32-year-old Ashley Lawrence was the only girl participating in the Freestyle Alligator Wrestling Competition in Brighton, Florida. In fact, she’s actually the very first girl to ever take part in the competition and she showed the crowd she could hang with the men.
Ashley told LadBible, “When you are breaking ground or entering any sort of arena where you are ‘the first’, it’s natural to feel the pressure and to worry that you are not good enough.”
Regardless of being the first, she wowed everybody as she handled the gator with ease. She performed many tricks with the reptile and even stuck her head inside the jaws of the beast who was much larger than she is. Ashley is only 4-foot 11-inches and weighs 110 pounds and somehow she was able to manage wrestling an 8.5-foot gator.
The competition is held on a Native American reservation owned by the Seminole Indians and the techniques she was using to safely capture the gator were techniques she learned from them. The Seminole Indians hold this competition every year and they were honored to have Ashley as the first girl to ever compete.
“It is utterly humbling when you are embraced and applauded for your efforts and that is how everyone made me feel that day. It was so moving to hear the excitement and love from women who felt inspired by me,” she said.