MMA fighter wrestles and pins down 10-foot alligator in wild scenes
An MMA fighter was faced with a 10-foot opponent that wasn’t another fighter but a huge alligator.
Thankfully, it was all caught on camera and shared on social media.
Amateur MMA fighter, Mike Dragich, 33, used his bare hands to take on the ferocious reptile as it crawled into a parking lot near an elementary school in Jacksonville, Florida.
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Dragich, who battled the animal in front of a cheering crowd, said the whole ordeal made him feel like a superhero.
Dressed in a tank top, Dragich, who is also known as @bluecollar_brawler, managed to handle the alligator as the animal snapped at him.
He's filmed trying to pin the animal down using a catch pole, as the pair battle it out on the grass in front of onlookers.
Dragich was able to loop the end of the pole around the animal’s neck.
“I feel like Batman, for real, you know,” he told local news station Fox 35 Orlando.
“We get there. I walked through the gate and boom. There it was just ready to go right there in the parking lot and we just had to get the job done,” he said.
The video also sees Dragich, along with several firefighters, sitting on the gator while three others help to keep the animal down.
“A lot of fighters will understand that uh, when you go to the cage, you're nervous but once that cage door closes, you gotta be focused and honestly that's what I remembered from that night,” he said.
"I always tell people, be very careful and don't do what I'm doing on social media. But, I can promise you, that the animals are respected and they are dealt with in a professional manner each and every time, regardless of what it may look like on social media."
When he’s not tackling alligators, the US Marine Corps veteran dedicates his time to working on his nonprofit, called Project Savior Outdoors, to help connect veterans experiencing PTSD with the great outdoors in an effort to prevent suicide.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimates that there are around 1.3 million alligators of every size across its 67 counties.
Gregory Robinson