
"It costs Tuffy about 5% of his gross to obtain various types of insurance, but it is financially impossible for him to afford the premiums he would have to pay to actually insure the people who choose to climb into the ring and take on Victor. You wrestle him at your own risk."
You might think that would have been enough of a disincentive, but the bear wrestled thousands—possibly tens of thousands—of people from the time he was born in the early '60's. Search "Victor the Bear" or "Victor the Wrestling Bear" and you'll come across accounts of dozens of people trying to hold their own against him, many of them famous. Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, who appeared with Victor in the movie Paint Your Wagon, allegedly did it; so too did then-SI writer Frank Deford ("He pinned me in about eight seconds"); there was NFL coach Rod Marinelli and football players dikk Butkus, Jim LeClair and Vince Papale, who walked away from his match with six stitches. ("That was probably the most stupid thing I've done"); there were wrestlers Rowdy Roddy Piper ("Oh, I hated him. It wasn't a good night for Rod"), Don "The Lawman" Slatton, Gary Hart, Gorgeous George, Wahoo McDaniel, and dikk Beyer (who was disqualified for throwing an illegal punch at the bear). Even streetball legend Fly Williams took a shot at it. ("He was 8-feet, 11-inches. I lost.")
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In the 2008 Will Ferrell movie Semi-Pro, which centers on a fictional ABA basketball team, there's a scene where Jackie Moon, played by Ferrell, wrestles with a grizzly bear at halftime of a game. It's an absurd, ridiculous, preposterous scene, and it was, believe it or not, based on a real promotion. On Apr. 2, 1975, at halftime of an ABA game between the Utah Stars and the Indiana Pacers, an Alaskan brown bear came out onto the court to wrestle some people and entertain the Indiana crowd. The creature's name was Victor—or, rather, Victor The Wrestling Bear.
"I mean, my God," Chet Coppock said. "We're 35 years removed from this, and I still have people who when I go to Indianapolis will see me and go, 'You know, I still remember the night you wrestled Victor the Bear.'"
Coppock, the sports director at local CBS affiliate WISH-TV, was Victor's opponent that night. He wanted to give the interspecies bout more juice, so he came onto the court in a wrestling outfit pro wrestler dikk the Bruiser had given him, with a pair of Flash Gordon-esque "slave girls" at his side to emphasize his role as the heel. Victor, sporting a weight advantage of at least a quarter-ton, won easily.
The crowd loved it.
Victor was rarely unsuccessful in wrestling. He was de-clawed, de-fanged, fitted with a muzzle and drugged out of his mind, but he could still throw down anyone who stood before him, and he knew a few professional moves to boot. Victor was often listed as being eight feet tall and 650 pounds wide, although those figures varied greatly over the years. A 1970 feature in Sports Illustrated listed him at six foot, 450; two years earlier, the Milwaukee Sentinel had him pegged at 527 pounds; in the '80's, some outlets had him at 800 pounds. However much he weighed, it was more than enough to make him an unbeatable wrestling opponent. Most of his matches barely lasted a minute, and when he finished, Victor would race over to his owner, Tuffy Truesdell, and receive a fresh bottle of Coke, which he would inhale in a manner of seconds.
Victor's gift was not kept hidden from the public. Truesdell drove across the country with the ursine grappler, displaying him at sports shows and county fairs and asking crowds if anyone wanted to tangle with him. If no one wanted to get in the ring with Victor, Truesdell would wrestle the bear himself; if there was a volunteer, Truesdell would serve as the referee. Of course, anyone who challenged the behemoth first had to sign a waiver that Truesdell could not be held legally responsible for what happened. As noted in Sports Illustrated's piece on Victor:
"It costs Tuffy about 5% of his gross to obtain various types of insurance, but it is financially impossible for him to afford the premiums he would have to pay to actually insure the people who choose to climb into the ring and take on Victor. You wrestle him at your own risk."
You might think that would have been enough of a disincentive, but the bear wrestled thousands—possibly tens of thousands—of people from the time he was born in the early '60's. Search "Victor the Bear" or "Victor the Wrestling Bear" and you'll come across accounts of dozens of people trying to hold their own against him, many of them famous. Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, who appeared with Victor in the movie Paint Your Wagon, allegedly did it; so too did then-SI writer Frank Deford ("He pinned me in about eight seconds"); there was NFL coach Rod Marinelli and football players dikk Butkus, Jim LeClair and Vince Papale, who walked away from his match with six stitches. ("That was probably the most stupid thing I've done"); there were wrestlers Rowdy Roddy Piper ("Oh, I hated him. It wasn't a good night for Rod"), Don "The Lawman" Slatton, Gary Hart, Gorgeous George, Wahoo McDaniel, and dikk Beyer (who was disqualified for throwing an illegal punch at the bear). Even streetball legend Fly Williams took a shot at it. ("He was 8-feet, 11-inches. I lost.")
