On tonight’s nail-biter episode of Man Vs Bear, Discovery’s late-season ratings hit, there will be a showdown on the mountain between a very fit man named Kannon and his furry competitor Bart.
We will let you in on a secret — even if you can bench over 500 pounds as our formidable human specimen Kannon can do, Bart is going to eat your lunch.
The look on Kannon’s face when Bart is brought to the tug of war pit shows how bravado melts away to “damn, that’s a big bear” respect in a nanosecond. You have to be in a big bear’s presence to fully grasp their size and potential for havoc and harm.
And Kannon, who host and award-winning sports commentator Brandon Tierney claims is the strongest and fittest of the human competitors, has a reality check and reckoning when he and Bart are facing each other.
In our exclusive clip, Brandon introduces us to Kannon. Unbeknownst to Kannon, he will soon be airborne despite his best locked quadriceps and hamstring efforts.
Speaking off-camera as we watch him ascend the platform, Kannon says: “King of the Mountain looks crazy, but my style definitely gives me an advantage over my competitors. I played football all my life and basketball and ran track… as a bodyguard I’ve seen some of the worst things people do and that’s what made me fearless.”
And then the camera pans to Bart. The bear lumbers in front of Kannon, who is now strapped into a rope that Bart has access to on the other end. He could literally reel him in like a doomed fish.
Kannon’s last words? “Damn. That’s a big bear, man.”
Tune in tonight to see if Kannon can beat Bart in any of the five challenges. So far, the humans have been sucking wind.
Tierney, who shared in an interview with People that he did not grow up in a world where wild animals can kill you, is used to commenting on athletic performances of people, not bears.
He has stated in interviews that he has nothing but respect for the bears in the competition, and he even entered the cage in the final challenge, a steel ball that is pushed around by the bear with it being in the closest proximity to the contestant. He described it as “bone rattling” and”eye opening” in his sit down interview.
In our exclusive interview with his co-host Casey Anderson, he described this cage as “the human blender.”
“You have the contestants come to the mountain and they actually think they have a chance to win!” He joked with People. He also shared that the medics worked overtime and that there was no way to mentally prepare enough for this competition.
“It doesn’t matter what you do…you can’t prepare for it,” he added.
“There’s an entire protocol on set, obviously,” Tierney said to People. “If that bear deviates from normal behavior, it can get scary.”
As for how the bears were treated on set? “They [bears] were treated better than we were, said Tierney, adding, “You could tell that the bears were comfortable!”
As for a favorite, Tierney picked the big boy, Bart, noting the other male, Tank who was more a connoisseur of pic-a-nic baskets and eating anything not nailed down. He also shared that the smallest bear, Honey Bump, was fast on her four feet.
Make sure to watch tonight as Kannon likely has the best chances of all the athletic human competitors to win at least one challenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV5latULk4g&feature=youtu.be
Man Vs Bear airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on Discovery.