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A Heavy Sports.com Editorial Oct 10/2000 Arm Wrestling -- From the Bar Room to the Ballroom By Bill Morrison It seems that most people still have the stigma in their minds that armwrestling involves big, beer bellied men twisting wrists while screaming at each other in a smoke hazed bar room, with a big brawl breaking out at the end of the match. Sure, that may be true to a very small extent, but armwrestling as a sport for the serious competitor nowadays, has gone far beyond the days of armwrestling in bars only. Today's sanctioned competitions are usually held in prestigious theaters, ballrooms, coliseums, and yes, the odd time in a drinking establisment, but the point is that the sport has come a long way with not only the change of venues, but also with the competitors involved. I grew up (and still live) in a small town where there was one armwrestling tournament held each year. This tournament was a big happening here in Fort Frances, Ontario, and took place at our local arena during the winter carnival. For years the local tough guys competed against each other for decent money, although not many took it seriously enough to train for the tournament. Over the years, word got out that Fort Frances was having big money armwrestling tournaments, and competitors from out of town slowly began showing up at our local tournament. These out of town competitors were usually "professional" armwrestlers, or guys that spent alot of time perfecting the skill of armwrestling, with group practices and travelling countless miles to compete in arm wrestling tournaments. I remember in 1988, when I was 17 years old, the Manitoba Armwrestling Association coming to town with a huge group of competitors selling t-shirts, sweatshirts and posters. Not only that, but they won just about every weight class in the tournament, with some of the 170 lb guys beating our heavyweights with ease. Needless to say, the local spectators absolutely hated these "professional armwrestlers" from out of town. Just last year, I was having dinner with Harvey Poetker from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and he told me a story of pulling(armwrestling) here in Fort Frances sometime in the '80s, and he had won 3 weight classes, when the locals chased him out throwing beer bottles at him!! For awhile there was talk of banning those nasty out-of-town professional armwrestlers from competing here, but we formed our own armwrestling club instead, and produced a number of top national competitors that in turn went to Manitoba and won many of their events(and luckily didn't have any beer bottles thrown at us!). Over the years as more locals were serious, trained armwrestlers, the spectators began to enjoy the stiff competition that they were seeing at the tournaments. I think this holds true with most tournaments held these days. They are being held in venues where the spectators and competitors show up for one reason-- Armwrestling.
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