June 19, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dustin Tomlinson tells the story of how he discovered arm wrestling and decided to take his skill off of the hood of a truck and into the competitive arena.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we return to our American stories. In the world
of sports, there are several newcomers that have been making
some waves. Slap fighting, competitive tag and of course arm wrestling. Well,
the competition has been around for ages. It's for a
into the world of being more than just a bar battle.
Hasn't up next a story about a professional arm wrestler,
(00:34):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
We got three older brothers. I'm the youngest. We're all
built about the same.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I think I'm the tallest, but uh, yeah, I might be.
I think I'm the second to the lightest. Yeah, and
I'm almost three hundred pounds, So you always have something
to prove. Mean the youngest, you know, you gotta be
mop joke James Dustin Tomlinson. I live in Anderson, Missouri.
(01:03):
I've lived here my entire life. Growing up, I lived
on a farm. We had about fifty head of cattle.
The high school I went to. My graduating class was
just a little over two hundred people for the whole county,
So I grew up turning ranches. I've always worked blue
collar jobs. I'm twenty six years old right now, and
for the last five years I've been an industrial maintenance
mechanic at chicken plants, and when I'm not working, I
(01:27):
like to go canoeing, a lot of fishing. I like
to hunt whenever I get the time. I like to
shoot bows, and I like to compete in arm wrestling.
I have followed the sport of professional strong man for
years and there's one world class strong man, Brian Shaw,
that I've followed for a long time, and I've seen
(01:48):
him on a YouTube video and I enjoyed the video.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So I watched the.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Next one that was put out by this channel, and
this was three years ago, and from that moment I
got hooked.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I realized it was sport.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And growing up, everybody arm wrestles, you know in small towns,
especially if you're bigger and stronger. So everybody's competing in
the high school cafeteria, everybody's competing in bars, everybody anytime
you get a chance. I've arm wrestled on truck hoods.
You're out in the middle of hayfields. And so once
I realized this was a n actual sport and you
could go and compete against other guys who take it seriously,
(02:22):
and you could win prizes and money, and you can.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Get ranked nationally and internationally.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I thought, man, I want to see how far I
can go with this. So I went to a tournament.
My first tournament was in Kansas City. I went up there,
I met some people. Turned out there was a few
people within driving distance of my house and that I
could meet up with and they could show me.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
And they've been huge help. I can't thank them enough.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
There's a lot of camaraderie in the arm wrestling. It's
really unique in that way because some sports, you know,
especially that's one on one competitiveness, and you know, it's
not team sports. Some people are kind of tight lipped
and they don't want to they're not willing to help you.
But around here, most people are willing to share their
secrets with you, and you know, everybody just wants to
see how.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Good they can get.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I think that's part of the attractiveness of it to me,
is because it's kind of just a small, blue collar
thing like you'd find in a rural town growing up.
You know, like I said, everybody growing up, everybody has
done it.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And then if you.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Can take that and compete, you know, at a national
level doing that, that makes it a blast. Especially whenever
there's good people that's willing to.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Help you and push you.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And I got the bug first time I went to
a tournament. They asked me if I had ever arm
wrestled before, and I said, well, yeah, who has an
arm wrestled? And they said no, have you ever arm
wrestled on an actual arm wrestling table at a tournament?
