Go hog wild: Pig wrestling teams get down and dirty in muddy competition
<p>A group of pigs waiting for the start of the annual Pig Wrestling contest at the Northwest Montana Fair on Friday, August 16, in Kalispell.</p>
<p>John Nelson, 5, one of the Scuba Pigs waits at the gate for the start of the Pig Wrestling competition at the Northwest Montana Fair on Friday, August 16, in Kalispell.</p>
<p>Victoria Gragg of the Pig Warriors gets help from her teammates John Bramlet, center and Vin Stevens, right, during the Pig Wrestling contest at the Northwest Montana Fair on Friday, August 16, in Kalispell. The Pig Warriors took third place.</p>
There was standing room only — and a whole lot of squealing — at the opening round of Double D Pig Wrestling at the Northwest Montana Fair Friday.
The question on everyone’s mind was whether last year’s pee-wee champs — the Scuba Pigs — would take the crown again, or whether victory would slip through their fingers like a piglet on the run.
Eight teams were entered in the pee-wee division, ages 5 to 8. Their mission was to catch a piglet and place it in a barrel in the middle of the pen. To do that they had to trudge through a slurry of mucky mess of bentonite mixed with water.
Before the wrestling started, each team was auctioned off to the highest bidder in the audience. The bidder of the top three teams took home a percentage of proceeds.
The Scuba Pigs were working the crowd, flexing their muscles in a shameless bid to draw higher bids. The fearsome team included 7-year-olds Austin Olson, Bridger Hanson and Adam Schrader, all seasoned veterans with three years of pig-wrestling competition under their belts. New to the team was 5-year-old John Nelson.
Sporting swim trunks, goggles, body paint and bare feet, the Scuba Pigs didn’t hesitate diving into the mud.
Bridger Hanson explained the mission: “You have to run over to pick the pig up and put it butt first into the barrel.”
It sounded simple.
Each teammate put one hand on the pen cage as the piglet was released. At the count of three, the children began taking big leaps across the pen to corral the pig. The Scuba Pigs dropped their squealer in the barrel in 10.88 seconds — a good time.
But it was The Ragin’ Wrestlers — Jonathon Bruce, 9, Darby McCarthy, 8, Max Holden, 7, and Carter Bergeson, 8, who bucketed their piglet in 9.3 seconds to take first place.
Bruce confided the team’s winning strategy. “The pig just sat there really,” he shrugged.
Donna Dalin of Greybull Wyo., co-owner of Double D, which supplies the pigs, said the seasoned wrestlers usually know how to catch the pigs the quickest.
“The secret is to go slowly, reach and grab the pig,” Dalin said.
The fastest time she has seen was 5 seconds in a junior division.
Double D hits the road from the middle of July through Labor Day, bringing their cargo of more than 60 pigs in a 35-foot trailer they dub the “Pig Hotel” through Montana, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming for pig-wrestling competitions.
Sitting in the grandstand, the Porkensteins, a junior team, waited for their turn. Keagan McCracken, 11, echoed Dalin’s advice, noting he had tried to practice beforehand.
“You have to go slow and if you go fast the pig will just run the whole time,” McCracken said.
His teammate Keagan McCracken, 11, had his own strategy.
“I’m expecting to fall,” Hunter Karlstad, 10, said with a smile.