The history of bear wrestling is a complex and often unsettling one, filled with tales of showmanship, animal exploitation, and eventual legal bans. One of the most iconic figures in this unusual form of entertainment was Victor the Wrestling Bear, whose story reflects the changing attitudes toward animal welfare over the decades.
The Early Days of Bear Wrestling
Bear wrestling wasn't a new phenomenon. In the past a whole hungry dog pack would be loosed on a trapped bear, an exercise so savage that vestiges of bearbaiting statutes remain on the books and harass Tuffy Truesdell.
In Shreveport's past, wresting shows were at least a weekly occurrence at the Municipal Auditorium, according to local Kathryn Usher. In early May 1988, a Bossier lounge was scheduled to host two shows where customers could pay to take a shot at wrestling Toby, a brown bear. But the business canceled the event to avoid getting into a dispute with a local animal rights group.
Toto the wrestling bear was described as "no man's plaything in ring" in a 1939 headline printed in The Times. It was a warning from promoter Julius Sigel to Jim "Goon" Henry of Oklahoma City, who would soon be facing the 300-pound creature in the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium - and the first time such a match was documented in the Shreveport paper.
"Toto has been taught all the tricks of wrestling," Sigel said in the article. "He has been carefully trained and is no 'small time performer.'"
Read also: Discover the story of Casey Swiderski
The bear lived up to that warning that night, but against Henry Pearce "the Purple Flash," per a follow up article. Pearce tackled the bear, but was jolted by the creature with a blow to the head that knocked skin from his forehead, and also scratched him on the leg.
The following Monday, Russian grappler Ivan Managoff was set to wrestle the bear in the same venue and, reportedly, before one of the largest crowds of the winter grappling season.
Tuffy Truesdell and the Rise of Victor
Tuffy Truesdell originally shows up in wrestling databases in 1937, although his first recorded match with an alligator is listed ten years later. By June 5 of that same year, the alligator had a name. In a show at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, Tuffy defeated Rodney the Alligator, no time given.
A dozen years later, Tuffy was spending most of his time wrangling a bear named Victor. Victor was iconic during the 1960s. The charismatic bear appeared with Tuffy not only on the wrestling circuit, but also on TV programs ranging from The Ed Sullivan Show, To Tell the Truth and Let’s Make a Deal to Johnny Carson and Mike Douglas.
Victor was also mentioned as wrestling Clint Eastwood, or vice versa. Victor won.
Read also: Sectional Wrestling Tournament Details
The Ur-story about Tuffy appears in the February, 1970, issue of Sports Illustrated, his adventures laid out in a long and wonderful piece by journalist Frank Deford. Deford is riding in a converted limo with Tuffy at the wheel. He says that Tuffy’s wife Lee sits behind him mixing martinis, and the bear, Victor, sleeps in a cage at the back, occasionally waking up to beg peppermint candies.
It turns out that Victor has a sweet tooth, and is rewarded with a bottle of Coke after every wrestling match.
All-In Wrestling - The Bear Truth (1933)
According to Deford, Tuffy will not wrestle alligators anymore. He could be the first person to work both bears and gators on the same bill, but Tuffy is not interested in that distinction. He says that it was only a few years ago Lee and he are in Canada with the alligator farm, raising Victor, and they actually don't know if they can make it through the winter to open up in the spring.
It seems to be true that Adolf (Tuffy) Truesdell was born in Nokomos, Illinois, on September 8, 1916. Tuffy migrated to wrestling from boxing as a teen-ager because his short arms left him at such a disadvantage as a pugilist.
Read also: The story of Angelo Posada
Eventually, Tuffy’s career slowed down when fans developed a preference for bigger wrestlers. It nearly came to an end the time he was tossed from a ring. He received extreme unction and needed three holes bored in his head.
The Height of Victor's Popularity
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.
Chet Coppock, the sports director at local CBS affiliate WISH-TV, was Victor's opponent that night. The crowd loved it. Truesdell drove across the country, displaying him at sports shows and county fairs and asking crowds if anyone wanted to tangle with him.
Of course, anyone who challenged the behemoth first had to sign a waiver that Truesdell could not be held legally responsible for what happened.
Victor 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.
The End of an Era
Bears used in wrestling were usually defanged and declawed, as well as kept in small trailers and fed poor diets, according to previous reports. Decades later, these ''feature attraction'' events came to an end when lawmakers heard the voices of concerned citizens, regarding the treatment the bears underwent for others' entertainment.
At that time, however, bear wrestling was still legal in Bossier Parish. But in some other areas of the state, the activity was already banned per ordinance. The year prior in Baton Rouge, a wresting match for Ginger the bear was blocked by the animal control center director because the match would have violated a city ordinance that had already been in effect for 25 years.
Even at the start of the 1992 legislative season, bear wrestling was still reportedly legal in some parishes. But by the end of it, the activity was outlawed in every corner of Louisiana by the means of state law with little debate from lawmakers.
"It was just a poor form of entertainment that was at the expense of the animals," Jeff Dorson, Louisiana Humane Society director, told The Times in a 2011 report. Dorson lobbied for the bill in 1992.
The law came as an addition to the state's cruelty to animals criminal codes, and after three years of complaints on how traveling side show owners were treating their bears. To violate the law includes more than just the physical act of wrestling the animal. Any person who promotes, is employed by anyone who conducts a bear wrestling match, receives money for the admission for a bear match as well as the buying, selling or training of a bear is also in conflict of the law, according to the statute.
Now, and since the early '90s, anyone who is found guilty of participating in bear wrestling matches can face fines or jail time. Those who commit the crime and are found guilty "shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both."
These days Victor and Tuffy are little more than a nostalgic memory. Maybe humans shouldn't be in the business of making grizzly bears wrestle other humans.
Timeline of Key Events
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1939 | Toto the wrestling bear gains attention in Shreveport. |
| 1960s | Victor the Wrestling Bear rises to fame with Tuffy Truesdell. |
| 1975 | Victor wrestles at an ABA game halftime show. |
| 1992 | Bear wrestling is outlawed in Louisiana. |
| 2001 | Tuffy Truesdell passes away. |