Glacier

Raymond M. Lloyd (born May 13, 1964) is an American martial artist, professional wrestler, and actor.

He graduated from Brunswick High School in 1982, and played offensive tackle for the school football team all four years, becoming its first All-State player in his senior year.

He additionally competed for the track and field team, in the shot put and discus.

A skilled martial artist, Lloyd took up Hung Ga at fourteen, later adding other disciplines.

His school was owned and taught by a former government agent and a U.S. Marshal, before it closed to the public in 1982.

In 1983, he began competing for the World Karate Association in full-contact tournaments, eventually winning the United States Southeastern Super Heavyweight title.

During his WKA stint, he was never knocked out or even knocked down; his only loss came on a disqualification.

However, when the WKA changed its rules in 1985 to allow kicks from the knee up (they were previously only from the waist up), Lloyd opted to retire from competition in order not to jeopardize his football scholarship by risking injury.

He played center for Valdosta State University (the same alma mater as former WCW announcer Scott Hudson), under coach Mike Cavan, and was a teammate of former Atlanta Falcons linebacker Jessie Tuggle during his collegiate career.

Lloyd graduated in 1989 with a master's degree in education.

Lloyd began his wrestling career shortly after graduation.

He was trained by Georgia grappler Fred Avery in a makeshift ring set up in Avery's backyard, and then cut his teeth on the Georgia independent circuit for two years, during which he was given the ring name "Sugar Ray" Lloyd by Tommy Rich.

Lloyd joined World Championship Wrestling (then the NWA) for their 1989 Great American Bash tour, in which his debut match was a loss to Butch Reed in Albany, Georgia.

He moved to Atlanta in 1990, and again as "Sugar Ray" Lloyd, tag teamed with Swain as "The Blazers," named such after the Valdosta State athletic mascot.

In 1991, Pro Wrestling Illustrated held a contest for readers to come up with a ring name for Swain.

Lloyd additionally competed in the North Georgia Wrestling Alliance, alongside future WCW stars Scotty Riggs, Buff Bagwell, and Disco Inferno.

Lloyd's second stint in WCW was when he was booked to be defeated by The Great Muta at a house show in Atlanta.

Following that match, at Muta's request, Lloyd joined Muta on a string of WCW house shows before he moved to Japan in 1993.

He joined the UWFI as a guest of shootfighter Nobuhiko Takada, and competed against Japanese and American fighters.

He is best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling from 1996 to 1999 under the ring name Glacier.

Lloyd was born into a law-enforcement family in Brunswick, Georgia.

Lloyd returned to the United States after UWFI folded in 1996, and during a conversation with friend Diamond Dallas Page, he mentioned that he was planning to integrate martial arts into his wrestling, which he had been unable to do during the early days of his career.

At Page's request, WCW president Eric Bischoff, a martial arts practitioner himself, met with Lloyd for three hours and signed him to a contract.

Beginning in April 1996, Lloyd's new ring persona, Glacier, a gimmick similar to the Mortal Kombat character Sub-Zero, was introduced via a series of vignettes during WCW programming that featured the tagline Blood Runs Cold.

He was fictionally profiled in the October 1996 issue of WCW Magazine as having traveled to Japan to study a fighting style that combined martial arts and pro wrestling maneuvers, with a 400-year-old helmet passed down to him by his master instructor, David Stater.

He was then given the name "Glacier" by sensei Stater as a symbolization of the power of the elements.

Glacier was also given one of the most extravagant entrances in wrestling at the time, which consisted of blue laser lights streaming across the arena and synthetic snow falling from the ceiling, while the ring was enveloped in blue lighting.

Production costs for the entrance amounted to nearly half a million dollars, while the costume and armor, designed by Andre Freitas of Atlanta-based AFX Studios, cost $35,000.

The number 126 was carved into the armor's single breastplate as a reference to his father's badge number.

Glacier wore a blue contact lens in his right eye to top off the outfit, which often prompted comments from WCW Monday Nitro analyst Bobby Heenan, such as "[He's] half man, half Siamese cat."

After slowly walking to the ring, he then engaged in a ritual of standing on a center turnbuckle in order to remove his armor and mask, then somersaulting off the buckle and into the center of the ring to perform a kata routine; this process sometimes lasted as long as two minutes.

Moreover, since he was a face character, he would bow to the referee and his opponent.

His debut finally occurred on September 9, 1996 episode of Pro, when he pinned The Gambler in a match, which was also one of only two matches in which he executed his Cryonic Kick finisher off the top rope before it was changed to a spinning reverse roundhouse kick, and subsequently to standard side kick.

To further accentuate the character's image, Lloyd, a natural brunette, temporarily bleached his hair blond from April to December 1997.

Glacier was originally intended to debut in July, but due to the coinciding appearance and immediate impact of the New World Order at the Bash at the Beach pay-per-view that month, his debut was delayed indefinitely; WCW worked this into a feud with Big Bubba Rogers, who criticized Glacier's hype and the overlong wait for his arrival during interviews on Nitro with the Dungeon of Doom.

His father, Harold, served as a commander with the Georgia State Patrol for 28 years; his mother, Lois, worked with the Georgia Driver's License Division prior to her retirement in 1999; and his fraternal twin brother, Ron, is a retired state trooper.

A lifelong professional wrestling fan, Lloyd and his brother attended shows at the Jacksonville Coliseum.

He recalled in a March 2001 interview with WCW Magazine, "To be in the same ring with a man that big who could move like that was intimidating."

Lloyd worked as an assistant high school football coach at Lassiter High in Marietta, and at Valdosta Junior High School, once organizing a one-time pro wrestling event in the Valdosta High school gymnasium in which he participated.

During weekends he worked Southern Championship Wrestling shows while receiving further training from Mr. Wrestling II and Bob Armstrong.