Locals compete in ‘Game of Arms’ – ‘225’ sits down with arm wrestlers featured on AMC show

A decade ago, Matt “Chop” Bertrand signed up his friend Josh “Turbo” Borrow for an arm-wrestling competition. From that moment on, Borrow was hooked.

“I was always pretty good at it,” he says. “At that competition, I think I won three matches. I looked like an idiot, but I did all right. Since then, I was really into it.”

Borrow has lived in Lake Charles since he was 16. He is one of five members of the Roughnecks, a Baton Rouge team of arm wrestlers featured in the new AMC reality show Game of Arms. The other members include Bertrand, Larry Alexie, Ray Hennerichs and Craig Tullier, an oil refinery foreman from Baton Rouge who took a break before returning in 2013.

“Arm wrestling has always been my passion,” Tullier says. “I had been doing it for 17 years pretty much every day before I stopped. Whenever I stopped, I was miserable. It was driving me nuts. I just had to come back.”

Tullier is renowned as one of the stronger arm wrestlers in the South. His co-workers at the plant call him “Arm Bender.” He’s broken three competitors’ arms.

He has been training with a team of wrestlers every Sunday at a friend’s house for years. He takes his hobby seriously, going to the gym six days a week and lifting weights. On Sundays, the team trains their hands, fingertips, wrists and backs, then works on technique for five hours straight.

“It’s easy to pull 500 to 1,000 matches on a Sunday,” he says.

Borrow, who weighed in at 420 pounds at the beginning of the show and has since lost more than 50 pounds, says those practice matches, or table time, are the most important part of arm wrestling.

“You can go to the gym all you want, but table time is key,” he says. “I know some of the strongest guys who compete don’t work out with weights. It’s all about executing the game plan. I didn’t really train at all during the show. I thought it was [expletive]. Now, I’ve been on a high-protein, organic diet. Tullier gets on my [expletive] to keep me motivated.”

The teammates knew each other through local matches and watching each other’s video clips on YouTube. Once the opportunity for the show came along, the networks helped pick the five-man team.

A huge part of arm wrestling is strategy. Tullier can get up to the table and feel where his competitor is going, then adapts. It’s about watching and counteracting. With cameras capturing every minute, it was difficult at first for the team to get in a rhythm.

In the second episode of the season, the Roughnecks made its debut and lost all but one of its matches to the Kansas City Rolling Thunder. Bertrand defeated Andrew “Cobra” Rhodes. The rest of the team didn’t deal with the distraction as well.

“During the tournaments, I like to sit there and be quiet so I can watch the [matches] and get the cadence down,” Borrow says.

Tullier says filming for 12-16 hours a day didn’t help the team’s fatigue levels.

“There are a lot of things that play into the match,” he says. “The adrenaline is up and down. It’ll wear you clean out. It will have you totally exhausted. As it went on, the filming got easier and better. In the beginning, it was pretty rough. … They were learning a lot; setting things up. It was hard for us as a team, the way it was set up.”

This week, audiences across the country will see the Roughnecks redeem themselves against the New York City Arms Control team.

“[Fans can expect] some serious intensity,” Tullier says. “It’s going to be gut-wrenching down to the last match. There’s a lot of scheistyness. It gets very hostile. It’s total action.”
Borrow says the episode might be the best of the season.

“We pretty much wanted to bury everyone there,” he says. “It was real rough for all of us. We were pissed off. Usually, after a match you’ll have an after-party with your competitors. We didn’t have an after-party with them.”

Tullier is also excited by how the show has brought public interest to the sport. He was spotted by a local Subway employee who asked a line of questions longer than the store’s list of sandwich toppings. Even New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton is into the show.

“I was in a Crossfit thing last week, and Sean Payton comes and stands next to me,” Tullier says. “He tells me that he watches me on the show. … I’m sitting there like, ‘You’re Sean Payton!’ That’s really cool that everybody is into it. You have all these people who know nothing about arm wrestling that are interested in it now.”