Six percent of people think they can beat a grizzly bear

Bleu Raeder said
So, here is the thing. I wrestled a bear once. (I have pictorial evidence and witnesses. Lots of witnesses. A Southland Mall worth of witnesses.) A trained bear, supposedly one of the bears used on Gentle Ben. The bear was trained by a wrestler named Truesdale if I recall correctly. The bear would down a Coke at the end of every "match". It was some kind of tour or promotion where this guy was taking the bear from town to town.

Count me as not part of the 6%.

Even a declawed, defanged bear is quite agile. Honestly, I ended up laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of an 18-year-old me being in the ring with this bear draped over me. The trainer kept saying, "throw him over your shoulder....throw him over your shoulder!" as if a skinny kid like me could throw a 700 or 800-pound bear anywhere, much less over my shoulder.

I did last about 3 minutes. It seemed an eternity. But it is a funny story to tell and I'll have to dig out the pics.

When I was a child we went on a family vacation to Cherokee NC. My grandfather wrestled a bear at one
of the tourist traps. It was no contest. The bear was old,declawed and defanged. It was no contest. The bear pinned him
to the ground in a matter of seconds and started licking him like a dog. I'm half the man Grandpa was. He never backed
down from a challenge. He did it to entertain the rest of the tourists. He would also do back flips off a diving board
at 75 years of age. I may not even make it that long lol