And I said no, I haven't, and they said, well,
you probably need to enter the novice class they had
at this event I went to. They had the professional division,
(03:46):
amateur division, and novice and I said, well, I think
I'll do the amateur. I said, I've always done pretty good,
you know. And everybody says that every arm wrestler you
talk to, you's going to tell you like, well, I
was never beaten before I.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Started arm wrestling, you know, and that was the case
with me.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
So I did and I ended up taking second place
on both hands. So I was tickled to death of
that because that was honestly better than I was afraid
I was going to do. After I gripped up the
first couple of guys, I was like, I might be
in over my head. But it worked out pretty good,
and so it only took me about four tournaments over
the next eight months before I felt comfortable enough that
(04:21):
I entered the professional division because I was winning. I
got second place on my first two tournaments. After that,
I was getting first place in the amateur division, and
I thought, well, I need to kick it up a notch,
so I went up to the professional division, started to
enter the pro side, and yeah, that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Since I'm in the super heavyweight division.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So our wrestlings broke up kind of like you would
have in boxing or MMA or high school wrestling or
something like that. There's weight divisions, and I'm in the
super heavyweight division, which depending on which league you're at,
it varies, but it's generally right.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Around two hundred and forty pounds and up.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
There's no cap on that, so I'm sometime arm wrestling
guys are four hundred and thirty pounds, you know, that
one hundred pounds advantage sometimes just too much. So yeah,
a lot of the top guys in the super heavyweight division,
like top in the world, are rather large individuals. Arm
Wrestling is a really specific sport, so you can take
(05:17):
somebody that's really really strong in a gym or in
another sport like bodybuilding or powerlifting or something. It doesn't
necessarily mean they're gonna be good armrestler. Most of the
time they're not because they haven't specifically trained arm wrestling
specific muscles like your hand, your wrist, your forearm. It's
all really dialed into. Like arm wrestling training when you're
(05:38):
doing weight training.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Is very very specific.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Now, some guys will do full body and there's some
benefit to that. There's definitely a method to it. Now,
if you just arm wrestle somebody in a bar or
something like that, it's probably gonna be pretty sloppy and
it's really really dangerous. I've seen two guys break their
arms in person. My very first practice, I watched the
kid break his arm. I was standing right next to him,
and it almost made me not want to do it.
(06:03):
I really had to talk myself in to keep going
after that. But that's kind of the dangerous side. So
there's a reason for the way it's done in a.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Tournament or in a professional setting.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
So you have a handpeg that your non competing hand
you have to hold onto the handpeg, and what that
does is help keep your body square with your arm
so you're not turning away from your hand. It's a
pulling sport. It's a lot of tug of war. You're
trying to pull them to your side of the table,
and they're trying to pull you to their side of
the table, because the more stretched out you get, more
disadvantage you're at.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Everybody has their own unique.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Style of pulling. I'm what they call a top roller.
I have a big hand and a strong hand. Most
of the time my hand is more dominant than my opponents,
and because my arm's fairly long, I can get higher,
use that high ground and fold their hand back, and.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So that's called top rolling.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Other people that might not have such a strong hand,
they like to hook, which is a lot of times
what you see in bars or in pictures or movies
or whatever. It's where you're really cupped in with your
wrist turned in and two guys are just grinding it
out in the middle of the table. There's a lot
more than his arms and hands involved. You're pulling with
your back, you're pulling with your core, You're doing you know,
(07:09):
where your feet are at are important. How you're holding
the peg with your non competing hands important. So there's
there's tons of things go into it, and then the
real fight is the center of the table.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Who has a better hand positioned.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Who can pull that other person, you know, half an
inch towards them or towards their side of the table
or whatever to throw them off a little bit. And
then a lot of times these matches won't last more
than five six seconds. But the setup trying to get
the grip and get the reft, you know, to make it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
A fair setup.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Sometimes that will take five minutes just for a five
second match, because guys are competing for every little advantage,
every millimeter you can get better in the in the setup,
in the grip could be the difference between winning and losing.
And when there's money on the line or pride or
rankings or whatever, you're gonna fight for every inch you
can get.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
There's several ways to get fouls. They have elbow pad.
Your elbow has to stay on.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
If your elbow slides off the back of the pad
or the side or the front.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Or if you just lift it up off the pad,
that's an elbow foul.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
And the same thing with your non competing hand if
it comes off of a handpeg, that's a foul. You
have to have one foot on the floor at all
times if both feet come off the floor for whatever reason.
If you're just free hanging, you know that's a foul.
You can get a foul for just not obeying commands
like in the setup. A lot of high level matches
end up losing, you know, losing or winning based on fouls,
(08:27):
and nobody wants to see that. As arm wrestlers and
aough fans of the sport, you want to see him,
see who's stronger. You want to see who's put more
work in. You want to see who can pin the
guy to your.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Side of the table. But the environment is always electric.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Right now, I'm number one left hand super heavyweight in Missouri.
