People Ask Me All The Time, "How Did You Get The Nickname Gator?" So, Here's The Story

By: Scott Anderson

Growing up in my early teenage years, I became an uber-professional wrestling fan. I bought the magazines, made it appointment viewing every Saturday afternoon, and even asked my friends who had cable to tape the matches during the week so I wouldn't miss anything. It's embarrassing how much of a fan I used to be. My bedroom was littered wall to wall, floor to ceiling with posters of my heroes. I knew it was fake, but didn't care; I just loved the entertainment value.

As I grew older, my friends and I would create our own backyard matches complete with fake blood (we didn't have the stones to actually cut ourselves...so we had that going for us) and pre/post match interviews. We were obsessed with it. And when the WWF came to town, we rarely missed a show, saving up grass cutting money to pay for the next card's tickets.

Suffice it to say, I was a really big fan, particularly a big fan of wrestling's most dominating tag team, the Road Warriors. Hawk and Animal as they were called, were the Road Warriors before they were the Legion of Doom. They sported radical mowhawks; face paint, shoulder pads with spikes, and voices that make Pat Caputo sound like a soprano. My friend Guy and I joked that we would become the third and fourth members of the Road Warriors, Scorpion and Gator. Somehow, Scorpion never stuck but Gator on the other hand...

I wish it were a better story, something that involves a crazy summer spent on the Bayou hunting alongside Troy Landry and the rest of Swamp People, but the fact that I have all of my teeth will tell you otherwise. Nope, the truth is that I was a Hulkamaniac before he was "Running Wild" and could still probably name most of the WWF Heavyweight Champions prior to 1987. It's a little pathetic and yet, I'm kind of proud of some of that useless trivial knowledge. At least Ken Kal and I can converse about the Mighty Igor or the original Sheik and do so with a certain sense of pride, and may they both rest in peace.