Exclusive Interview With Eric Wolfe, World Championship Arm Wrestler [Video]

We’ve been profiling some badass dudes lately, talking to competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi last week and world strongman Rendy DeLaCruz the week before that. Basically, we just wanted to talk with guys who man-up, as opposed to the team we spend most of our days with–can you be an Internet badass?

This week we had a chance to speak with Jeremiah Weed badass Eric Wolfe, who is a world championship arm wrestler. Wolfe is promoting his guns, along with safe and responsible drinking.

Our interview with the world champ after the jump!

Tell us a little bit about how you got involved in the Jeremiah Weed campaign?
I think they found me on the web. They hired a group of guys to find some badass sports that people were involved with and arm wrestling was one of those. So they Googled it and they found me, my website here in Arizona, which is where they were. From there they came over and filmed something in my garage and then followed me to one of my tournaments and did some more filming.

So do you consider arm wrestling to be a badass sport?
Oh yeah. By far! The most badass.

How long have you been arm wrestling for?
I’ve been arm wresting professionally for over tens years. Overall, I’ve been arm wrestling since I was probably 8 years old, one on one, for the love of the sport.

What got you hooked on the sport?
The neat thing about arm wrestling, it’s probably one of the first things a child and his father will do together–they arm wrestle sitting at the kitchen table. That’s the first time most guys, even girls, find out what arm wrestling is. I found arm wrestling through my father. He was a marine, and he used to arm wrestle me as a kid sitting around the kitchen table. From there it went to a more serious sport.

How do you train?
Training for arm wrestling is a religion. Most people claim that you train for arm wrestling by arm wrestling, which is true, but you can take it to the next level. And every part of what makes you a great arm wrestler can be translated into particular exercises. For example, having a stronger hand makes you a better arm wrestler, so you need to do hand exercises. Having a strong bicep makes you a better arm wrestler, so you gotta by bicep curls. Having a really strong back makes you a better arm wrestler, so you’ve gotta do a lot of lat pulls with your back.

How I personally train is I’ve taken every one of these components of arm wrestling and made a device or some sort of exercise in my garage so that I can train a couple times a week without getting any interference of the gym–with people running around and stuff. I can focus on each individual part of what makes me a better arm wrestler and it’s all in my garage.

How much do you have to know the science behind arm wrestling, or I guess study anatomy in order to  avoid any serious injuries?
Yeah, definitely. Just like any sport, once you get injured you’re out for a couple weeks or months. We take injury avoidance very seriously. There’s ways to get hurt and there’s ways to avoid getting hurt. The number one rule–it’s counterintuitive–but the number one rule is to keep looking at your hand. By looking at your hand, it alines all the muscles in your body in a way that’s safe. If you look away from your hand there’s so many ways to get your self in what they call an “arm break” position. The number one rule of safety is to look at your hand.

If you look away from your hand during the match, I’m gonna stop the match. We do it all the time. There’s not a professional referee out there who if he sees you look away from your hand he will easily stop that match.

I don’t know the science behind it, but it works!

Which matters more in arm wrestling, size or technique?
When you take two people who don’t know how to arm wrestle, of course strength is going to win. When both people learn technique, given the fact that they’ve got similar strength, the technique will win. Once you get to a certain level, though, you need strength and technique. You have to have both or you’re not going to win.

If you pick two guys out of a gym, similar size, I can take any one of them and make them a winner just by teaching them the technique. Even if he’s not necessarily the stronger guy he’ll win.

I can take a football player and put him up against one of my 130-, 132-pound arm wreslters and he’ll kill him. But then that football player is going to figure it out after a few weeks of training, if he’s serious about it and he’ll kill that 132-pounder. It’s a give and take.

Do you have a specific technique or style you use?
I’m known as a “hooker,” which means I like to curl my elbow into my body and use my bicep to pin them down. There’s two pretty popular styles of arm wrestling, hooking and top rolling. Top rolling is pretty simple, it’s over the top. what my move does is i take that top roller and I curl him in until he’s really close to me, and my bicep does most of the work and I try to drag him to the table with my knuckles facing me.

The key to that for me–and there’s a lot of people out there who love the hook move–my strength as a hook is that I’m well-known for being able to take the top roller out of his game going into a hook. Which is where my ability comes in. Just being a good hooker is one thing, but to be able to bring your opponent into the move is where I’ve been able to exceed beyond the other hookers.

How do you pump yourself up or prepare for a match?
If I’m going into a one-on-one tournament where it’s just me and another guy, I will study the crap out of that guy’s videos, I will study his style and try to think about what his vulnerabilities are, I’ll call people who have beat him, call people who have lost to him, and I’ll do all my research like that. If I go into a tournament where there are [50 guys arm wrestling] I’ll just research on who is going to be there. So there’s research to be done in both of those scenarios.

A big part of it is getting a visual in your head. A mental picture of you actually beating him. And he’s visualizing beating you. These psyche out techniques work really well for me. You’ve got positive thinking–you gotta have that going into a match. If you don’t go into it thinking you can win you won’t win.

There’s a lot of mental preparation that goes into getting ready for a match. It’s agonizing, trust me.

Do you ever arm wrestle on a whim or is that frowned upon? Like, if someone comes up to you and says, “Hey, you’re an arm wrestling champ, let’s see what you go.” Do you ever do that?
Yeah. I train so much, I’m always ready for at least an average match. If I just walk into the mall and a Top 10 arm wrestler just happens to be there with $100 bill, I’ll be like, “Whoa, let’s talk about this.” But if I’m in a bar and someone’s like, “Hey, let’s arm wrestle…” it’s on! I’m always ready for Joe Schmoe across the bar. I’m always ready for him. It’s the big sanction level tournaments you don’t want to take lightly.

If someone walks up to me on the street and says, “You wanna arm wrestle for $100, yeah my wallet’s open immediately.”

Do you ever go into a bar or something and try to hustle guys in an arm wrestling match?
It’s been done, it’s usually not a good idea. It very rarely turns out good for me, and believe me it’s happened quite a bit. What I would normally do–I’m normally with other arm wrestlers when I’m out–so if anyone tried to approach me I would immediately get one of my other guys involved, just to test the guy out. But we always take the opportunity to arm wrestle when we’re out and about.