I'm getting dangerously close to getting on that top twenty
list for North America. And I do not like losing
at all. I know that's part of the process, but
it just never sits well with me. So yeah, I
come from a big family, a lot of testosterone, as
all boys didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Have any girls in the house.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
My poor mom growing up had to deal with all
of us being rowdy, and so I was always trying
to out wrestle them and out arm wrestle them and
you know, be better at them in football or basketball,
or whatever it was. So I'm extremely competitive by nature.
I get intimidated, but you can't run from it. You
gotta embrace it. If I'm not a little scared going
(09:22):
into a match or a tournament where there's higher level
pullers than something's wrong, I gotta be scared.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That's what motivates you.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
It's an adrenaline rush, unlike anything.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Else I've ever done.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I didn't see myself as an athlete, you know. And
then a couple of years after high school, I found
arm wrestling as a sport and now now I train
all the time.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And a special thanks to Katrina Hine for gathering in
the audio and a Monty Montgomery for the production and editing.
And a special thanks to Dustin Tumlinson for sharing his
passion the sport that he plays that wasn't his sport
that long ago. And by the way, we love telling
stories about sports before they were sports. My favorite, one
of my favorites of all time was how NASCAR came
(10:03):
to be and it started with moonshiners and just guys
running cars in cornfields for just sheer fun. And of
course lawnmower racing, which I think will be an Olympic
sport one day, I hope, because it's just so much
fun to watch. And Dustin's story, well, we love telling
these stories of rural America because well, in the end,
things like oh, arm wrestling, well, you got a lot
(10:23):
of time to kill, and so you turn things into
sports and passions because you don't have a lot around
you and ultimately you have to fill the time. As
he said, he grew up with three older brothers and
he was the tallest and second lightest, but he said
he always had something to prove. The story of Dustin
Tumlinson and how he became a professional arm wrestling here
(10:43):
on our American Story
And we return to our American stories. In the world
of sports, there are several newcomers that have been making
some waves. Slap fighting, competitive tag and of course arm wrestling. Well,
the competition has been around for ages. It's for a
into the world of being more than just a bar battle.
Hasn't up next a story about a professional arm wrestler,
(00:34):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
We got three older brothers. I'm the youngest. We're all
built about the same.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I think I'm the tallest, but uh, yeah, I might be.
I think I'm the second to the lightest. Yeah, and
I'm almost three hundred pounds, So you always have something
to prove. Mean the youngest, you know, you gotta be
mop joke James Dustin Tomlinson. I live in Anderson, Missouri.
(01:03):
I've lived here my entire life. Growing up, I lived
on a farm. We had about fifty head of cattle.
The high school I went to. My graduating class was
just a little over two hundred people for the whole county,
So I grew up turning ranches. I've always worked blue
collar jobs. I'm twenty six years old right now, and
for the last five years I've been an industrial maintenance
mechanic at chicken plants, and when I'm not working, I
(01:27):
like to go canoeing, a lot of fishing. I like
to hunt whenever I get the time. I like to
shoot bows, and I like to compete in arm wrestling.
I have followed the sport of professional strong man for
years and there's one world class strong man, Brian Shaw,
that I've followed for a long time, and I've seen
(01:48):
him on a YouTube video and I enjoyed the video.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So I watched the.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Next one that was put out by this channel, and
this was three years ago, and from that moment I
got hooked.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I realized it was sport.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And growing up, everybody arm wrestles, you know in small towns,
especially if you're bigger and stronger. So everybody's competing in
the high school cafeteria, everybody's competing in bars, everybody anytime
you get a chance. I've arm wrestled on truck hoods.
You're out in the middle of hayfields. And so once
I realized this was a n actual sport and you
could go and compete against other guys who take it seriously,
(02:22):
and you could win prizes and money, and you can.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Get ranked nationally and internationally.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I thought, man, I want to see how far I
can go with this. So I went to a tournament.
