Glacier

On the 1 April 2020 episode of AEW: Dynamite, approximately 45 minutes into the show, Cody Rhodes referred to "Ray 'Glacier' Lloyd" as the trainer of a debuting wrestler named Anna Jayy.

He would make his return to a major wrestling promotion on August 26, 2017, when he entered at #20 in Ring of Honor's 2017 Honor Rumble, where he would be eliminated by Bully Ray.

Lloyd volunteered his time as he contributes as a celebrity to create awareness to programs such as the 8th Annual David Maus Foundation Golf Tournament held at Grand Cypress Golf Club & Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida on May 18, 2012. Ray played along with athletes from the NFL such as Mark Carrier, Mark Duper as well MLB former player Barry Larkin, NBA Players Nick Anderson and Bo Outlaw in addition Chris Kirkpatrick of N'Sync and Golfers Jim Thorpe, David Rose and many others.

Lloyd also helped raise awareness of Breast Cancer for the non-profit organization Rock Pink in conjunction with The Monsters in the Morning radio show in the annual Monsters Celebrity Bowling Tournament on June 30, 2012 at Boardwalk Bowling in Orlando, FL. Ray participated on Team Aqua Pool Dealer alongside Hell's Kitchen Season 5 Winner Danny Veltri and Entertainer / Swimming Pool Executive Jim Deberry.

He then made a return appearance in the 2009 King of Trios tournament on March 27, 2009, teaming with Al Snow and D'Lo Brown in another first-round loss, this time against The UnStable of Vin Gerard, Colin Delaney, and STIGMA.

After TCW folded in 2003, Lloyd made sporadic appearances with Georgia Championship Wrestling, and held a backstage position with TNA Wrestling. He again wrestled as Glacier as part of Ultimate Christian Wrestling's Ultimate Armageddon Tour 2006, and participated in the CHIKARA King of Trios tournament in Philadelphia on March 2, 2008, teaming with Los Ice Creams as their mystery partner in a first-round loss against Team Mexico. Lloyd also feuded with TNA and IWA star Ricky Vega on the Florida independent Circuit in 2008.

In addition to wrestling, Lloyd has pursued an acting career in both film and television. He had auditioned (unsuccessfully) for a part on the CBS program Walker, Texas Ranger back in 1997, and though he had expressed interest in an acting career in an interview with WCW journalist Chad Damiani the next year, he finally appeared in his first film, a low-budget movie titled Blood Bath, in 2002. He guest-starred in the season finale of the USA Network series Burn Notice, which aired on September 20, 2007. Lloyd also worked as a stuntman at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida, playing the part of a German flight engineer in the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! show until November 2004.

Lloyd left WCW (which ceased operations six weeks later) permanently and returned to the independent circuit. On April 21, he won the TCW tag belts with Jorge Estrada. One of the highlights of Lloyd's wrestling career was fulfilling a childhood dream of winning the NWA World tag team titles, which he accomplished with Jason Sugarman on December 28, 2002, but Sugarman retired shortly after due to a career-ending injury. In 2002, he rejuvenated his Glacier gimmick to team with Big Ron Studd, with whom he won the tag title for the second time in his TCW stint on January 3, and then enjoyed a second reign as TCW Heavyweight Champion.

Lloyd returned to WCW in January 2001, and Glacier was now played out in the angle as a superhero parody, with him pledging to watch Smiley's back during matches. In separate contests against Mike Awesome and Bam Bam Bigelow on Thunder, an overpowered Smiley lost decisively both times because Glacier took his time coming to the ring in order to interact with fans. He then entered the ring after the fact to pose for the fans before pushing Smiley out of the way to perform his old kata routine. Though Lloyd never wrestled an actual match, the gimmick was a surprisingly mild success given the previous history of the character (a fan during the Bigelow match was seen on camera holding a sign that read "Glacier is My Hero"), but the angle abruptly ended and Glacier was not seen again following a skit on the February 7 edition of Thunder in which he was pummeled offscreen by Sean O'Haire inside his dressing room.

Along with Dusty Rhodes, Lloyd co-founded Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling (TCW) in 2000, which held shows throughout the Southeast and whose roster featured additional WCW castoffs such as Scotty Anton (Scotty Riggs), Barry Windham, Big Ron Studd, and Chad Fortune. Lloyd wrestled under his real name, and was the TCW Heavyweight Champion from July to October 2000, when he was dethroned by Windham.

