To all Armwrestlers: What if.....

[Bill Cox]

I am sure there are a lot of people on here that remember when AAA ran two nationals each year, 1 stand up & 1 sit down. 1st place from each national would be team US. When they stopped doing sit down then AAA went with 1 national. So 2 nationals is not a new thing. It looks like the WAF may just Unify in Japan in 2005 and that may well settle the argument of two assoc. in the US. I am sure that Das and a few countries will still hold out and back Das, but there won't be enough to control anything.

[Chris Coletti]

Travis,
Again I would like to just get to the truth. This is not a USAA Vs. AAA issue. This is an issue of the two World organizations and their lack of competency in getting the unification complete in order to get the necessary items in place for Olympic entry. Shouldn’t the party responsible for the break up be held accountable? Whoever was responsible for the initial break up should be ignored and not supported. Is this important event anywhere in written form? Again this could lead to a 2 + 2 concept with an easy answer.
I understand you have a beef with Karen. If you have complaints against her as a person it's best to take it to her (my opinion). George Bush disagrees with everything John Kerry stands for but I could never see him calling Kerry a “dick” in public. When Karen not only chooses to ignore the insults but refrains from any counter attack in this forum it gives people a need to defend her.
If I ask pullers at the AAA Nationals they will hammer Leonard and Denise if I take the same questions to the Unifieds I would get the same rhetoric towards Karen.
I read this board as well as the AAA board. Is it true what the AAA posters are saying about the unified numbers being blown up through duplicate entries in different weight classes? This is an important question because the numbers were put up as an argument for who is better. We need to get to the truth and if we have to dig for it then it undermines the validity of the person promoting the idea. As an example I would again use the presidential race. If Kerry pushes his Vietnam record as a reason to vote for him, then his record is proven hyped it creates a huge problem with his credibility on all issues. Like my dad used to say ‘Never buy a car with a broken mirror, If they don’t fix the small stuff they will definitely ignore the big stuff”.
I think the idea of a union of pullers is a good idea but being an eternal pessimist (Comes from a life of rooting for the Red Sox) It would just be a matter of time before the corruption set in.

[Chris Coletti]

By the way in my last post I DID NOT use the word "Thingy". ;D

[Todd Coe]

Chris"I agree with you", but as nicole said on the AAA message board we as armwrestlers need to remember that we pull because we love the sport and our fellow armwrestlers. I have nothing bad to say about USAA because I really dont know much about them. But I do Know Karen and Frank and they have never doon anything to hurt me and Yes everybody I have not always agrred with everything she has said nor alot of things other people have said but that is no reason to attack anybody verbally. I call chris my friend and we have disagreed many times. I would like to also thank Kurt and team maine for this message board. It gives us the armwrestler another voice.

[James]

My only concern is that I want to see any changes that occur in this country and/or on the world level to occur with dignity and decorum. One of the reasons I like this sport is because it is one of the last sports that still has both elements intact.

Travis, the president of the Union? Ha From knowing Travis' feelings about his own personal bank rolls, I am not sure that would be such a fantastic idea.

Do I think we are on the verge of something exciting? Yes. Now that we are going to be having more tournaments on television, major sponsors will see the numbers these tournaments do and will consider their own dollar-to-exposure ratio. If it looks good, than armwrestlers should be getting paid their just do (and that won't be $1,000 for first place).

The union idea, overall, is a good one. What we need to be weary of in the future will be promoters trying to cash in at the competitors' expense (e.g. boxing).

I offer many of the AAA-only pullers some credence b/c I have respect for them as pullers and people. I do not, however, take many of the posts on that board seriously. Ron Bowen, the famous RB, perhaps is a true to life human being that armwrestles. Though I have never seen him in any results so I question his involvement. I have never heard of Bob Manning and think he is a figment of someone's imagination. I have never heard of Charlie Brown, and think he is a figment of Charles Shultz's imagination. How can you place any credibility in a person's opinion if the only words their parents could use to raise them was (WAH WAH WAH WAH...WAH WAH WAH WAH).

But in the long run, it is going to be beneficial in this country if all armwrestlers unify for a common goal. We'll get more accomplished.

