Few figures in combat sports are as colorful and fearless as Eric “Butterbean” Esch. Known for his knockout power and willingness to take on any challenge, Butterbean has competed in boxing, MMA, kickboxing, and even professional wrestling. However, one of his most unusual and terrifying encounters didn’t happen in a ring or cage—it happened with an 850-pound grizzly bear.
During a recent appearance on the Jaxxon podcast, Butterbean revealed details about his participation in a reality show called “Man Versus Beast,” where he was scheduled to wrestle a massive grizzly bear.
The concept was as wild as it sounds: pitting human strength and skill against raw animal power in what would have been one of the most dangerous spectacles ever televised.
“I wrestled a bear not far from there,” Butterbean casually mentioned during the podcast, describing the location near Big Bear where he had trained with other fighters.
When pressed for details, he elaborated on the sheer terror of the experience: “Just ungodly” strong, he said about the bear’s power. The most frightening moment came during feeding time when he witnessed the bear’s raw strength firsthand. “They were feeding it full chickens, froze solid. And they throw down the shoot, and the crunch it, and it’d be like just the noise was like oh man I’m in deep s**t.”
The preparation for this unthinkable matchup required special safety protocols. Butterbean’s initial idea was to wear football padding for protection, but the trainers quickly discouraged this approach.
“I come up with this idea, I’m going to wear an armpad like a football pad, no, you don’t want to do that,” he recalled. The reasoning was chilling. He said, “The bear feels your skin and know how hard it can bite you.”
The alternative was equally terrifying—the trainer explained that “the first thing you got to do is put your arm in his mouth” or risk having the bear “put his mouth over your head.”
Despite the elaborate planning and preparation, the televised wrestling match never actually took place. “We never actually wrestled,” Butterbean explained.
“We wrestled, practiced, but we never actually had our like televised match.” The reason was because PETA intervened and put a stop to the production, preventing what would have been an unprecedented and extremely dangerous spectacle from being broadcast.
The aftermath of the show revealed just how dangerous the situation truly was. According to Butterbean, tragedy struck the bear’s handlers: “I think it was two years after that, the bear killed the guy’s brother or cousin or he accidentally clipped his jugular vein out.”
Interestingly, despite the inherent danger, Butterbean developed a bond with the massive predator during their time together. “Other than it was a nice bear, though,” he noted. “I was feeding him Twinkies.” The bear was a trained movie animal that had appeared in major Hollywood productions, including films involving the stunt coordinator who worked on ‘Gladiator.’
The control methods used by the trainers were as fascinating as they were effective. Rather than physical punishment, they relied on psychological conditioning using pepper spray.
“What he does, like I asked him how they, you know, kept them in line,” Butterbean explained. “He uses pepper spray. Oh, they spray it really good, when it’s a cub, and it does not forget it. So anytime that he tells the bear something and doesn’t want to do it, he just touches the can. The bear will go right in line.”
This weird chapter in Butterbean’s already extraordinary career shows the lengths he was willing to go for entertainment and the paycheck that came with it. This was at a time when reality television was pushing boundaries and seeking ever more extreme content.
