For nineteen years Gator Grant held the championship title while he was in the World Wide Wrestling League, but brawling for so long eventually got the best of him. He developed slight brain damage from being hit in the head too many times, and he was not able to wrestle anymore. When Ed Garner created the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, it infuriated Gator that he could not compete in their league because of his condition and he simply wouldn’t meet the physical requirements. Trying to publicly mock the Thing and the U.C.W.F. on a live sports show, Gator only became the joke when the host called him a "jealous has-been." Determined to prove that he was still a champion, Grant went to the federation’s offices and demanded that he be given a shot against the “super wrestlers”, as he called them, but Garner would not risk the man’s life. Vance Astrovik psionically showed him the way out. Humiliated, Gator visited the swamps in New Orleans, near where he grew up, in search of the witch-woman, Jamala. Once there he demanded that she make him a potion to give him great power so he could be a winner one more time. Ignoring her warnings to the consequences of drinking the mixture, Gator guzzled it down and returned to Las Vegas.
During a six-man tag-team match, Gator made his way to the ring with considerable changes in his physical appearance. He was almost immediately attacked by the other combatants, and he was still no match for them. The Thing pleaded with the others to stop and even helped Gator subdue some of them, but the brew inside Gator continued to increase his strength, and soon, he was more than a match for any of them. Gator realized that he was undergoing a change that would take away his humanity, and after the fight between him and the Thing was taken outside the arena, he asked Thing to help him get away before anyone could see what he was becoming. Gator fully transformed into an adult alligator, and the Thing took him to the zoo where he could live out the rest of his days.