[leonard]

Chris,
So you want to go back to the original break up to determine who is credible? Look at the list of Executive board members that were at the 1998 Worlds in Canada for your answer. Asia, North America, South America, Europe. Look at who was not there, Africa (where the appointed 1998 Armsport worlds was being held) and the non existent Oceania. These board members were there because they voted for Canada to host and they followed thru with their vote.
I disagree that if you generally ask armwrestlers at either Nationals you will get negative responses. The majority of the competitors just want to pull. There are advocates on both sides but the majority of pullers will pull at both association events.
Now the real question that makes an armwrestler skip one for another is a little more complicated.
Money, proximity, the prestige of an event, date of the event, referee’s, what other training partners are doing and so on.
Now you want to know if our numbers are “blown up”. First, yes you may enter as many classes as you want to. The next question is how many did actually do this? I can only find 3 entries which were multiple with the same arm the same day. This is a red herring argument. The next knock on our entry numbers is that we have more weight classes. So what are we to do about that? We offer the classes that WAF has at Worlds, should we not offer classes? This is especially distressing to a promoter who is required to offer classes like the Ladies Left and to get few entries. So Chris, why should we not be proud of getting a good turn out? We were hammered for not getting a great number of entries in the beginning and now that has changed so somehow people want to attack the numbers.
The only reason the numbers were brought up was to show that armwrestlers are supporting USA, not to say anything bad about Karen.

[Bill Cox]

Hi Steven. The IAF was started in 1989. Most of it's members were members of AAA at the time. We just had some different ideas where we wanted the sport to go and a few different rules than AAA. There is a page of info about the IAF on the Maine site along with it;s rules and Directors. All of which you know. We then joined forces with Leonard & Dave Devoto in 1998 to form the United States Armsports(USA). The IAF has never told any of it's member where to compete and at which association. We are just trying to promote armwrestling.

International Armwrestling Federation

[CHRISTIAN BINNIE]

Travis, what the HELL is wrong with you BOY?
Knowing full well how unions work, ( I won't tell you how I know ) UM, NO you can't be President!

Chris Colletti, I think it has gotten way past who was first. Only because everyone else has merged with the W Armwrestling F. So I believe for the best interest for the Armwrestlers is to merge as one, here in the U.S. and at the Worlds.
Its all about power and money!

Mr. Cox, yes there were 2 Nats, 1 stand up and 1 sit down ( I was in Albany at the sitdowns in 91. I was 2 and out BABY!) BUT there was 1 World also!

[leonard]

I forgot to look at the women closely and because of single entries in some classes they went a second to get match's. The armwrestlers going double entries is 4 women and 2 men.

[CHRISTIAN BINNIE]

Mr. Bill Cox, maybe you can let everyone know how many people who were officials ( using that term, but it might be wrong ) belonged to the AAA or the W armsport F, then left for what ever reason. I know of you, Ray Darling, and Butch Bonnier. Wasn't Fred Roy voted out? And who was the referee from England?

[simon]

Please no conversations about who was first and who split from or who screwed over whom, I have heard virtually every story and I researched every document I could get my hands on regarding the break up and I regret that I did, it was like going to an all day Jerry Lewis film festival, it seemed like a good idea but you can only see the same pratfalls a different way so many times.

I don’t see the argument about which nationals are better, certainly I would agree with Leonard that the Unifieds were previously smaller than the AAA nats but they have grown significantly over the last 4 years, that is something that they should be proud of. Frankly I find many of the detractions about this event very offensive because they go to the level of discrediting the talent that participated at the event and I find that inappropriate. "Those guys that win at the Unifieds could not even place at the AAA nats", "They all go multiple classes because there is no talent there, they could not get away with that at the AAA nats" Those kind of comments are pure BS.

The significant reason why gauging the National events does not really matter at this point is that all of this gets dictated by the WAF’s regardless, simply stated going forward you have to have a strong WAF event to have a credible National event, so it really depends on what they do. I mean no disrespect to anyone that has or will pull either event, to the pullers I give all the respect in the world you cannot control who shows or not, you take on the people that come to the table against you and you earn every bit of success you get.

