The setting was the Saginaw Civic Center on a spring night in 2000. World Championship Wresting was in town for a taping of its 'Thunder' program. One of the matches was for the 'hardcore' title. There was a current feud between Shane Douglas and Terry Funk.

The oddity of the night was the match between Douglas and another wrestler, Norman Smiley, was interrupted by a man in a gorilla suit. Terry Funk was in the gorilla costume and pinned the champion for the belt.

What makes the match stand out is that the gorilla suit was used by a hockey team in Saginaw decades before the match took place.

The question came up recently on the Saginaw forum of Reddit.

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The commentators claim that the gorilla was a mascot for some ice hockey team in Saginaw.

I've looked all over the place, and cannot find mention of a gorilla mascot in Saginaw. Does anyone have more information?

Turns out that the Saginaw Gears used a gorilla costume for a few years in the early 80s. Wresting fans and Saginawians were equally amazed by this historical nugget.

The fact that they used the joke 17 years later is... ambitious? Lol

that’s so obscure

Absurd... but I expect nothing less from 2000 WCW.

that's a deep, deep, deep cut.

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The WWE has archival footage of a portion of the match showing the gorilla-costumed man in action and scoring the pinfall at the end of the video.

The moral of the story? Never underestimate the creativity of wresting writers and bookers. You just never know what odd, obscure well they'll pull a storyline from.

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