‘Man Vs. Bear’: Get Your First Inside Look at Discovery Channel’s Wild New Competition Series (Exclusive)

As humans take on some of nature’s most intimidating animals in feats of pure athleticism, Man Vs. Bear promises “nothing you’ve seen before.” Ahead of the Discovery competition show’s Wednesday, Dec. 4 premiere, PopCulture.com can exclusively reveal footage of just how the human challengers will go up against the three grizzly bears in tests of strength, speed and stamina.

It will be no easy task competing against the bears for the win, as seen in the intense new clip of the series. Indeed, Discovery promises “humans will be entering the bear’s territory and take them on in a competition like never attempted.”

The premise of the show is simple, yet untested. Each week, the three grizzlies — Bart, Honey Bump and Tank — will compete against three human competitors to test their athletic limits at a course set up in their Utah sanctuary, including everything from a tug-of-war challenge to a race involving giant logs. All of the challenges are set up to draw on a bear’s natural instincts, putting the human competitors at even more of a disadvantage going in.

In the final round of the series, the top two human competitors will face off against Bart, an 8-foot-6-inch tall grizzly male weighing in at 1,4000 lbs., and whichever person earns the most points will walk away with the victory. Then the top three human competitors, points-wise, will return one final time for a showdown against the entire bear trio.

“Competing against bears is both scary and exciting,” Ira, an MMA fighter and competitor from Dallas, Texas told Discovery. “It’s competing against the unknown. This is a completely new challenge for me.”

Adding to the excitement will be commentary on the action from experts Brandon Tierney, an Emmy Award-winning sports commentator and Casey Anderson, a wildlife expert and the founder of the Montana Grizzly Encounter, also having rescued seven bears from inhumane captivity situations.

Man Vs. Bear premieres Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Discovery and is available each week on the Discovery GO app.

Man vs. Bear is produced for Discovery Channel by Kinetic Content, a Red Arrow Studios company, with Chris Coelen, Eric Detwiler, Vincent Cariati, Steve Kaufman, Paul Lima and Karrie Wolfe as executive producers. For Discovery, Joseph Boyle and Bill Howard are executive producers and Jessica Mollo is associate producer.

Photo credit: Discovery