My first tournament was in Kansas City. I went up there,
I met some people. Turned out there was a few
people within driving distance of my house and that I
could meet up with and they could show me.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
And they've been huge help. I can't thank them enough.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
There's a lot of camaraderie in the arm wrestling. It's
really unique in that way because some sports, you know,
especially that's one on one competitiveness, and you know, it's
not team sports. Some people are kind of tight lipped
and they don't want to they're not willing to help you.
But around here, most people are willing to share their
secrets with you, and you know, everybody just wants to
see how.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Good they can get.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I think that's part of the attractiveness of it to me,
is because it's kind of just a small, blue collar
thing like you'd find in a rural town growing up.
You know, like I said, everybody growing up, everybody has
done it.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And then if you.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Can take that and compete, you know, at a national
level doing that, that makes it a blast. Especially whenever
there's good people that's willing to.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Help you and push you.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And I got the bug first time I went to
a tournament. They asked me if I had ever arm
wrestled before, and I said, well, yeah, who has an
arm wrestled? And they said no, have you ever arm
wrestled on an actual arm wrestling table at a tournament?
And I said no, I haven't, and they said, well,
you probably need to enter the novice class they had
at this event I went to. They had the professional division,
(03:46):
amateur division, and novice and I said, well, I think
I'll do the amateur. I said, I've always done pretty good,
you know. And everybody says that every arm wrestler you
talk to, you's going to tell you like, well, I
was never beaten before I.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Started arm wrestling, you know, and that was the case
with me.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
So I did and I ended up taking second place
on both hands. So I was tickled to death of
that because that was honestly better than I was afraid
I was going to do. After I gripped up the
first couple of guys, I was like, I might be
in over my head. But it worked out pretty good,
and so it only took me about four tournaments over
the next eight months before I felt comfortable enough that
(04:21):
I entered the professional division because I was winning. I
got second place on my first two tournaments. After that,
I was getting first place in the amateur division, and
I thought, well, I need to kick it up a notch,
so I went up to the professional division, started to
enter the pro side, and yeah, that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Since I'm in the super heavyweight division.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So our wrestlings broke up kind of like you would
have in boxing or MMA or high school wrestling or
something like that. There's weight divisions, and I'm in the
super heavyweight division, which depending on which league you're at,
it varies, but it's generally right.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Around two hundred and forty pounds and up.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
There's no cap on that, so I'm sometime arm wrestling
guys are four hundred and thirty pounds, you know, that
one hundred pounds advantage sometimes just too much. So yeah,
a lot of the top guys in the super heavyweight division,
like top in the world, are rather large individuals. Arm
Wrestling is a really specific sport, so you can take
(05:17):
somebody that's really really strong in a gym or in
another sport like bodybuilding or powerlifting or something. It doesn't
necessarily mean they're gonna be good armrestler. Most of the
time they're not because they haven't specifically trained arm wrestling
specific muscles like your hand, your wrist, your forearm. It's
all really dialed into. Like arm wrestling training when you're
(05:38):
doing weight training.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Is very very specific.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Now, some guys will do full body and there's some
benefit to that. There's definitely a method to it. Now,
if you just arm wrestle somebody in a bar or
something like that, it's probably gonna be pretty sloppy and
it's really really dangerous. I've seen two guys break their
arms in person. My very first practice, I watched the
kid break his arm. I was standing right next to him,
and it almost made me not want to do it.
(06:03):
I really had to talk myself in to keep going
after that. But that's kind of the dangerous side. So
there's a reason for the way it's done in a.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Tournament or in a professional setting.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
So you have a handpeg that your non competing hand
you have to hold onto the handpeg, and what that
does is help keep your body square with your arm
so you're not turning away from your hand. It's a
pulling sport. It's a lot of tug of war. You're
trying to pull them to your side of the table,
and they're trying to pull you to their side of
the table, because the more stretched out you get, more
disadvantage you're at.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Everybody has their own unique.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Style of pulling. I'm what they call a top roller.
