Manny Puig
Manny Puig is an American wildlife entertainer who is known for his encounters with dangerous animals, such as sharks, black bears and American alligators. He has made frequent appearances on the television shows Jackass and Wildboyz, and also on the Animal Planet show Gator Boys. He is also known for hosting Outdoor Channel's "Savage Wild".
Puig has appeared in numerous documentaries as an animal expert. He has also appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and on Shark Week.
Early life
Puig was born in Cuba. At a young age, he and his mother immigrated to Florida, where he learned about wildlife, traveling through the Everglades, and hunting deer and catching small alligators.Career
In the late 1990s, Puig worked with Mehgan Heaney-Grier and Mark Rackley, both in training Grier as a free diver and in filming underwater encounters with animals such as alligators and sharks. Rackley worked as a spear fisherman and underwater videographer. Puig had experience as an animal handler on movie sets and learned how to ride and handle alligators in their environment. The trio formed a company called Extreme Encounters, and the footage they produced led to the Animal Planet series titled Extreme Contact.Puig has appeared on the television program Jackass, in Jackass: The Movie, Jackass Number Two, Jackass 2.5, Jackass 3D, and Jackass 3.5. In these projects, he is credited as an expert on predatory animals. One of Puig's stunts is featured in the second film, where he dives with Steve-O around hammerhead and other sharks. Steve-O recalled the segment in his autobiography:
Puig is also featured on the MTV program Wildboyz, where he resumes the role of a predatory-animal expert. In one segment of Wildboyz, Puig allowed a snapping turtle to bite his hand.
After finishing the second Jackass movie and with the final season of Wildboyz having completed, Puig produced his own film entitled Ultimate Predator. The film shows him interacting with sharks and other animals. The film also features adventures with Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, and Jeff Tremaine. Towards the end of filming, Puig left the set due to a confrontation with fellow wildlife expert David Weathers.
During Discovery Channel's Shark Week in 2003, Puig was profiled for an episode entitled "Diary of a Shark Man".
Puig's left middle finger was amputated after a rattlesnake bite.