our story!?

[Florin Butusina]

i saw that in this board are many ppl intersted about armwrestling!!! i want everyone to write his story about armwrestling.... how did you heard about arwrestling??who is for you the best in armwrestling?? why did you love armwrestling?

[Chris Ratchford]

Ok.. Florin.. Here's a quick version of my story.

When I was a teenager, there was a local armwrestling league in my area that used to have in house tournaments every week. Every Friday and Saturday.

I remember watching and then one day just jumping in. I was always strong naturally, I remember I used to show off to everybody by holding a 40lb dumbell out straight and i used to be able to hold it for a minute. Well when the crew saw me do that, the immediately asked me to try armwrestling.

I was immediately good at it, and there were only a few people I couldnt beat. Well, within a few months i was mowing through everybody. I was armwrestling in-house tournaments every friday and saturday. We did this every weekend for three years.

This built my endurance up so high, I used to be able to armwrestle fifty matches a night both friday and saturday.

I always seemed to suck righty but lefty there was no one that i couldnt take.

[Chris Ratchford]

Well anyway... As i was saying I was pretty good left handed, and up here left-handed is what they always did in the bars and clubs.

There were a few of us that were good lefties, and we would always hustle the big muscleheads in bars, and clubs, and gyms. We were prety successful, as we rarely had to pay for drinks, food, etc. Many times we even left there with "fat" pockets for beating the guys that were 100 lbs bigger than us. ( Although I am in the super heavy weight class now, I was 165 when i first started as a kid and was about 195 when I stoped armwrestling)_

Well there was this guy "Wild Bill", who had the meanest left hook I had seen at the time. Every time we had a match the match would end in a deadlok for at least 2 two to three minutes. I mean these matches were excruciating, but they really built up my resistance.

Unfortunatey my armwrestling days did not last much longer than about 5 years. Bill had gone on to become my training partner for armwrestling. One night while we were armwrestling we were locked in a hook for several minutes again, and all of a sudden his wrist snapped in the middle of the match. That was the worst feeling in the world, feeling his wrist crack in the middle of the match..

I was surprised the way he reacted. He laughed at it, stating that he wasn't upset at all. He made it through the rest of the night without goiung to the hospital.

The next day he went to the ER. We found out it was broke but it was clean break, and healed quickly. Within three months he was trying to armwrestle again.

But , things changed at the place that used to hold thein-house tournaments.

Three or four others had broken their arms there with those three months. Many competitors were no longer coming becasue they got scared of injuries.

The owner of the building, put an end to all armwrestling as he was afraid of a lawsuit. ( we were an underground non-sanctioned group and did not use releases. ) After all who did 10 years ago?? Well the competition got thiinner and thinner and eventually it came to an end. the place actually closed its doors and they tore it down and built a price-chopper over it.

[Chris Ratchford]

Well, after that I imediately started to get heavier into the weights. Armwrestling and Karate took me to 195 lbs.

Weightlifting added another 30 lbs on me. I became a weightlifting fanatic and lifted ever since.

I lifted merrily for several years, always talking to my buddies in the gym about how much fun I used to have armwrestling. I slowly started to armwrestle the guys from the gym, and they were all wowed by how quick I could slam them all even though it was years since i competed.

Well, one day this past August my friends told me that an Ex Professional Wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow moved to the area. He opened up a resturant in town and was hold an armwrestling tournament on his grounds along with pro-wrestling amtches.

Well I went, but thought the tournament was in the evening. To my dismay I arrived just as the tournament was over. I was really dissapointed and was asking around as the who was a good armwrestler that would allow me to try a few matches. When I was asking around for someone to armwrestle, Mike "Flash" Surplus said he would armwrestle me. We got the refs to start us and his jaw dropped when I caught his "power hit" and stopped it dead five or six times. Needless to say we had about twenty matches and I won every one left hand, and about half of them righty.

When we were finished people were coming up to me and were telliing me about flash's credentials, with going to worlds several times and placing in the top five. They were impressed, by my being able to hold my own against him. I was so sore, i couldn't even move my arms. But this immense rush was going through my body. I was hooked from that moment on.

[Chris Ratchford]

I met some great people that day. Josh Stark, Tom "Nitro Simko, Art Spindler, and Flash.

Immediately i got hooked up with "Nitro" and started having him coach my armwrestling.

He introduced my again to Art Spindler, and what I learned from him was tremendous.

Ever since that day, all I have done was eat, breathe, and sleep armwrestling.

I have participated in one major sanctioned tournament so far. It was the 2004 PA State Tournament AAA. I destroyed the heavey-weight novice left devision, and got runner up in the super-heavey left hand open.

I am glad to be back in the sport. I will not leave it agian. I look forward to participating in each and every tournament possible this year.