Let’s focus on where we are right now, jump in here if you think I am wrong.

The USA group proposed a non profit umbrella entity to the AAA to create a format for only one US Nationals, the AAA refused, there is nothing wrong with that, the AAA is a business, they did not like the terms so they said no thank you.

The USA and AAA groups met in Vegas in consideration that there was going to be an as yet undisclosed proposal for WAF unification in Ottawa, a contingency agreement was made on how one US national team would be decided upon and how the US group would function, provided the two WAF’s approved all of the terms of the original unification proposal.

To her and her supporters credit Karen proposed the unification to the WAF in Ottawa, they did not accept it as it was written, the Roy WAF proposed an augmented unification proposal that was accepted in Ottawa by that WAF only and Karen.

Das publicly denounced the unification proposal, stating that Karen is not an officer of that WAF so she does not have the authority to speak on behalf of the WAF, nor for that matter could any one board member of the Das WAF make or accept an overture of unification. So the unification in Japan proposal died. For those of you keeping score, though Das was correct in his assessment that no one individual has the authority to speak for the entire WAF board on accepting the unification proposal, realistically the Das WAF could have opted to vote on the unification proposal or counter propose one of their own, to my knowledge they did neither.

So here we sit currently with 2 Nationals and 2 Worlds in 2005, to your point Mr. Cox, I agree with your assessment as it is the only thing that has ever made sense and I have said it 100 times if I have said it once, eventually one of the WAF’s will grow significantly stronger than the other because those that really want this sport to progress will move to where the progress is. Until it outright dies there is no question in my mind that there may be 2 WAF’s for many years to come, it appears at this point though that one will continue to be significantly stronger than the other. There was a person going by the name of “Canada” on the AAA board that was blasting me when I said this previously because as he claimed “the IOC says there has to be complete unification for us to get recognized, what part of that don’t you get” Given the history of these entities does anyone really believe that a Das run WAF no matter how small will ever unify with the other WAF? So where does that leave us regarding the IOC, no unification no recognition right?

Travis man you crack me up!

Maybe something intelligent will happen at the respective worlds this year, maybe the majority of the world entities will decide that for 2005 and on they will join one org or the other, maybe based upon the current state of affairs the US groups will be able to come to an agreement on only one Nationals, (I am not a fan of the 2 nationals making one team nonsense again too many variables too much to argue about, the team needs to get decided on the table). I still think that based upon our history desperate times will force desperate measures before these issues get resolved.

[Chris Coletti]

Simon, I just read your post! Dude when do you find time to work???!!! JK

Leonard,
Thanks for the clarification. I think that it is well known that both groups are supported. It is a shame that we can't get some kind of a meeting between the two in front of us pullers. It would eliminate all heresay and help the body of armwrestling (The pullers) to decide which head we need.
We could set it up as a meeting/debate with pullers asking the questions. Myself and Simon could mediate

Bill,
Has the Gaisf ever considered the sport of Armwrestling? Either group?

[Bill Cox]

Hi Chris. The closest armwrestling has come was years back when it was in the Pan-Am games if I remember correctly. Not sure what year this was but I know it was a long time ago. At that time there was only one WAF and only AAA.

[Bill Cox]

Hi Christian. There were a number of people that left for one reason or another. Bert Whitfield was sort of forced out and when his friend Ray Taglione tried to help him he was forced out also. Norm Levesque was the asst. Head Ref to Stanaway and he was pushed aside, he later became the head ref for IAF. The ref from England was David Shead who had a run in with Stanaway. I also remember Mary McConagetty(sorry about the spelling) resigning as Board Director as did Ray Darling. Half of all these occured when Bob O'Leary ran AAA, not Karen & Frank.

[simon]

Chris I have spent years developing my group so that the day to day is easily taken care of by my staff, my present role on my job is a lot like my role in the politics of armwrestling in some regard, the tough questions get asked and I tell it like I see it, the only difference is that on my job my word is law and things I don’t like, I change, as you can tell though I am not fully challenged here any longer.

“It’s good to be the king.”