Underground Arm Wrestling Is All The Craze In NYC

NY Post - The DIY arm arena took a little over two months, $300, numerous Home Depot trips and the help of his father and grandfather to complete, but once he built it, challengers did come.

“For some, it takes like four train stops,” Anoshka boasted of the further-flung folks who’ve attended the open weekly practices he’s been hosting with the table since summer 2020. Passersby often stop to duel or watch, then return with their families weeks later. The scene can swell to 15 people, all mingling, flexing and fighting at the curbside stadium.

“There was a guy that came from Queens with his wife and child and arm-wrestled for an hour while his wife sat in front of my house,” Anoshka recalled. “Everyone’s welcome.”

So far, the home-welded metal legs remaining shockingly sturdy as 200-plus-pound fighters attempt to pin the other’s wrist. And they’ve informally ensured their hand-to-hand contact is sanitary, Anoshka said. “I usually take the soap out, and we wash hands from [the] garden hose.”

“There’s some other people that also come [to Coney], and they have their own tables,” he said. “All of my arm-wrestling friends, we met because I have the table.”

All around NYC during lockdown, it seemed, people were getting into the sport and eager to practice, meaning they needed other buffs to battle.

Somewhere out there the next Lincoln Hawk is reading this, a sly grin begging to form across his wind burnt lips. Before he could finish the article he was downshifting his rig and getting off the next exit. Time to recalculate the GPS for I-90, and get on the HAM radio to let dispatch know they'd have to find somebody else to take his load. He has a title to defend.

This is just what the world needs right now. Few sports are as wholesome and pure as arm wrestling. Physical strength, mental toughness, strategy, technique, arm wrestling has it all. 

There are very few things in this world as admired being a good arm wrestler. Chicks wanna fuck them, guys wanna be them. You can command everybody in a bar's attention and respect. Hell, even if you don't come out on top, if you put up a decent fight and have the balls to step up you'll get a hat tip from most people.

Unless you disrespect the game like this asshole.

You just can't be conducting yourself like you just posterized somebody. This isn't the NBA. There are rules and decorum here.

Just look how this 20-year-old champ that goes by the name "Schoolboy" carries himself.

Leave it to those maniacs in Brighton Beach to resurrect the sport via homemade tables and traveling pickup leagues. I respect the fuck out of the hustle. One minute its underground poker games, now it's arm wrestling. Carrying one of those tables on the train, hopping off in a different Burrough and setting up shop has a very "White Men Can't Jump" feel to it. 

Except instead of just hustlers trying to make a quick buck off unsuspecting victims, whole leagues have began to spring up around this. Complete with leader boards and rankings. 

You're gonna be pissed to learn somebody already stole your idea because yah, there's also an app for it.

Thanks to the free app Armbet, which Anoshka describes as “the Tinder of arm wrestling,” he and his new friends soon discovered fellow table-owners in Queens, Long Island and even New Jersey to train with.

“A lot of arm-wrestling in the past has been very word of mouth. We created Armbet to help people connect,” app founder and North America’s No. 1 ranked arm-wrestler Devon Larratt told The Post. The app — which was released in March 2020 — now has 20,000 global users and, Larratt and Anoshka believe, has significantly helped fuel a massive grassroots growth spurt in the arm-wrestling community over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I'd love nothing more than to see a legitimate full resurgence of the sport, with matches being broadcast during daytime espn, because make no mistake, what the world needs now is arm wrestling.

That’s quickly changing though, with both a streaming service and social media channels increasingly embracing and giving a platform to the sport, exposing it to more people at a time when Americans’ loneliness has reached epidemic proportions and the desire to interact with like-minded souls — and their arms — is paramount.

“So much of the world is being taught to shy away from people, that people are dangerous. But we are pack animals — people belong together — and the sport of arm-wrestling teaches you that together, we get stronger,” said Larratt.

(sidebar - This Devon Larratt guy is the fuckin man)

p.s. - obligatory golden era content

p.p.s. - do yourself a favor and treat yourself to this gem if you've never seen it before

p.p.p.s. - worst kid in any movie, ever, all time, has to be Lincoln's kid in the movie no?