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large American alligator in Florida next to 'Welcome to Florida' road sign
An MMA fighter in Florida who spends his days as an alligator wrangler was called to a local elementary school to remove a juvenile alligator which had gotten trapped near the HVAC units. Mike Dragich who goes by ‘Blue Collar Brawler’ on Instagram proceeded to handle the situation with a deft hand.
Upon spotting the small alligator, Dragich used his bare hands to grab the feisty reptile that clearly did not want to go without a tussle.
Florida MMA Fighter Catches Alligator With Bare Hands At Elementary School
Mike Dragich has been working as an alligator wrangler for years. He has been featured here several times such as in April of last year when he used nothing but a plastic trash can to capture a 6-foot alligator, and back in April of 2024 he used his bare hands to capture an 8′ alligator in Jacksonville, Florida.
Now he’s back and this time he got the call from a local elementary school in the Jacksonville area. And while the alligator itself is just a juvenile anyone who lives in a state filled with alligators will tell you the smaller ones are A LOT MORE feisty than the fully-grown gators. As a born and raised Floridian, I would much rather have to deal with an alligator in the 6′ range than one this size because the little guys are faster and more unpredictable.
Check ’em out:
Dragich is just shy of 500K followers on Instagram these days. Clearly whatever he is doing is working as people love watching him catch alligators with his bare hands. That said, there are times in which he needs to use traditional tools for alligator wranglers.
In his most recent video, he was called out to capture a much heftier gator in a downtown Jacksonville neighborhood. It had lodged itself against a fence and was clearly a danger to itself and the neighborhood as thing were, and in dire need of capture and relocation to a safer area. Check ’em out:
The most Florida thing about me is that I genuinely believe I could be an alligator wrangler tomorrow with virtually zero training. My childhood was spent pulling alligator snapping turtles and snakes out of ditches and ponds. When videos like this come across my feed the Florida in me whispers ‘you could do that’ despite having never attempted to even get close to an alligator in the wild as I always respect their space… Maybe one day…