Lionel Giroux
| Little Beaver | |
|---|---|
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| Birth name | Lionel Giroux |
| Born | 1935 Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | December 4, 1995 (aged 60) |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | Little Beaver |
| Billed height | 4ft 4in (130 cm) |
| Billed weight | 60 lb (27 kg) |
| Debut | 1950 |
| Retired | 1987 |
Lionel Giroux (1935 – December 4, 1995) was a Canadian midget wrestler who is best known by his ring name Little Beaver. His most famous appearance was in a six-man match at WrestleMania III for the World Wrestling Federation.
Lionel Giroux began his wrestling career in 1950, at the age of fifteen, and then began to wrestle for promoters in Quebec. He, along with Sky Low Low, became two of the most famous midget wrestlers in wrestling who had enough drawing power to command a large portion of the live gate for wrestling events. Giroux helped to create the comedy matches that have since become a trademark for midget wrestling in Canada and the United States. In 1973, Giroux won the Pro Wrestling Illustrated Midget Wrestler of the Year award.
His last in-ring appearance was at WrestleMania III in the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan in 1987, at the age of 52. Giroux, wrestling as Little Beaver, teamed with Hillbilly Jim and fellow midget wrestler the Haiti Kid, defeating King Kong Bundy and his midget tag-team partners Little Tokyo and Lord Littlebrook, after Bundy was disqualified for attacking Little Beaver. During the match, Giroux suffered a back injury at the hands of Bundy after he was bodyslammed and had an elbow dropped on him by the 458 lb (208 kg) Bundy, which forced him to retire from professional wrestling (through the match Beaver had "annoyed" Bundy including elbowing him in the stomach, delivering a drop kick that had literally no effect, and slapping him with his Moccasin which Bundy claimed "Stung like a son-of-a-bitch"). In a 1998 interview Bundy said he hoped that he wasn't responsible for Giroux's early death, saying he wouldn't want that on his conscience.
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