TONY GALENTO had an advantage over the giant octopus he fought one afternoon in Atlantic City – the octopus was dead before Tony jumped in the giant fish tank. A few years later, Chuck Wepner had no advantages when he was matched with Victor, the unbeaten and untouchable bear. They met in a non-title fight in New Jersey. It was a cash job, a novelty, the latest in Big Chuck’s life and times.
Two world heavyweight championship challengers against a bear and an octopus are freak shows, trust me. Galento dropped Joe Louis before fighting the octopus and Wepner dropped Muhammad Ali before meeting Victor. That’s a freak, but it’s true.
A man called Tuffy Truesdell had helped Victor compile a ridiculous record of 1,500 wins and no defeats, which even by the standards of modern matchmaking is impressive. There is a small asterisk attached – Victor the bear, it seems, was a franchise with as many as four Victors in circulation, fighting men and women in bars and clubs and on beaches all over America. Tuffy was a resourceful man; Victor would attend your 50th and fight your friends for a fee. Tuffy actually claimed that Victor was unbeaten in 50,000 fights and had suffered just one draw. There are Victor scholars with facts and stats on crazy fights where the bear was in trouble before taking down a local hardman. All the time, I assume, Victor was learning his trade.
Victor v Wepner was a real thing: Chuck, you see, fought two versions of Victor. The second bear called Victor was without doubt the best boxing bear ever. Hey, that’s Al Braverman’s opinion and he should know. Tuffy, a big boxing fan, had launched his animal v man fighting business in the Fifties when he met Rodney the Wrestling Alligator; it ended in a draw and Tuffy needed 40 stitches.
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The first Victor that Wepner fought was defanged, declawed, muzzled and intoxicated. The bear weighed between 400 and 800 pounds, depending on how unreliable your source was.
“It must have been 450 pounds,” Wepner once told me. I believe him.
I know Wepner is famous for the Rocky connection, but he did put together a bloody and memorable sequence of fights during an eight-year period between 1969 and 1976; he needed dozens of stitches after his 1969 loss to George Foreman at Madison Square Garden, he lost to Ali in 1975 to launch the Rocky business, he was thrown all over the place by Andre the Giant in front of 32,000 people in 1976. The fight with Andre, who weighed in at 525 pounds, was made by Bob Arum. Can you imagine sharing a ring with a man who is heavier than a bear? Also, in this spectacular run of fights, he met Victor, he lost several pints of blood when he lost to Sonny Liston in a bloodbath and lost to Joe Bugner in London. Big names in big fights.
