I’m not usually one to seek out things to provoke my own outrage, and it was only by happenstance that I came across the phenomenon of octopus wrestling. (This involved people wrestling the octopi, not octopi wrestling each other.) Fortunately, this doesn’t appear to be much of a thing anymore, but it had a following 50-60 years ago.

A report from the November 24, 1957 edition of the Toledo Blade details a gathering of 200 people to watch an octopus wrestling event in the Puget Sound near Tacoma, Washington.

Teams of three unarmed skin divers competed to garner points based on the use of snorkels versus breathing tanks and the final weight of octopi wrestled to the surface. A team from Portland, Oregon, won the contest, hauling in an eighty-pound octopus in the process. Let it be noted that Giant Pacific Octopi (Octopus dofleini) are rather timid and not at all aggressive unless provoked, with most cases of provocation ending with the octopus fleeing.

I’m not sure what stones we’ve left unturned in our quest to dominate nature whilst being entertained. I can’t find any instances of people making whales race one another, but then again, I don’t want to give anyone any ideas.

Photo credit: By Kirt L. Onthank.Taollan82 at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons.