There have been many wrestling bears over the years. Victor, Gentleman Ben and Igor come to mind. Even the unpredictable Jerry Graham owned a bear for a while and once when the trailer hitch broke, he put the animal in the back seat of his Cadillac convertible and drove to the arena, sharing beers with it all the while.
Trotsky was one of the bears seen in Arizona over the years and remained undefeated. Granted, the animal was limited with the number of moves it used, usually just falling on an opponent and with its massive weight, holding the unlucky wrestler down for the pin.
Don Arnold lost to the bear. Several times, in fact!
It was not one of his favorite opponents.
"I hated wrestling that bear," Arnold emphasized whenever asked. "I hated it. That bear stank and I mean it REALLY stank. It smelled like shit. Whenever I faced that bear I was glad to have it pin me and be done with it. Even afterward, I had to take like three showers to get the damned smell off of me. I just hated that bear, but because I was one of the biggest guys in the Arizona territory as far as size went at the time, I always got stuck wrestling it."
Was it that the bear was poorly cared for?
"No," Arnold maintained. "It smelled like a bear because it was a bear. They kept it clean, they fed it and they took good care of the thing, but it just smelled. Physically, I did not mind wrestling it, for any fear of the animal, as it was really as tame as could be, but it just reeked."
Nonetheless, Trotsky remained one of the most popular attractions in Arizona for a long while. Don Arnold might ahve been its favorite opponent, but the feeling was clearly not shared by Arnold.
No comments:
Post a Comment