Octopus wrestling
Encyclopedia
Octopus wrestling involves a diver
Free-diving
Freediving is any of various aquatic activities that share the practice of breath-hold underwater diving. Examples include breathhold spear fishing, freedive photography, apnea competitions and, to a degree, snorkeling...

 grappling with a large octopus
Octopus
The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...

 in shallow water and dragging it to the surface.

An early article on octopus wrestling appeared in a 1949 issue of Mechanix Illustrated
Mechanix Illustrated
Mechanix Illustrated was an American magazine founded in the first half of the 20th century to compete against the older Popular Science and Popular Mechanics...

.

Octopus wrestling was most popular on the West Coast of the United States
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

 during the 1960s. At that time, annual World Octopus Wrestling Championships were held in Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

, Washington. The event was televised and attracted up to 5,000 spectators. Trophies were awarded to the individual divers and teams who caught the largest animals. Afterwards, the octopuses were either eaten, given to the local aquarium
Public aquarium
A public aquarium is the aquatic counterpart of a zoo, housing living aquatic species for viewing. Most public aquariums feature tanks larger than those kept by home aquarists, as well as smaller tanks. Since the first public aquariums were built in the mid-19th century, they have become popular...

, or returned to the sea.

In April 1963, 111 divers took part in the World Octopus Wrestling Championships. A total of 25 Giant Pacific Octopuses were captured that day, ranging in weight from 4 to 57 pounds.

A 1965 issue of Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 documented the growing popularity of octopus wrestling as follows:

Merely to minnow about underwater is no longer enough, and such sports as octopus wrestling are coming increasingly into vogue, particularly in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

, where the critters grow up to 90 lbs. and can be exceedingly tough customers. Although there are several accepted techniques for octopus wrestling, the really sporty way requires that the human diver go without artificial breathing apparatus.


H. Allen Smith
H. Allen Smith
For the congressman see H. Allen SmithHarry Allen Wolfgang Smith was an American journalist and humorist whose books were popular in the 1940s and 1950s, selling millions of copies....

 wrote an article for True magazine
True (magazine)
True, also known as True, The Man's Magazine, was published by Fawcett Publications from 1937 until 1974. Known as True, A Man's Magazine in the 1930s, it was labeled True, #1 Man's Magazine in the 1960s. Petersen Publishing took over with the January 1975, issue...

 in 1964, collected in Low Man Rides Again (1973) about a gentleman named O'Rourke whom he dubs the "Father of Octopus Wrestling." According to information Smith collected from Idwal Jones and other sources, O'Rourke and a partner developed a business in the late 1940s of fishing for octopuses with O'Rourke serving as live bait and his partner hauling him out of the water after an octopus was sufficiently wrapped around him.

All this while O'Rourke was becoming perhaps the world's greatest authority on the thought processes and the personality of the octopus. He knew how to outmaneuver them, to outflank them, and to outthink them. He knew full well, many years ago, what today's octopus wrestlers are just beginning to learn—that it is impossible for a man with two arms to apply a full nelson on an octopus; he knew full well the futility of trying for a crotch hold on an opponent with eight crotches.
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