A beautiful day in Denver Colorado at an unassuming Best Western. The elite of championship armwrestling begin filing out of the rooms of the seventh floor.  Today these bricklayers, landscapers, airplane mechanics, and average Joe’s will slip on Black tee shirts displaying the National Armwrestling League emblem and become the main attraction. They populate the lobby waiting for run-down shuttle buses which they will board leaving behind the world of modest no frills free rooms and enter the coliseum of competition, The Denver Convention Center. Piled into white vans six at a time, the athletes endure a bumpy 20 minute ride to downtown Denver. These men are unfazed by the humble and unpresumptuous accommodations. All but a select few have paid their own way to get here one of the many sacrifices made for an opportunity to be a champion. The other sacrifices - long hours in the gym, tendonitis, wrist, shoulder and hand injuries, the occasional broken arm, and the exotic forms of exercises designed to build strength - refine technique and create championship armwrestling form. It is the first day of the Vyotech sponsored - Shawn Ray Pro Am/classic - a strength and fitness expo featuring, among other events, the National Armwrestling League Championship matches for all weight classes for both right and left hands.
Today the champions and the number-one contenders will pull for the right to be called the best. They will compete for the title of National ArmWrestling Champion. The winner will need to “pull” the best of three. A victory while exhilarating, will do little to boost their wallets or erode their anonymity. Still they gather, the young and the young in spirit for a chance at a pull for greatness. Mano y mano. Braso a braso. Only one arm will be declared champion.
Across town at the Hyatt Regency is the self proclaimed “Worlds Greatest Arm Wrestler,” Jefferson County native and son of Strongman Jerry “BIG ARM” Boyd, Travis Bagent. 
Travis is already in the great expanse of the expo space directing the setup of the armwrestling stage. Today he will not only defend his unlimited weight class title, he will oversee the production of a two-day armwrestling tournament with over a hundred competitors and coordinate the taping of a television program on the day’s event. There is no question who is calling the shots. Travis is a combination of the World Wrestling Federation’s (WWF) over the top leader, Vince McMann and the Action Hero/WWF wrestler The Rock.” It is his energy, which drives the National Armwrestling League (NAL) forward and his desire to win that keeps him on top of the armwrestling world. 
Born in Charles Town in 1976, Travis’s beginnings seem out of touch with the times.  “I had no running water till the ninth grade. My uncle worked for the City of Ranson and we used to come down to where the racetrack is and fill jug after jug with water from a public works shack to which he had the keys. Hell, I had to take a sponge bath for one of my proms. Sleepovers were always at a friend’s house - never mine.” Travis’s mother, Linda Bagent, had an on - again off - again relationship with strongman Jerry “Big Arm” Boyd, whom she met through his ex-wife, the late Loretta Pinwell. Pinwell was like a second mom to Travis. She was his mother’s best friend and his godmother.
Overtones of rural Appalachia are scattered throughout the first years of Travis’ life. “There is one thing about poor people, they gather. There’d be 30 people throughout the day, 20 would go home and the next shift would come along. Poor people have to lean on each other. ‘Got an extra piece of bologna, I got a slice a bread; come on over.’ We always ate, there were five houses where we lived and we took care of each other.  All of us up there on Pissant Hill stuck together.“
The view from the Hill is spectacular, but when you want for the basic necessities of life scenery, does not much matter.  Lush green rolling hills that die into the Shenandoah hardly make up for no running water and having to use a hole behind the trailer for a bathroom. Travis admits the old homestead presents much pleasanter these days, as the rundown trailers are long gone. Modern plumbing is no longer missing and the old bathroom is well under six feet of topsoil. “I used to get a bigger wow when I would bring friends up here. They’d see this place and feel so bad they would want to buy me a sandwich or lend me a few dollars.”
Travis’s mother worked at the Rainbow Road, a country and western dance hall located in Rippon and famous for launching Patsy Cline’s career. Many scenes from the movie The Patsy Cline Story where shot on location at the bar. Linda worked weekends as a waitress/bartender. Later, Travis would do a stint as a barback for the club only to quit because he couldn’t fit behind the narrow bar. Most weekends Travis, along with his half brothers and sisters and friends, would be herded together while the adults worked or went out. “There were always eyes on us, but we did our best to run a little crazy as kids.”
Travis’ dad was not around when he was growing up. “I mostly grew up with the myth of him. I would listen to stories about my dad from my older brother. My dad had a reputation. He was well known as a strong man. He had some money, threw armwrestling tournaments, and had a nightclub with pool tables and armwrestling tables. Growing up he was a super hero type person, even though looking back he wasn’t the greatest father. People knew him and of him. Once in a while I‘d see him and he’d give you a five spot and a snickers bar … or a hello on the phone.”
