Mick Foley Reveals He Fought A Bear Early In His Career

Mick Foley has done some pretty terrifying things that altered him permanently during his career. He lost an ear wrestling Vader, got put through a flaming table by Edge, and was thrown through the roof of Hell in a Cell by The Undertaker. However, there was a time very early in his career when Foley did something that arguably put his career and life at risk more than any of those moments. In 1985, the Hardcore Legend wrestled a bear.

Foley Wrestled A Bear

Foley was a guest on Hot Ones this week, during which he was asked about the time he wrestled a bear. "Yeah, I think the fourth match of my career was against a bear," Foley revealed when asked, adding that they never go well. "I didn't know the danger I was in, I just knew that I jumped on its back, trying to turn it into a show, and the bear stood up and threw me across the ring, and that's when I realized the bear was eight to ten times stronger than I was."

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"I laid down and I let that bear defeat me, I was humbled." Wrestling bears is thankfully a tradition that has fallen by the wayside since then but once upon a time, it was a common occurrence at wrestling shows. As Foley mentions while telling the story - you can check out the full episode below - there have been cases of people being killed while wrestling bears. Probably the least surprising thing you'll read today.

Wrestling Bears

Even if wearing a muzzle, gloves, and drugged, again as Foley says, a bear is still about eight times stronger than a human being. Even if it can't bite or scratch you, a bear could quite easily hurt you, even if it does something as simple as fall on you. Outside of the damage a bear can do to a human, doing whatever you need to do to a bear to get it in a wrestling ring is going to be all sorts of inhumane. I'd hazard to guess more damage has been done to the bears than the people they wrestled over the years.

Taking place more than a decade before his infamous Hell in a Cell match, it's fascinating to hear about a moment that personified Foley's career as far back as 1985. The same year as the first WrestleMania for those who can't grasp just how long ago that was. Clearly Foley was willing to do whatever it took to be a pro wrestler from the very beginning of his career, putting his body on the line by wrestling a bear. Had he not been sensible and laid down for the bear, we may never have heard of one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.