A shoe-less MMA fighter wrestled an alligator in traffic on a busy Florida road and as ridiculous as it sounds, there’s video to prove it happened.
Fighter Mike Dragich is also a licensed trapper, and he was summoned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after an alligator showed up at a strip mall in the 3100 block of Edgewood Avenue in Jacksonville.
It happened around 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 21, and Dragich used his bare hands to grab the alligator and jump on its back as drivers passed, the video shows.
He then carried it in his arms like a naughty toddler (with the gator’s jaws taped shut).
Several police officers stood by, the video shows, working to control traffic and hold back a crowd on the sidewalk.
“Hold my sweet tea,” was the only thing Dragich wrote on social media.
He and his family were at a Jacksonville Icemen minor league hockey game when authorities called for a trapper, which is why he didn’t have equipment with him to subdue the 8-foot alligator, WJXT reported.
“It was only five minutes from the game, so I literally left the game, caught the alligator, and then went back to the game!” he told the station.
The video had more than 218,000 views on Facebook and 2,800 comments and reactions as of April 23, many from people noting Dragich reminded them of action star Jason Statham.
“So glad that (gentleman) was able show these folks how we do it in Florida,” Jachael Nichols wrote on Dragich’s Facebook page.
“That man is holding that alligator like a guitar. Florida is definitely different,” Racheal Reddick Williams posted.
“I love how the cops are just standing there like ‘cool glad you’re handling that,’” Rachel Beardsley said.
Dragich is a ranked middleweight mixed martial arts fighter who was last in the ring in December 2022, according to Tapology. His amateur MMA record: 2-2-0. He also leads a nonprofit called Project Savior Outdoors, which uses outdoor adventures to help veterans deal with post traumatic stress disorder.
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