The trial that decided if a man truly outwrestled a bear

Article content

Which brought Cogan to the shoulders.

Article content

“If it was an athletic event,” he told me the other day, his memory uncanny for something that happened 60 years ago, “then I treat it as an athletic event.

Article content

“So then I treat the bear as an opponent. And an opponent has to have shoulders to be pinned.”

Article content

Under the Ontario wrestling rules that Cogan found, an opponent’s shoulders had to be held to the mat for at least three seconds.

Article content

“So the first question,” Cogan recalls, “was ‘Does a bear have shoulders?’”

Article content

Which is how, in May 1968, a bear skeleton ended up under a sheet in an Ottawa courtroom.

Article content

Cogan had gone to the National Museum of Natural Sciences — now the Canadian Museum of Nature — on McLeod Street to enlist the help of Philip Youngman, its curator of mammals. Youngman not only agreed to testify that bears possessed the required anatomy to lose a wrestling match, but Cogan also persuaded the museum to lend him a polar bear skeleton.

Article content

“I couldn’t bring a bear into court,” Cogan says, “but I sort of did.”

Article content

The skeleton was transported to the courthouse and hidden beneath a sheet before the six jurors entered. Then, he recalls, he pulled the sheet away “in dramatic fashion.”

Article content

Article content

Behold: a bear.

Article content

Youngman walked the jury through the animal’s anatomy, identifying the shoulder structures and explaining why they could lie flat against the ground. He also said that a standing bear isn’t that stable, and could be pushed over without much difficulty.

Article content

Having proven that a bear could, at least anatomically, be pinned, Cogan still had to prove that Szigeti had actually pinned Ted.

Article content

Szigeti testified that he’d held Ted down for about 15 seconds. Three spectators who testified on his behalf put it at somewhere between six and 10 seconds.

Article content

Several defence witnesses disagreed. Most damagingly, referee Kenneth “Tiger” Tasker, testified that Szigeti hadn’t held Ted down long enough.

Article content

Nearly six decades later, Cogan still thinks Tasker’s testimony may have decided the case. He was, after all, the referee.

Article content

The three-day civil trial went to the jury on May 8, 1968. They began deliberating at 3:20 that afternoon.

Article content

And they deliberated.

Article content

And deliberated.

Article content

Just before 9 p.m., they returned to tell the judge — Archibald M. Carter — that they couldn’t reach the five-to-one majority required for a verdict.

Article content

Article content

He sent them back.

Article content

Finally, at 11:40 p.m., eight hours and 20 minutes after beginning deliberations — the longest civil-jury deliberation that court officials could remember — they returned with a verdict.

Article content

Newsmen, wrestling fans and  a well-known local bookie in the courtroom all became awake as the jury returned.

Article content

The verdict: Szigeti had not pinned Terrible Ted.

Article content

As Szigeti left the courthouse, someone asked whether he’d consider a rematch. Before he could answer, his wife pulled him by the sleeve.

Article content

“Come on,” she told him. “Let’s go home. It’s midnight.”

Article content

*

Article content

That might have been the end of one of the strangest wrestling matches — and civil court cases — in Ottawa’s history. Except Darwin was nothing if not a savvy promoter.

Article content

Within weeks it was announced that Terrible Ted would return to Ottawa as part of the new Civic Centre’s inaugural wrestling card. And Darwin had an idea for an opponent: John Szigeti. Cogan says a deal was struck: Darwin would pay Szigeti $3,000 — win or lose — if he got back in the ring with Ted. For promotional purposes, Szigeti would be identified only as “Mr. X.”