THOMSON, GA (WJBF) – In February, Thomson’s own David Hobbs won the Alabama State Arm Wrestling Championship.
We brought him in to the studio to hear his story, find out about some arm wrestling techniques, and of course to ‘challenge him for his title’.
Now even though you’re the Alabama State Arm Wrestling Champion, you’re a local boy. Give me a little bit of your background.
Originally I’m from Augusta, Georgia. I love Augusta, it’s great. I ended up moving up to Thomson and I graduated there from high school.
Now how did you get in to arm wrestling?
So I lived in Durango, Colorado about 8 years ago, and there was an arm wrestling tournament there, so I went down and I checked it out and I came in to the final championship round and the rest is all history.
When people think of arm wrestling they think of people locking arms and pulling back and forth but there’s more to it than that. Give me an idea about what the training is like, the diet.
So let’s knock out the diet. First and foremost we like to keep things really healthy. So since Alabama in February, I’ve dropped twenty pounds, but I’ve done it in a very healthy manner. I’m getting ready for a Georgia State Championship where I have to be 230. I was 242 for Alabama State, now the training can be somewhat unorthodox. You sustain a lot of injuries, it’s just one of those sports. We use to get toe straps and pull my buddies truck, and we would pull it up a very long driveway, and we would hold straps to our wrists, and then our training partners would drop fifty pound dumbbells to the ground.
Give me the rundown about your arm wrestling career.
Lets go back to Colorado. So I did that first tournament, and then I waited about a year, they had another tournament, and I did really well, and then I moved back to Georgia. That’s when I started training. I didn’t train for the first two years, because I didn’t know what I was doing. My technique, everything was terrible. I was lucky enough to find a team, and I started and got my own set of guys, we studied up and trained up hard, and started knocking down some tournaments, and it was a rush.
Tell me about the day you won the competition.
The Alabama state championship is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the southeast. When I was actually going up there, I was kind of banged up. Honestly, I didn’t think I would win the entire thing for the left hand, 242 class. But once you knock out your first match, you gain some confidence, and then your mindset changes. Now, back to the adrenaline rush thing. It is the biggest adrenaline rush. Honestly, you have the whole crowd, everyone is yelling, it’s crazy and I can’t hear anything. All I can hear is that referee saying ready go and then we grip and rip.
When you won, what’s going through your mind?
When I walked up there for that last match, there was something different going through my head. I was like this is my night, this is my table, I was like I don’t care who gets on that table, this is my night, I’m winning this thing, and I did.
What’s next for you?
Well after me and my wife get back from Jamaica in July, July 15th we have the Georgia State Championship, and then honestly my dream the Mr. Olympia. That’s the Super Bowl of Body building, but we’re lucky enough for them to have arm wrestling there. So if I do well enough, if I’m able to qualify and get in, possibly seek out sponsorship, and make that dream come true.
Well, while I got you here. I’d love to learn about some of the techniques, and I’m going to challenge you.
Let’s do this.
Hobbs encourages people to keep up with him on his social media page. We thank him for coming in, and now I’ll be training for our next rematch.