Jerry “Big Arm” Boyd was well known in Jefferson County. He claims that at four years old he knew his was a “strong callin’.” It was not until 1962, when he joined the Marine Corps that his calling began to take form. Jerry met an armwrestling corporal who took it upon himself to school Jerry in the art of armwrestling.  In 1967, Jerry brought that knowledge back to Jefferson County. He put together an armwrestling team that included three men and one woman. The team hit the road competing in armwrestling tournaments up and down the east coast from Atlanta to Mid America. Some were sanctioned events; others were organized by armwrestlers from other states who would sponsor their own events. Every December Jerry sponsored a tournament in Winchester Virginia at the National Guard Armory. “For 23 years, I had my event sanctioned by the World Wrist Wrestling Organization (WWWO). I championed the sport of Armwrestling in Jefferson County. I have a sign in my place, which states our mission - Established for the preservation and advancement of the American Armwrestler.“
Big Arm’s team was quite successful. There was no prize money involved, only a three-foot trophy, the title that you won, and the glory of competing. “I competed in the unlimited division and got the name Big Arm because I won 99% of the time.”
Big Arm refers to his life in terms of his “strong calling,” essentially a desire to exhibit incredible feats of strength. The two mediums through which he chose to meet this calling were arwmwrestling and an additional five acts of strength. Those acts included lifting a 22 pound sledgehammer by the handle with his arm extended straight out, bending a quarter between his first finger and thumb, bending five horse shoes one at a time snapping them in two, bending a six penny spike the size of his little finger, and raising his arms straight out while lifting a 90 lb. weight with his left hand and a 100 lb. weight in his right. “You have to have strong hands and fingers to do these things and for armwrestling as well. In my opinion, armwrestling gives a man or a woman a second chance to be an athlete.” It is one of the rare sports with champions in their forties. The current NAL unlimited right hand champion, Ron Bath, is 43 and still going strong. (Ron Bath currently won the NAL Right Handed unlimited class title by default in Denver June 2, because Travis was unable to defend his right hand title due to a wrist injury.) “The strong calling can hit any man who has a desire to challenge himself to be stronger. Whether you are armwrestling or bending a shoe or doing anything for that matter, a man’s strength is an outward expression of what he is made.”
Big Arm has had many establishments since the early sixties. He ran a private recreation center in Charles Town with martial arts, armwrestling, 20 pinball machines, and ten pool tables serving orange soda and popcorn. After ten years he closed down the Charles Town location and opened the Recreation Center 2 in Shepherdstown in the building that currently houses Blue River. Beer was added to the menu and kids under 18 where turned away.  After Five years he came back to Charles Town and ran the same kind of operation until he returned to Shepherdstown and opened The Big Arm Bar & Grill in 1990.
Travis did not step foot into his father’s clubs until he was 14. “I went to his house five-ten times and he had a gym and armwrestling tables which is where I saw my first armwrestling. I saw news clippings of my dad. Other people would tell me about my dad’s strength. Throughout my life, because of who my dad was, I arm wrestled all the time. With a father like Big Arm, it’s hard to get out from underneath the shadow. As a youth Travis would have to work hard, harder than most to become the best and it all started with being the worst.
According to Boyd, “ Travis was the weakest human that I had ever seen. We started to prepare him for the world of armwrestling at four years old. He couldn’t even do a push up without going sideways.” Armwrestling, on the surface, appears to be a straight–up clash of strength, a battle of biceps. In truth, the quality of the armwrestler is determined by how much they know. The muscles that look good on the beach will not make you a champion armwrestler. To pull like a champion you have to master angles.
Big Arm takes credit for imparting this knowledge on to his son. “Travis had to have his mind set to learn the angles. To be a world-class armwrestler, a person has to know the angles first, the gym is fifth, and strength is sixth. The only way to learn angles is from wrestling a guy like me. I had to learn them the hard way by losing a thousand times. I was able to pass on some of this preparation to Travis. You get on the table every day. You spend a half hour every day like a discus thrower who spins empty handed to perfect his form. You have to do the same with angles in armwrestling. Travis wasn’t always interested in spending a half hour a day learning how to wrestle, but if he was to be in my presence he had to settle for that half an hour. He wasn’t glad then, but I am sure he is now.”
At age 14, Travis’s life took a turn that would lead him both closer to his father and closer to becoming a champion.  The family made its way off Piss Ant Hill and into a townhouse with indoor plumbing in Ranson’s Orchard Hill. Behind their house lived Artie Ebling, Big Arm’s right hand man. Travis was the kind of kid older mentor-types naturally gravitate towards.  He is like your best friend’s little brother. You want to look out for him, school him and keep him under your wing. It is a common thread throughout Travis’s life - what he knows slips down to him from those who know. 
