History & State Champions
 

I want to share a little Michigan Arms history with everyone and basic past armsports information before my time, and hope to maybe
gain some more history to share on this website to all the pullers of Michigan and beyond.

Looking for result for Michigan State Championships from 1987 and Later. I wasn't at the 87 event, but heard alot about it.
I would love to hear from Ron Gentry, Fred Wenk or anybody that I can talk to about past Micigan State Champions to
get some more results. Ron & Fred were the Main Event Director in the 70's and 80's. Rumor has it that Ron Genty actually
organized the very first AAA National Stand-Up Championships, in June 1978. The tournament was held in Dearborn.

Ron was running the Peach festival event in remo Mi. in the late 80's and early 90's I went to a few of them and met Ron, Fred was running a tournament every year for a while in Stony Lake at the yacht club around that same time and I attended two or three of those events. Fred pulled in the 1990 MSC, not sure how he got in the amateur class. I have no reason to believe that these guys are gone, every now and then I here someone say they ran into Fred, haven't heard anything of Ron in quite a while now.

Pat Bishop from Saranac Michigan was directing alot of county championship tournament in michigan when I started in the mid 80's, I beleive he moved to Wisconsin
around the late 80's early 90's. I beleive Ben White married his niece and he is back in Mi. 

I started armwrestling in 1984 at Pat Bishops events and that is how I met Lloyd Petipren, and Brian Bowerman, and we became training parteners.
Lloyd went to the 1987 Mi. state, I remember him telling me about the event. His team won the team event and Henery Zack on another team ran out the door with the team trophy. Lloyd said, we are going to do the State next year, and that is when we came up with the Michigan Arms Logo and I have been with it every sense. Lloyd Passed away in July 1989 do to injuries complications from a car accident. Brian Bowerman and myself applied for AAA State Co-director postions for Michigan and was honored the applied request. around three years later Brian had to resign do to career and family safety issues. 

 I started stamping the return address on the flyers we sent out with Michigan Arms in 1991, in 1996 we came up with a web site Called Michigan Arms under the domain name www.cityofgreenville.com/michiganarms.htm that was maintained by Rod Seller who was directing event in the early to mid 90's. The site was probably the first to have AW video on the net. That site went dead when Rod quit pulling in the late 90's, early 2000's. I restarted the michiganarms.com web site in early 2005 and it has keep me busy sense. and a few years after that we stop sending flyers (Thank God)

I met a guy around 1995 or six who started coming to our tournaments, I was getting calls form the AAA asking if I knew this guy, and if I thought he was state director material, he was contacting them and was seriously requesting to be a State co-director, I remember saying, No one else is volunteering he must really want to help the Armsport world, Oh, Did I forget to mention his name, Steve Pettis, he's hung around and has learn the trade of directing, refereeing, promoting and has adapted to the changes better than anyone. He fully took over in 2009 when I retired from state director, and has done a phenomenal job as he proved it in 2013 & 2014 state championships, tying our all time record of 200 entries in 2013 and 273 entries in 2014. I haven't really left the promoting of the sport, I continue to work with steve behind the scenes and do a small amount of referring. I may even direct an event this year. 

Below are some results that Eric Roussin Gave us, Eric is part of the web site Armwrestlers Only and is involved in a lot of history research of  organized Armwrestling

George Deible
michiganarms@hotmail.com

1987 Michigan State Championships
Pontiac Mi.   Director: Ron Gentry

1980 Michigan State Championships (Wristwrestling)
Detroit Mi.       Director: Ron Gentry
November 30th, 1980

MEN'S RIGHT 150lb: FRED WENK
MEN'S RIGHT 175lb: JIM PUISIS
MEN'S RIGHT 200lb: KEN VOLLMAN
MEN'S RIGHT OVER - 200lbs: HENERY ZACK

WOMENS RIGHT OPEN: CHERI FIEBIG

MEN'S RIGHT 150lb: FRED WENK
MEN'S RIGHT 175lb: FRED WENK
MEN'S RIGHT 200lb: BILL NELSON
MEN'S RIGHT OVER - 200lbs: RON GENTRY

1979 Michigan State Championships 
Grand Rapids       Director: Fred Wenk
April 29th, 1979

MEN'S RIGHT 145lb: GORDON GENTRY
MEN'S RIGHT 160lb: RICH  HERN
MEN'S RIGHT 175lb: JOE RAIRICK
MEN'S RIGHT  210lb: SHERMAN TANGEN
MEN'S RIGHT OVER - 210lbs: RON GENTRY



WOMEN'S RIGHT LIGHT: JACKIE BOUWENS
WOMEN'S RIGHT HEAVY: CHERI FIEBIG

1979 Michigan State Championships (Wristwrestling)
Detroit Mi.       Director: Ron Gentry
December 16th, 1979

MEN'S RIGHT 150lb: JOE RICCI
MEN'S RIGHT 175lb: FRED WENK
MEN'S RIGHT 200lb: MARK LAYTON
MEN'S RIGHT OVER - 200lbs: GUS ASMUS



WOMEN'S RIGHT LIGHT: BELINDA SMITH
WOMEN'S RIGHT HEAVY: CHERI FIEBIG

1978 Michigan State Championships (Sit Down)
Detroit Mi.       Director: Ron Gentry

MEN'S RIGHT 145lb: GORDON GENTRY
MEN'S RIGHT 165lb: FRED WENK
MEN'S RIGHT 185lb: MARK LAYTON
MEN'S RIGHT  200lb: ROB COOMBS
MEN'S RIGHT 242lb: RON GENTRY
MEN'S RIGHT OVER - 242lbs  GUS ASMUS


WOMEN'S RIGHT 110lb: TAMMY GENTRY
WOMEN'S RIGHT 140lbs: ROBIN MORGAN
WOMEN'S RIGHT OVER - 140lbs: ROCKY O'SHAUGNESSY