SLAM! Wrestling Canadian Hall of Fame: Dave 'Wildman' McKigney

REAL NAME: Dave McKigney
BORN: Toronto, 1932
DIED: July 5, 1988
ALIASES/ NICKNAMES: Bearman, Wildman, Canadian Wildman, Gene Dubois

 The tale of the Wildman is a tragic one. He was never a superstar in the ring, and as a small-time promoter, never made his millions out of wrestling. But he give it everything he had, including ultimately, his life.

 His gimmick was a wrestling bear, and to match his opponent, McKigney grew his beard and lets his hair grow wild. He became the Canadian Wildman. And with his bear, he travelled North America. Down south he was an oddity, people came to see a bear, a foreigner in their parts. Up in Northern Ontario, people knew their bears, and came to see just who might be crazy enough to get into the ring with one.

 Terrible Ted was his first bear, picked up after a carnival show went bankrupt, but the best known bear, for tragic reasons, was Smokey. In July 1978, McKigney left the bear's cage door open as he went to answer the phone. Smokey entered the house, went upstairs, and mauled McKigney's girlfriend Lynn Orser to death. The incident made headlines, and the bears were taken away by the Ontario Humane Society. For years he battled the Frank and Jack Tunney, the promoters out of Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, who had a monopoly on the province's big arenas and the boxing and wrestling commissioner as a friend. They tried to force McKigney out of business, and eventually drove him to tour Newfoundland, when in July 1988, he met his death when the van he was driving crashed on the Trans Canada Highway when he tried to avoid a moose. Killed were McKigney, Keith 'Adorable Adrian Adonis' Franke, and Victor Arko (Pat Kelly of the Kelly twins). Also in the car was William Arko (Mike Kelly), who suffered leg injuries.

 There aren't many books about wrestling out there, let alone books that tell a truthful, behind-the-scenes account of life as a wrestler. One of the best is certainly Drawing Heat by London Ontario's Jim Freedman (1988, Black Moss Press, distributed by Firefly Books). Much of the book details life on the road with McKigney and his Big Bear Promotions. Below is an excerpt from Drawing Heat:
 
  "He's been around for twenty years, and more years than not he has made good money. In Tunney's territory. He has no contract with big city coliseums, no offices, no picture on the Garden walls. What he has is stamina, the art of never slowing down, moving constantly from one town to the next, his office is his truck, his phone, the pay phone in arena offices. He rarely sleeps. Two weeks before a show he plots the ads for newspapers, delivers and pays for them himself, lays out the posters for the show, has them printed, tacks them on to empty construction boards and highway poles and store front windows like campaign throwaways and all the frenzied while he runs his shows like a juggler on a unicycle tossing pots and pans and frying eggs and bacon at a banquet if his fans. He keeps a precious chest of beer in the front seat of his truck so as not to get too dry, to chase away the hum of his truck and the drum of his rapid body's regimen late at night after counting up the till."