Bear Essentials: 61-Year-Old Canadian Man Defeats Black Bear in Impromptu Boxing Match

Rick Nelson seen some stuff in his day, and apparently he's nothing to mess with.

Nelson, 61, was walking his dog in the woods near his Ontario, Canada, home, when he came upon a black bear cub. The cub, startled, gave out a loud yelp. As a former bear hunter, Nelson knew this was a bad sign; the cub's mother couldn't be far away. Sure enough, he heard something very large and very fast crashing through the brush — and he was soon face to face with a 300 pound angry mother black bear.

Nelson knew about an old adage when facing down bears in the wild: "If it's brown, lay down. If it's black, fight back."  Nelson, an ex-boxer, also knew that this would be the fight of his life. The bear reared up on its hind legs and took the first swing, clawing Nelson across the shoulder and face. Nelson hit back, nailing the bear in the snout. The bear cub took off running and its mother followed, sporting a bloody nose, and leaving Rick Nelson as the reigning, defending, Undisputed Man Bear Boxing Champion of the World.

And that's it, basically. There's not much more information available.

Which is totally unfair.

This man, approaching old age, punched an angry mama bear into submission.

We demand the full story. 

With that in mind, here are some observations about what we imagine happened (with no evidence that it actually did)

Firstly, no photo exists of the bear in question, but we do have this:

Also, in one of the only quotes we were able to find from an interview with the CBC, Nelson says “I knew it would swing first with its left but it would really come with its right, because most bears are right-handed.” 

Yeah, the man had scouted the bear. Was this knowledge from his days as a bear hunter? Did he make a quick call to Fightful's own MMA insider Showdown Joe Ferraro, who is also from the area? If so, Joe isn't speaking.

Either way, Rick comes from a long line of crazy bear-fighting vets, so it's possible he got his inside info from his father, Gunnery Seargent Jack "Clawmarks" Nelson:

We know what Rick Nelson looks like, and it is unimpressive. We Googled him. He looks like that friend of your Dad's who never got married, was really into golf, smoked imported cigarettes, and used to hit on your mom when your dad was out of the room. But nothing ever came of it, and you were too young to know what was going on anyway, but looking back on it now, there was that time you heard Dad and Uncle Greg arguing in the driveway as you were drifting off to sleep and then Uncle Greg never came over any more, and when you asked why not, your Dad would get all sullen for about five minutes and your Mom would quickly change the subject.  You never found out what happened to Uncle Greg, but you heard that when he died many years later, of a massive coronary, no one found his body for like three weeks, and his pet Iguana had begun to feast on the remains.

He looks like that.

We're really sorry we found that picture, and I will spare you from seeing it, so you can go on believing as I did, pre-Googling, that THIS is Rick Nelson:

It's not though.

But dammit, it should be.

Finally, no footage exists of the fight between man and bear, but we're pretty sure that it looked something like this:

Keep it locked at Fightful.com for all of your bear Boxing news.

I've been Alex Pawlowski and you can follow me on Twitter @pawlowskithe4th.