We get to experience great, fascinating and sometimes weird things when living in another state.
Y’all…it’s a thing.
A big thing.
Over 7,000 people were there to witness it, including us three Wooster girls.
You can go to state and become state champions in your division.
PIG WRESTLING!
There’s betting against the teams. A WHOLE ‘LOTTA betting. One team got 780 dollars betted against them. Each team in each division is paraded out, and the betting/auctioning starts. All winning bets are placed into a division jackpot and the team with the fastest time splits the total pot with the winning bet-ers. One division jackpot was well over 1800 dollars.
After all winning bids are in, the ‘rasslin starts. Each four person team is given two minutes to ‘rassle their pig or piglet bottom side down into the barrel in the middle of the ring.
The only catch? That’s not just any ‘ole mud they are wrestling in. That’s Wyoming’s finest bentonite.
Bentonite as defined by Wikipedia:
Bentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate, impure clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. The absorbent clay was given the name bentonite by Wilbur C. Knight in 1898, after the Cretaceous Benton Shale near Rock River, Wyoming.[1][2]
My definition: It’s nasty, super slippery, sticky and slick.
Matt uses it around the ranch at times. It’s THE hardest thing to clean off of jeans, boots, and clothes. I would much rather him roll in cow manure, dirt or mud than to mess with bentonite.
Back to the story…
In the smallest junior division, the piglets were around 40-50lbs, the pigs were clean and the barrels were small.
In the upper divisions, as the pigs get bigger, and get bentonite thrown on them as they come out of the trailer.
Y’all…we had a GREAT time watching and cheering on the teams.
There were no winners in the 5 to 8 year old class. In the 9-14 year old class (the girls in the blue), the winning time was 20 seconds. There are women divisions and a men’s division.
The key to catching a pig, in bentonite, and putting it in a barrel to have the winning time?
Run, without falling, grab it by its snout and put your fingers in its mouth; paralyzing them every time. Then carefully and quickly carry the big thing over, without falling and letting it go, into the barrel.
Guess who wants to “train” and enter with a team for next year?
