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Post by Tim Lewis on Nov 3, 2014 8:43:53 GMT -5
Tim B again. Can anyone tell me if a puller places 9th and there is a puller ahead of him that has already quallified is he able to go to New Orleans In Atlantic City, Karen Bean said the answer to this was maybe but nothing has been decided yet. The other thing to consider is say 20-25 guys are on that list and then 4 or 5 decide not to go for whatever reason. She said athletes would receive a phone call if they decided to do this. The other thing that has not be specificaly clarified on the website is say a puller qualified in a certain weight class will be they be allowed to go up or down in weight or do they have to weigh in at the same weight. I'm sure they will clarify this soon.
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Post by Joe Dimino on Nov 3, 2014 10:51:52 GMT -5
Debbie, I guess I look at it differently. I would love to go to a tournament that paid 400, 300, and 200 to first second and third, and only 5-8 people showed up. Most small local tournaments have 5-8 in a weight class and I don't even get a trophy. As a guy, I would never have the opportunity to win 2 or 3 hundred dollars by only getting two wins. Our third place pays $300 and your third place pays $200 but I have to fight through 40 guys to get there (~ 6 wins). Honestly you guys are getting hooked up. I would love to switch places with you.
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Post by Pete & Tim on Nov 3, 2014 12:15:20 GMT -5
Tim. B again. I have been to turneys we're we end takeing home more trophies than we give out Karen Bean talks about building womens armwresling and now you have very few diehards left Sue F. Christein C Jody L. And a couple more but for most part NO WOMEN SHOW UP
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Post by Kyle Darby on Nov 3, 2014 12:26:23 GMT -5
No problem Debbie it's not patronizing to me because it your fantasy so go live it as you choose. To me it's clear you got limited experience with this sport. You bend facts in a effort to support your argument of cavemen still being sexist. I find it bizarre nobody is crying about the consistency of youth classes or disabled classes. When year after year promoters, Jaff Janes, Robert Drenk, WAL, Neil Pickup, Mark Zalepa push very hard and support women. Yet small promoters still offer classes get poor results and take home boxes of trophies due to lack of participation. It's hard to garnish sympathy given the facts. Over the 10 years I have been competing I have seen multiple women's classes with 0-4 competitors. I have witnessed multiple promoters offer freen entries just so there would be 1 or 2 women in the class. How many women win unified nationals or qualify for Worlds their first time going compared to men? I hope you understand that is attributed to participation and not skill. The bottom line is regardless of race, creed, gender, age, merits if someone wants to be a victim that's the picture they'll paint.
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Post by Matthew Craig on Nov 3, 2014 15:20:56 GMT -5
That is the problem. The last tournament I went to (Texas Challenge) not a single woman showed up to pull. I'm only charging $15 per arm for ladies at my upcoming tournament, because I genuinely enjoy watching women's arm wrestling. With all funds for this tournament coming from my pocket, and the excess going to a very worthy charity. I simply can't afford to throw a large amount of cash out when only 4 pullers show up.
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Post by Kyle Darby on Nov 3, 2014 15:38:36 GMT -5
Every single argument made can and will be made for women, kids, left hand, and disabled classes. Armwrestling is a sport and with every sport there is evolution. Contrary to popular belief Rhonda Rousey wasn't at UFC 1 and despite that the sport still evolved.
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Post by John Milne on Nov 3, 2014 17:57:57 GMT -5
I'm enjoying this thread.
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Post by David Owens on Nov 3, 2014 20:11:41 GMT -5
I have hosted around fifteen tournaments and I can say this with the utmost confidence, if I held an event with a year notice and 5 womens left handed classes and 5 womens right handed classes I would be almost certain to have a large box of about 75% of those prizes at minimum to take home with me.
Think about why the sport started adding classes? And why they add new classes? And novice classes...amateurs? There was a demand for it! I'm not going to go into the led industry when I know there is little to no demand...there is an easy fix to this, women want a bigger role then they need to recruit and SHOW UP and the promoters will supply their demand. Even the fund raisers need to be able to break even, and that has to factor in to what classes you offer.
Having said that if WAL said you would for sure qualify then they should keep their word.
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Herman Stevens
Gold Member
Team Bakersfield / Team Louisiana
Posts: 730
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Post by Herman Stevens on Nov 3, 2014 23:17:00 GMT -5
I have been to events where we begged female spectators from the crowd to signup because no female arm wrestlers attended.