Artie started picking Travis up on Thursdays and taking him to the Big Arm Bar & Grill, where he ran the poolroom. The poolroom was a breeding ground for Travis’s competitive nature, a marriage between the undeveloped raw will of a young man and his hunger to win.  Travis passed time making change for the patrons, wiping down the tables, keeping the floor swept clean, empting ash trays, and arranging the hundred or so sticks. He also started watching and learning how to shoot from the regulars. “I had a lot of guys looking out for me. It got so I could hustle a little pool. A tenth grader with 85 dollars in his pocket is happy.”
All of Big Arm’s clubs were a bastion of machismo, places where guys would come to lighten a paycheck with a friendly wager on a game of eight ball or a good pull. Big Arm used to offer a free pitcher of beer to any man who could bench three hundred pounds 15 times. One evening, Casey McGee, one of the strongest guys in Charles Town, benched 300 pounds 15 times for seven separate sets. On his seventh pitcher of beer, the bar was swinging back and forth in his arms like a boat out on the ocean. Weights fell off each side. That was the last time Travis was allowed to spot those guys.
Travis also barbacked and learned how to work. “I learned everything in my life there. I learned how to recognize trouble quick, and sure enough I was always able to catch a fight before it erupted. Growing up in that environment, waiting on and wrestling older persons, you develop a severe lack of respect for people your own age. You get fearless. Before long I realized that I became savvy and I used that upbringing to hone my competitive edge. Because of my dad, people always wanted to be nice to me. I embraced it got used to it and now that’s just the way it is. Who I am was built over 15 years of being out front and in the action. I am appreciative and I remember where I came from.”
From age 14 to 16, Travis would armwrestle every Friday and Saturday night at the Big Arm. He wrestled every Shepherd football player and never won a match. He claims he lost twelve hundred matches over those years, each time adding to his ability. The table was always open just for fun and for bragging rights. “I didn’t know anything about wrestling. Most of my opponents were older and stronger. I learned to use my angles, how to cheat the grip, how to use leverage, how to manipulate the grip and use my body weight so when I did get strong I was unbelievable.” Not knowing it, he was training as hard as any professional arm-wrestler. “If I would go in there now I wouldn’t be able to get anyone to take me on. But back then I got all the guys to wrestle the strong kid, the owner’s son. My dad was especially good to the football guys and you don’t have to ask them more than twice and they’re up for a pull.”
In 1996 Atri and Jeff Smoot were training to armwrestle professionally. That year the national armwrestling championship was held near Washington, D.C. Travis got caught up in the buzz surrounding those guys. When the press came around, he was sold. For the first time he entertained the idea of becoming a professional armwrestler.
Within four years he was the most dominant arm wrestler on the planet, commanding respect from the strongest arms in the world, including Big Arm. “He just kept coming. He never gave up. All my kids were good armwrestlers and won at least a county, state or tristate title in their times. But they never stood on the platform that Travis stands. He stands on the platform of the elite. He is a very unusual competitor. It is in his spirit, his heart and his soul. He is different than most men that walk this earth. I have never told him this because he never asked and because he is cocky enough. The people reading this need to know the difference between a champion and a super champion. He is the difference.”
This is hard won praise from a man who, as Big Arm puts it, “has walked seven decades on this earth.” A man who has held the keys to a world where pulling, feats of strength, and losing as well as winning defines what it means to be a man. “In my clubs I had a motto that always hung over the door, “serving the action world.” That is what all young spirits like: the action world. I understood that from my walking life. The first night I opened they paid five dollars at the door to get into the action world, and I gave it to them and each night after. I gave them the action world where people walk among the most glamorous women and the strongest men.”
Travis may be a product of his father’s action world, but like all sons he has his own dream. His strong calling is to bring the sport of armwrestling to the masses. It already enjoys worldwide popularity, but according to Travis, it lacks showmanship and the entertainment value necessary for today’s audiences. You need not look far to see exactly what he means. The coverage of armwrestling events has been bland at best. But where there is a void there is an opportunity.  Armwrestling is a unique sport. It involves losing. Like golf or baseball, the crème of the crop does not always have the best day. Is there any question Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world? Does he win every tournament? As all greats, Travis is able to forget losing quickly. He is a fully loaded weapon without a safety, always ready to compete. When the last pull is over, he is already onto the next one. In a sport where the best of two out of three determines the winner, this ability serves him well.