I have a big hand and a strong hand. Most
of the time my hand is more dominant than my opponents,
and because my arm's fairly long, I can get higher,
use that high ground and fold their hand back, and.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So that's called top rolling.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Other people that might not have such a strong hand,
they like to hook, which is a lot of times
what you see in bars or in pictures or movies
or whatever. It's where you're really cupped in with your
wrist turned in and two guys are just grinding it
out in the middle of the table. There's a lot
more than his arms and hands involved. You're pulling with
your back, you're pulling with your core, You're doing you know,
(07:09):
where your feet are at are important. How you're holding
the peg with your non competing hands important. So there's
there's tons of things go into it, and then the
real fight is the center of the table.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Who has a better hand positioned.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Who can pull that other person, you know, half an
inch towards them or towards their side of the table
or whatever to throw them off a little bit. And
then a lot of times these matches won't last more
than five six seconds. But the setup trying to get
the grip and get the reft, you know, to make it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
A fair setup.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Sometimes that will take five minutes just for a five
second match, because guys are competing for every little advantage,
every millimeter you can get better in the in the setup,
in the grip could be the difference between winning and losing.
And when there's money on the line or pride or
rankings or whatever, you're gonna fight for every inch you
can get.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
There's several ways to get fouls. They have elbow pad.
Your elbow has to stay on.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
If your elbow slides off the back of the pad
or the side or the front.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Or if you just lift it up off the pad,
that's an elbow foul.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
And the same thing with your non competing hand if
it comes off of a handpeg, that's a foul. You
have to have one foot on the floor at all
times if both feet come off the floor for whatever reason.
If you're just free hanging, you know that's a foul.
You can get a foul for just not obeying commands
like in the setup. A lot of high level matches
end up losing, you know, losing or winning based on fouls,
(08:27):
and nobody wants to see that. As arm wrestlers and
aough fans of the sport, you want to see him,
see who's stronger. You want to see who's put more
work in. You want to see who can pin the
guy to your.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Side of the table. But the environment is always electric.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Right now, I'm number one left hand super heavyweight in Missouri.
I'm getting dangerously close to getting on that top twenty
list for North America. And I do not like losing
at all. I know that's part of the process, but
it just never sits well with me. So yeah, I
come from a big family, a lot of testosterone, as
all boys didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Have any girls in the house.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
My poor mom growing up had to deal with all
of us being rowdy, and so I was always trying
to out wrestle them and out arm wrestle them and
you know, be better at them in football or basketball,
or whatever it was. So I'm extremely competitive by nature.
I get intimidated, but you can't run from it. You
gotta embrace it. If I'm not a little scared going
(09:22):
into a match or a tournament where there's higher level
pullers than something's wrong, I gotta be scared.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That's what motivates you.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
It's an adrenaline rush, unlike anything.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Else I've ever done.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I didn't see myself as an athlete, you know. And
then a couple of years after high school, I found
arm wrestling as a sport and now now I train
all the time.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And a special thanks to Katrina Hine for gathering in
the audio and a Monty Montgomery for the production and editing.
And a special thanks to Dustin Tumlinson for sharing his
passion the sport that he plays that wasn't his sport
that long ago. And by the way, we love telling
stories about sports before they were sports. My favorite, one
of my favorites of all time was how NASCAR came
(10:03):
to be and it started with moonshiners and just guys
running cars in cornfields for just sheer fun. And of
course lawnmower racing, which I think will be an Olympic
sport one day, I hope, because it's just so much
fun to watch. And Dustin's story, well, we love telling
these stories of rural America because well, in the end,
things like oh, arm wrestling, well, you got a lot
(10:23):
of time to kill, and so you turn things into
sports and passions because you don't have a lot around
you and ultimately you have to fill the time. As
he said, he grew up with three older brothers and
he was the tallest and second lightest, but he said
he always had something to prove. The story of Dustin
Tumlinson and how he became a professional arm wrestling here
(10:43):
on our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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