Do you think the the UAL and WAL created arm wrestling for men? Invented arm wrestling for men? NO! There were male arm wrestlers, and they saw an opportunity. They did not create a male following. They did not introduce the current elite to the sport or the bulk of the pullers. We were already here without the money, without the tv show. I started arm wrestling in 2010 with the understanding that there would never be any money.
Where are the women to justify the money? Who are you, who are the women to think they get equal money without participation? It sucks for the Margie's, Muchelle's etc, but there simply isn't participation.
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Herman Stevens
Gold Member
Team Bakersfield / Team Louisiana
Posts: 730
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Post by Herman Stevens on Nov 3, 2014 23:21:36 GMT -5
There were more than 2 women in the voting class... There were more than 3 black guys in the super heavyweight freedom class...
This is arm wrestling,...let's not compare this to such large issues.
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Post by John Milne on Nov 3, 2014 23:34:14 GMT -5
I want to see more ranting.
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Post by Matthew Craig on Nov 4, 2014 1:20:14 GMT -5
Like I said, if I get 25 ladies to pull both arms I'll payout the full $300 per arm to the winners. I just need ladies to show.
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Post by Matthew Craig on Nov 4, 2014 1:21:47 GMT -5
The money taken in goes to Mended little Hearts, a very worthy charity.
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Post by Kyle Darby on Nov 4, 2014 5:11:41 GMT -5
Yeah and I got some entitlement issues as well. I think I should get a UMU with a guaranteed purse win or lose. But if I'm Robert Drenk I'm thinking that $ h!+ must look better in Kyle Darby's head than on paper. Doesn't stop me from hoping.
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Post by Taylor Johnson on Nov 10, 2014 22:57:03 GMT -5
Latest from WAL regarding New Orleans:
NEW ORLEANS QUALIFIER UPDATES Pullers:
There have been a couple of big questions that have come up recently about the New Orleans event — let’s take a second to circulate some answers around the WAL community. Ready… go!
On filling open slots in the men’s New Orleans brackets:
One big question we’ve had is: since some guys qualified multiple times for New Orleans, will we fill any open bracket spots with 9th place finishers or beyond? Answer:
Unfortunately, no, we will not fill in those open bracket positions for a couple of reasons. Nor will we exercise our option to invite any non-qualified arm-wrestlers. First, because we have 9th and 10th place finishers from four different events (most of whom haven’t pulled each other), there is no good, objectively fair way to determine which of those guys should get to go to the finals. In most cases, that leaves us with a 25-28-man bracket for New Orleans, which is still pretty deep and will make a great tournament.
But second, we said since the beginning that it would be Top 8s (and guys who competed in all four qualifiers) who would get to go, and we think it’s important that we stick to our word. Top 8s and four-timers it is – and rest assured our 2015 plans will allow large numbers of guys to advance in our early rounds. More events are coming. On the New Orleans Women’s Competition:
Our addition of a women’s finals in Louisiana has sparked conversation about its structure and reasoning. Let’s walk through it.
Answer:
First and most importantly, we want to say that the WAL celebrates women’s arm-wrestling and seeks to build women’s competition right alongside with the men’s. That being said, we want to create and implement the right strategy to get women back into the sport in large numbers. To that end, WAL made the decision to use the 2014 season to understand how to get women more involved and drive female participation – which is why we started with the Las Vegas female team member requirement and experimented with weight classes throughout.
To be clear: there was never a qualifying series for women to compete at the New Orleans finals. That was set early on so we had the latitude for variation in the women’s weight classes and structure – but the consequence was that there would be no even playing field to determine female qualifiers for a Finals competition.
However, after Atlantic City, we decided to reconsider the men-only final and open up a limited women’s competition in a way that seemed fair given the variation in our ‘regular season’ – and in a way we could support in New Orleans. It’s small, yes, but includes many of the top female WAL participants, and we’ve heard your voices on the inclusion of left-handed competition. AS OF TODAY, WE WILL ALSO INVITE THE TOP 3 FINISHERS IN EACH WEIGHT CLASS FROM ANY WAL WOMEN’S LEFT-HANDED COMPETITION. Weight classes and payouts will be the same as right-handed, and we will post the list of eligible finishers soon. Please write to us with questions.
Going forward, we need to build women’s arm wrestling to be an even stronger presence in the WAL, but it takes more than a few events — it takes investment and focus over a long period of time. Along that path, the best thing women arm-wrestlers can do to help propel the women’s classes forward is to recruit and train new women at the local level. Build clubs, build teams, bring more women to events. The WAL will support you, and work as partners in that effort.
More questions? Please email us at: info@walunderground.com
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