IF ARM wrestling is the sport of thugs, then Zack Martell would seem to be in the wrong place. A rake-thin, jug-eared Georgia lad who only recently moved to the area, Martell’s bubbling with schoolboy enthusiasm about attending the Cape Cod Invitational. “I’ve dreamt about it,” he says. “I’ve prayed about it.” And, despite the fact that he’s never competed in a pro tournament before, let alone won one, he’s full of jittery bravado. “The word ‘lose,’” he says, “ain’t in my vocabulary.”
Like Zack Martell, I too have dreamed about this day, and maybe even prayed a little. Unlike Martell, though, the word “lose” is very much in my vocabulary. Nonetheless, I’ve signed up — Novice division, 200 pounds and up. My main motive for competing — at least this is how I have jovially explained it to friends — is to be able to describe the sensation of having one’s arm bones shattered rather than merely describing the expression on the face of someone who’s having his arm bones shattered. As it turns out, I may get a lot closer to this goal than I imagined. “There are a lot of injuries,” says Tim Sears, “especially for novices like yourself.”
Fishing enthusiasts have their fish tales, soldiers have their war tales, and arm wrestlers have their broken-arm tales. The very mention of the subject never fails to spark a spirited debate. Everyone in the game has at least one juicy story about resounding pops or jutting bones. “I’ve seen 19!” says one guy, as if talking about how many times he’s been to Cats. Thanks to improved refereeing standards, broken arms aren’t as common as they once were, but there’s no escaping that it happens.
Jerry Cadorette has broken two arms. Not his arms, of course — other people’s arms. How does it feel? “It’s one of the weirdest feelings you’ll ever experience,” he says, then stops, thinks, and continues. “It’s as if my truck stalled on a hill, and I’ve got to push it off the road. I’m pushing it up this hill, heaving, and all of a sudden I Dream of Jeannie comes along and blinks her eyes and the truck’s not here. What do you do? You fall forward. You go from total exertion to nothing at all.”
And?
“You feel the snap. You hear it: crack! It all happens so fast. The other guy’s in shock. He looks down to see that it’s his arm that’s flopped over the table. The arm will immediately start to bruise and swell. There’s a tremendous amount of pain.”
The most common breakage in arm wrestling is what’s known as a spiral fracture. It generally occurs in the humerus, the bone that connects the shoulder to the elbow. With a spiral fracture, the bone doesn’t snap straight across; it twists and splinters, shattering along its length. It’s an extremely painful injury, and it takes an extremely long time to heal. Even so, the injured almost always return to the table. One guy at the Mill Hill Club shows me a big purplish scar on his upper arm. “Not a problem,” he says.
For me, a spiral fracture would be a problem, a very big problem. I tell Bill Cox what a big problem it would be and he responds by giving me a quick coaching session. First he shows me some moves: the top roll, the shoulder roll, the triceps, the hook, the drag hook. Then he tells me not to get my arm broken. Good advice, but possibly not as straightforward as it sounds. Apparently, I’m up against a guy named the Constrictor. According to the event’s MC — Bill’s wife, Gerry — the Constrictor shouldn’t even be competing in the Novice category. He’s got a bandanna around his head, a hungry look in his eye. This should be good.
To my surprise, the Constrictor doesn’t smash my arm through the table, rip it off at the shoulder, or simply lean across and slap me. In fact, I last multiple seconds — as many as 10 — before being beaten. This less-than-resounding defeat earns me a new level of respect from the crowd. I get a round of applause. A guy with what appears to be a granite goatee gives me one of those little knuckle-to-knuckle handshakes. I am even endowed with a name — Newspaper Guy. And, despite the fact that I manage not to win a single bout, I am awarded a third-place trophy. My arm feels as though it’s been driven over by a Ford Explorer, but I couldn’t be happier.
ARM WRESTLING, say those in the game, is a sport with a future. “It’s growing,” says Jerry Cadorette. “It’s getting bigger.”
“It’s definitely getting bigger,” concurs Bill Cox. “It’s getting more recognition.” And though Cox admits the game’s not exactly swamped by supporters, the people who do follow arm wrestling are as passionate about it as the fans of any sport. “They follow us from meet to meet,” says Cox. “They get real loud.”
Cadorette recalls the time, a few years back, when he competed in a pro meet in Russia. “It was incredible,” he says. “I walked off the plane and there were all these people who wanted autographs, who wanted to take pictures. I was baffled by the whole thing. These people had seen me on film and in magazines and they knew more about my career than I knew myself.” Not the Olympics, perhaps, but something.
Nevertheless, it’s doubtful the sport will ever mount much of a challenge to the likes of baseball or football. For one thing, you’re always going to have trouble attracting promising young athletes to a sport in which the highest earners are paid in the low five figures. Perhaps arm wrestling is destined to remain a fringe game, played by a dedicated few and watched by even fewer. In all likelihood, as long as it remains in the barrooms, arm wrestling will never grow to the heights reached by Ping-Pong and ballroom dancing.
In any case, despite the intrigue of the day’s competition, it’s a relief to get out of the Mill Hill Club. In the parking lot, I run into Zack Martell, who’s just sort of hovering around, clutching a trophy to his chest. Second place, Novice class, Martell says, is only the beginning. One day, he may even win one of those big-money meets. “Five thousand dollars in a day,” he says, “ain’t doing bad.” But money, as Tim Sears points out, isn’t what the sport’s about. “You have to love it,” Sears says. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t keep going.”
Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com.
