The lion would have been a great trophy, really old but still sporting a beautiful shaggy mane. On the other hand probably that swift trampling was a more merciful way to go than begin eaten alive by hyenas.
On one of the wildlife shows they showed video of a good maned lion all by himself struggling to hold on to a wildebeest he had caught. He couldn't get a good bite on it's neck and finally was left on the ground with the wildebeest running off. They didn't mention this on the video but I was thinking that lion had probably been evicted from a pride and hadn't eaten in awhile leaving him too weak to bring down his prey when he really had a good position on it to do so.