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

By early 1999, Glacier was again booked to lose to lower-card opponents so that WCW could finally bury the character and allow Lloyd to transition into a new one. This came to a head on February 6, when he was pinned on Saturday Night by Al Green. Five days later, a series of skits aired on Thunder in which Glacier, tired of his gimmick, sold his armor, mask, and helmet to Kaz Hayashi and Miller; Onoo convinced the gullible Hayashi to buy the gear for ten times Glacier's asking price. For a short time, Miller came out to Glacier's music and entrance, while Hayashi wore his armor and mask to the ring.

Though Lloyd had not appeared on television following the end of Glacier, he, along with Gene Okerlund, Alex Wright, and other WCW personalities, attended the public grand opening of the Nitro Grill at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on May 22, 1999; the restaurant lasted only sixteen months and closed in September 2000.

On August 19, Lloyd made his first televised appearance in six months, this time on Thunder in the first of several promos as Coach Buzz Stern, featuring longtime independent wrestler Luther Biggs. The clips were filmed at the WCW Power Plant and served to introduce the storyline of Stern choosing the clumsy Biggs as his protege, and aired until the end of September, when Biggs was pinned by Bobby Eaton in his in-ring debut on Thunder; Stern put Biggs in a postmatch full nelson as punishment. Over the following month, Stern served as Biggs' manager for only three additional matches: a squash loss to Meng on Thunder, a pinfall victory over Dave Burkhead on Saturday Night, and a match against Barry Darsow (wrestling as Blacktop Bully) on Worldwide, which Biggs won only after Stern's outside interference. Though the Stern character was inspired by Lloyd's days as a high school football coach prior to his WCW career, and had received buildup in Mark Madden's weekly WCW.com column, he received an indifferent reception from fans, and after Lloyd himself wrestled his only match as Stern in a November 4 Thunder loss to Eddie Guerrero, the angle was shelved and both Stern and Biggs were removed from television. Lloyd was one of many wrestlers released by the company on November 21, 1999 as part of a cost-cutting measure.

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

After spending the beginning of his WCW career in the midcard, it was not until March 1997 that Glacier was put into his first long-term feud, with Mortis, who was depicted in the new storyline as an Asian pitfighter who was one of eccentric manager James Vandenberg's collection of "rare oddities" and who had shared a history with Glacier. The angle was titled "Blood Runs Cold"; the slogan had not been used since the vignettes from the previous year had stopped airing.

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

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 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. Glacier then defeated Bubba on his Nitro debut on September 16, ending the brief feud. The original costume and blue lighting were scrapped, however, after only his fourth match, a pinfall victory on Nitro over Mike Wenner on September 30. Following a subsequent ten-week hiatus off WCW television, he reappeared on Nitro on December 2, in which he debuted a new ring outfit and entrance music, then pinned Hardbody Harrison in a 60-second squash.

Despite an undefeated twelve-month singles period from September 1996 to August 1997, Glacier remained entrenched in the midcard ranks. He was booked as a heel for 1998, starting with an edition of WCW Saturday Night on January 24 in a rematch alongside Miller against Mortis and Wrath. Glacier and Miller were to fight each other two weeks earlier on the program, but it was called off after Glacier was attacked by Mortis and Wrath offscreen beforehand. However, during the tag match, Glacier turned on Miller, allowing Mortis and Wrath to get the win. This brought the "Blood Runs Cold" angle to an official close as Mortis and Wrath were split up from Vandenberg and moved into the singles ranks.

During WCW's Mayhem pay-per-view on November 26, a Glacier promo from 1996 was re-broadcast, this time with the tagline "Blood Runs Colder," after which he was openly buried by the announce team. The promos were aired infrequently on Nitro and Thunder, and during Starrcade. The night after Starrcade, Norman Smiley was seen on Nitro watching a promo on a backstage monitor, then happily reacting to having "a real hero" in WCW.

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. 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.

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. 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 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 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."

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.

Raymond M. Lloyd (born May 13, 1964) is an American semi-retired martial artist, professional wrestler, and actor. He is best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling from 1996 to 1999 under the ring name Glacier.