It amazing what little it takes to get hooked in the sport. All I know is that I am here to stay. I wish I never left cause it felt like i was starting from scratch again. I m sure all you pullers know how addicting it is. I am getting good fast !!!!! so all you heavy weight lefties are in trouble

[enginterzi]

Chris,thanks a lot for sharing your story with us.

my young brother Florin,you will be a good armwrestler soon or late because you love it and you are smart.

when i was 16,even my sister and mom was tronger than me in armwrestling.in fact i dont remember myself beating anyone in armwrestling till that time.we had a flower shop and one day i was getting my ass kicked as always by a customer in armwrestling.one of my another customer saw this and he wanted to try with the guy that was beating me.he almost broke the other guy's arm.the way that he did wasnt an amateur way.i kept asking him to tell me if he was a competitor.he finally told me that he was a regional champion.then i started to give him free flowers to help me about how to armwrestle.he gave me an armwrestling table,and also a small pocket book which was showing training and armwrestling methods.

at that i thought that i had chance to know everything about armwrestling by him and that litte book,which i now think is very amateur:).then this guy kept telling me to find someone to armwrestle him for money,and i found dursun.after a year of training we went to the Turkish nationals where i took 2.place very luckily,because it was a single elimination tournament and i didnt meet the best guy till the final.

i came back from the championships and threw all the pictures of my winnings to the garbage,and saved only the two pic of my lost.and i wrote some words on it that meant that i was gonna beat him soon or late.it was 1992 and i also signed the bottom of my words as''1994 WORLD CHAMPÝON ENGÝN''.

next year we went to the1993 worlds in canada ,i was 19 and took 2. with left arm and 7. with my right arm.in same year i kept my 1. promise and beat the guy that beat me ay my 1. nationals.

and we came to 1994,2 years ago i promised to become a world champion for 1994.our organisation has decided to not to compete the worlds in sweden.i was so shocked,i had to keep my promise to not to lose my self confidence.from my parents i got the money that i needed,and i went to swedish embassy to get visa in same afternoon.normally it takes many days to get this visa but he understood my problem and gave me the visa.i didnt know english except e few words.the tournament was in sodertalje.when i arrived there barij baran das,the general secretary was standing there.i tried to explain that i wanted to compete but he told me that our organisation told him that Turkey wasnt gonna participate.i had to lie him to paticipate because he wasnt gonna let me compete and i wouldnt be able to keep my promise to become a world champion.so i told him that organisation knew that i was there to compete.first day i lost to georgian with left arm and took 2. place.

on the day of the right hand matches i had many top puller to beat.Alan Berget was the current world champion from 1993,the guy from kazakistan was the 1992 world champion,and the strongest was the tamaev totraz from russia,that now has at least 6 world titles.first round i beat the guy from norway,second match i beat the guy from kazakistan,and third round i had to beat tamaev,i won the match but couldnt pin him.he just received two fouls while we were at mid of the table.

so in the semi final of the a side i beat Alan Berget,and tamaev beat the kazakistan guy and also Alan to face me in the final.he had to beat me twice,he slipped to get strap.in the strap he beat me in a second with a loose wrist shoulder roll.after one minute we had to armwrestle again,he again preffered strap.with the go signal he did the same move and i stopped him between mid of the way.his shoulder was right behind his arm and i just couldnt bring it back.so i just dropped my elbow down and got foul.so i had one lose and one foul.so i decided to not to worry about his wrist anymore and directly went to a pin.after the go i only saw the legs of the table,ref and tamaev.i was just screaming and pulling.then i felt that someone else was holding our hands,i raised myself and realised that i was the world champion.the ref was Gil Tremblay.

after the tournament i didnt have enough money to stay i hotel one more day and i slept on the park in stockholm for the next night.but i didnt care because i was holding my gold medal.but believe me that stockholm was too cold to sleep outside for me who is from a warm country:).its the story of my beginning years.

[enginterzi]

by the way,Turkey(me) took 8. place for the team competiton between 27 countries:)

[Florin Butusina]

thx for your words Engin,super story !! thx you too Chirs !

[Zhanna Chingule]

Engin I guess there WON'T be a better story than yours , REALLY it's amazing!

Well mine is TOO simple to even tell ;D My uncle Dzintars went to Slovakia (I guess European Champ. was there -1997)He went there just to cheer up other guys and to drink Slovakian wine But then guys and himself decided he has to compete too!And he got bronze in XXL vategory, where Gold was Allan Karaev! After that he came and told me this story..how they went there...about wine...and how he by dont knowing ANYTHING in armwrestling took bronze by just good luck!
Well and after few years telling me this story I HAD IT of it and he took me to our Sen sei Modris..(year 2001).He told me I am NOT for arm wrestling, as I didnt understood what to do and I was just SLOW brain But then I wen to Europeans 2002 by not knowing anything,...and I became LAST of all competitors I was so mad...and sad.. And I decided that I am jsut AIN't lucky so I started to train a lil' bit' and next Europeans,, same class,,,almost same opponents and I got silver ;D

Still hoping to get lucky 4 Gold ;D

[enginterzi]

thx Zhanna,my sister is a screen writer.she one day will write my stories.i will share everything good and bad.