If consistency is any indication of champion caliber performance, Travis Bagent is the best armwrestler in the world. He can come at you both left and right. Mostly he comes straight at you, letting you know you are the underdog. It’s one thing to know you can win, but an art to convince someone that they cannot beat you. At the armwrestling table, Travis will look through you and let you expose your doubt or in a friendly tone remind you that it is your job to rise to the occasion. It is yours to lose.
Just as Travis can deal you a loss, he wants to sell you on his sport.  He is as aggressive in this pursuit as he is at the armwrestling table.  He has appeared on the David Letterman show, Jim Rome’s national sports radio program, and armwrestled The Best Damn Sports Show’s Ron Dribble on the air. He handled both the national spotlight and Dribble with ease. The latter performance was so strong that Travis was able to convince the highly successful supplement company Vyotech to sponsor him and to co-create a new armwrestling league with the goal of creating a television program targeting the ultimate fighting/extreme sports crowd. The National Armwrestling League was the result of this collaboration and now Travis is responsible for what goes on in front and behind the camera. With Vyotech in tow the NAL hired a documentary filmmaker to create a half-hour program featuring armwrestling. The program features championship matches filmed up close and in multiple angles. Also included are vignettes of the competitors in their hometowns, previous matches, and gyms. They also contain training footage and interviews with the athletes. This formula is not unlike those entertaining biography-type backstories which are such a popular part of Olympic coverage. NAL uses the backstory concept to let the audience get to know the competitors.
The training regimens of armwrestlers are often extraordinarily entertaining.  One scene shows a man grabbing a vertical bar on a wall and lifting himself to a horizontal position using just his arms to hold himself completely horizontal about four feet off the ground. In another you see a man outside pulling himself up a three-inch-thick rope with his hands behind his head. The cameras pulls back to reveal that he is about 25 feet above the ground. These are men with Big Arm’s strong calling.
T. Bagent is the narrator to the theatre of arm wrestling and like the great Lawrence Olivier he is masterful yet unknowing of the source of his power to win. “I just reach for it and it is there.” After giving the greatest performance of Hamlet of his life, a friend visited Olivier backstage. He found him sobbing at his make-up table. Perplexed at how he could be so downtrodden after such a performance he asked, “Sir, how can you be overwhelmed with sorrow after this triumph. Yours was the greatest performance ever given!” Olivier responded, “I know, but I don’t know how I did it.” Travis, like Olivier, has an ability to reach for a place inside where winning always comes. It is the zone and it defies explanation.
Travis does something every day that deals with armwrestling:  its angles, the weight room, and the promotion of the sport. “There other Travis’ out there but they haven’t risen yet,” says Big Arm. Travis wrestles both right and left-handed. He is unbeatable left-handed and always in the top five in right. That’s why he is the greatest armwrestler in the world. I got a high every time I walked up to that table for 23 years and I see that on Travis’ face. You don’t need drugs with that thrill.  The best armwrestler in 168 countries is what he represents right and left-handed.”
The wave is still building on Travis’s career. The partnership with Vyotech allows him to train, to focus on staying on top, and to live comfortable with his wife and children in Charlestown. Big Arm claims Travis is already preparing his sons to be champion arm wrestlers. How far armwrestling will take Travis remains to be seen.
Denver is a long way away from Charles Town. At the convention center, Travis prepares to defend his title. The fitness expo is in full force, supplement companies have their booths up, Vyotech takes up the prime entry position with beautiful young girls handing out information and well-toned salesman hailing the wonders of their products. Body building magazine reps circle the convention center floor along with hordes of fitness fanatics. There are product samples, crazy protein powder delivery concoctions too numerous to sample and people in tight clothing everywhere.  Every possible testosterone related product is available. Off to the side spectators are waiting in anticipation have gathered around the very stage Travis helped assemble a few hours earlier. Travis has to concede his right handed title to Ron Bath without a pull because of an injury to his wrist but he jokes with Bath about not getting too comfortable with “his title,” which he will certainly regain in two months when the two will pull again at the Arnold Classic. Then the cameras close in on the table all five vying for the perfect shot. Travis awaits his opposition. He rests his left elbow on the pad, grabs the table peg with his right hand, sinks his body into the table anchoring his legs against the table legs, opens his left hand and presents it to the referee who places it together with the man who has won the right to pull for the title. There is one pull. It ends quickly. Travis smiles. The audience shakes their heads in disbelief. Again the arms are set and the wrestlers lock hands. To be in the grip of Travis Bagent is to experience his strong callin’. Mano y mano. Braso a braso.
Among all of the men’s men who have come to Denver for a shot at winning, only one arm will be declared champion. The arm of the self proclaimed, “Worlds Greatest Armwrestler,” Jefferson County native and son of Strongman Jerry “BIG ARM” Boyd, Traviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis Baaaaaaaaaaaaaagent.