Case Details

Dog-fighting
Saint Paul, MN (US)

Incident Date: Sunday, Apr 30, 2000
County: Dakota
Local Map: available
Disposition: Convicted

Abuser/Suspect: Will Henry Grigsby

Case ID: 4567
Classification: Fighting
Animal: dog (pit-bull)
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Title-winning boxer "Steel" Will Grigsby served over a year of a two-year, three-month sentence for second-degree assault. The charge stems from a drunken, late-night incident during which Grigsby shot at his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend (he missed). It was just the last in a string of run-ins with the law. In May 2000, Grigsby was in Florida training for another title bout when he got word from friends that he was wanted. "My phone kept ringing," he recalls, "and they were like, 'You're on the news.' And I said, 'Yeah, I've got a fight coming up.' And they're like, 'No, they got you for dog fighting.' I didn't believe it. But then I saw the tape, and I was like, 'Yeah. They do.'" The tape in question came from the raid of a central Minnesota farm where Grigsby kept a stable of pit pulls. Off camera, Grigsby could be heard narrating grisly fights.

It was as a boy growing up in St. Paul's Selby-Dale neighborhood that Grigsby first got "into dogs," as he puts it. "A friend of mine had one," he says. "It was strong and it wanted to get at everything it saw. Then one day, I saw a fight on the street, and I was like, 'Whoa, that's kind of cool, two dogs that want to do that.'" A few years later, he owned his first pit, a female named Simba. It was no trouble finding a dog fight. He paired Simba against all comers. "She was a nine-time winner," he says proudly. "If a pit bull wins three times, they call them champions. If they win five times, that's a grand champion. On her fifth time, Simba lost. I put her back out there to see if that broke her spirit. She went on to win four more fights."

Grigsby was charged with felony dog fighting, though he says that by the time of his arrest, he had traded dog fighting for dog breeding. It wasn't that he'd lost his nerve, he was just looking for a more lucrative trade. Dog fighting, he says, isn't any more cruel than the sport in which he made his own mark. "To me, it's just like boxing. It's cruel if you put a pit bull on a poodle, or a pit bull on another pit bull that don't want to fight. But if you have two dogs that weigh the same amount in an organized dog fight, well, that's just like boxing."

At Rush City, Grigsby works on the grounds crew, which involves shoveling snow, mowing grass, planting flowers, and "whatever else needs to be done." In some ways, he observes, the routine is not unlike training for a big fight: strict sleep schedules, regular workouts, no women. "The only things that separate this from training camp is the double bunks." When he gets out, he doesn't plan to get back into dogs. He wants another title shot, then to retire as a champion and open a health club. "I was never in this for the glory," he says. "It's a dangerous sport. I do it for the money."

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References

City Pages - Nov 23, 2003

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