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MIAMI —  The toughest man at the Super Bowl has teeth marks on his head, chunks missing from his fingers, and sometimes forgets the name of his children.

“I’ve got back problems, ankle problems, and mental problems,” says Kenny Cypress.

The toughest man at the Super Bowl doesn’t play for the Denver Broncos or the Atlanta Falcons. Other than John Elway, he can’t even name any of the players.

“Football guys are tough,” he says. “But how many of them get their hands bit off?”

The toughest guy at the Super Bowl will not go to the game, but he is part of its scene, a diverse and sometimes untamed South Florida swirl that makes this the greatest place for America’s greatest single sports event.

From a thatched-roof hut in an Everglades clearing only 45 miles--but light-years--from the football action, it is Kenny Cypress’ duty to provide perspective this week.

Not all cultures adore those who can conquer an opponent while wearing a shiny helmet and glistening pads.

Some prefer those who can do the same thing with their bare hands.

Kenny Cypress, an alligator wrestler who once had his head trapped inside an angry gator’s mouth for 30 seconds, is such a man.

“He is as famous as any football player,” said Diana Hedges, a tour guide at the Miccosukee Indian Village on the Tamiami Trail Reservation. “People come from all over the world just to see him.”

Cypress makes big money, has been featured in newspapers and videos and, yes, he even has groupies.

Forget this talk about Bill Romanowski being the poster boy for Super Bowl toughness.

Compared with Cypress, Romanowski is so much eye black.

Romanowski fights in armor. Cypress fights in dirty short pants and high-top shoes and a Florida Marlin shirt purchased at Wal-Mart.

Romanowski has countless trainers and doctors at his disposal.

Cypress, despite countless injuries from the gators, refuses to visit a doctor because he is afraid of them.

What’s the biggest thing Romo has done, “The NFL Today”?

Kenny Cypress has been featured on “When Good Pets Go Bad.”

On Sunday, you will hear many times that football is about survival.

Forgive those Miccosukees who would rather watch alligator wrestling, which really is about survival.

According to tradition, because alligator meat spoils quickly, long-ago Miccosukee tribes were forced to catch gators live and bring them to their swamp camps while being pursued by government forces.

Fast-forward to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday of Super Bowl week. It’s showtime at the parched makeshift tourist village, where several hungry alligators are being held in a concrete pool.

Well, maybe not quite showtime.

“Ah, the people can wait,” growls Cypress, 28, a short, stout man with a crooked grin who talks the way his eight pit bulls look.

You know how they look because he has two of them tattooed on his right arm.

“A cop came to my house the other day after I called about a trespasser; the cop was attacked by one of my dogs, he had to mace him,” says Cypress, who lives on the desolate reservation. “The good thing is, the cop said the mace only made my dog meaner.”

He eventually steps into the pool in front of 10 tourists, who gasp while the alligators hiss.

“That’s their way of telling you to get back,” Cypress says.

Moments later he has a live snout trapped between his chin and chest in the classic alligator wrestler pose. The crowd cheers, the show ends, Cypress sighs.

“Can’t really do what I want to do anymore,” he says.

That would be sticking his head in the alligator’s mouth, which is how this half-Miccosukee, half-Caucasian got so nationally famous as a tough guy in the first place.

“They say I’m 50% Indian, 50% redneck,” he says. “I don’t argue.”

Cypress got stuck on the first day of 1998, in a show in front of 200 tourists who braved the hot, numbing ride through the swamp on a two-lane highway from Miami.

Cypress had performed the head trick many times, but this time, he got lazy.

Instead of wiping the sweat from both sides of his head so nothing will drip into the alligator’s mouth--thereby setting off the jaws in an uncontrollable clamp--he cleaned only one side of his head.

Moments later, as seen in an amateur video, the nearly 10-foot, 350-pound gator clamped his jaws around Cypress’ closely trimmed noggin.

Tourists can be heard screaming. Three men, shouting and panicking, rushed into the pen to pry open the alligator’s jaws.

Kenny Cypress looked like he was smiling.

“The only thing that bothered me was the alligator’s breath,” he says. “It smelled like bad chicken.”

About 30 seconds later, when the alligator relaxed his jaws for a second to get a bigger bite, Cypress popped out.

There was blood pouring from the side of his head. An alligator tooth was lodged in his ear.

After a short break, he tried to walk back into the pen to finish wrestling but fell flat on his face and was rushed to a hospital.

He suffered severe cuts, a broken jaw and a head injury that went untreated because he refused to stay in the hospital overnight.

“I’ve got a phobia,” the tough guy says. “Hospital and needles.”

He wonders if his failure to allow his head to be examined has led to his recent spate of forgetfulness.

No matter. He was back to work three days later, and, thanks to European TV, somewhat of an international legend soon thereafter.

“I came all the way out here just to see him,” says Scott DePue, a tourist from Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday. “After watching him on television, I wanted to see if he was OK.”

Kenny Cypress somehow always manages to be OK, since the days he poked alligators with sticks as a child in his dirt backyard.

When he became a teenager, he began riding swamp boats into the endless watery fields around his house and catching the alligators for sale to the village tourist centers.

Then, as now, the animals were caught only on protected tribal grounds, and only for food or show.

If they are caught for show, they are held only until they grow too big to wrestle. Then they are released back into the swamps.

“To some, it may seem strange,” Cypress says. “But my grandfather did this, my uncle did this, these are our traditions.”

He played football in grade school and in his first year of high school but eventually got into too many fights and was cut.

He hasn’t watched much since.

Even when amazed football players from the Miami Dolphins have invited him to visit them, he has refused.

“This is where I live,” he says. “This is who I am.”

And who does he like in the big game?

Kenny Cypress doesn’t even know which team is from the AFC and which is from the NFC.

“Bill Romanowski?” asks the toughest man at the Super Bowl, staring out over his lovely, deadly corner of the world. “Who’s he?”

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com