Flatonia Principal and Son Arm Wrestle for Team USA in Japan

Flatonia High School Principal Gabriel Adamek and his son AJ traveled to Japan last week to compete in the International Federation of Arm Wrestling Championships.

AJ won first place in the left-handed division of the 1921 age bracket for his weight class. His dad won third place in left-left handed division of the grandmaster bracket. Their feats are even more impressive considering they began competitive arm wrestling just two years ago.

“It actually started in May of 2024,” Gabriel recalled.

Gabriel said he and his son arm wrestled with each other and friends for fun. They lived in Yoakum at the time, where Gabriel worked at the school.

“I was at the school and he arm wrestled the biggest coach in Yoakum, just for fun,” Gabriel said. “They had kind of been talking mess with each other. Well, AJ beat him, and he’s just this lanky kid. I thought, ‘Man, there’s something to this.’” Gabriel said he knew nothing about competitive armwrestling up to that point.

“I googled amateur arm wrestling in Texas,” Gabriel said. “We had never seen a match or even an arm wrestling table. Well, two weeks later there was a tournament in San Antonio, so my wife and I took him. He entered the amateur division and got first place left-handed and third place right-handed.

“We had a great time,” he added. “We didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know if it was going to be a bunch of bikers or rednecks or whatever. We were there for five hours and had a blast.”

When they got back home, Gabriel and some friends pitched in to by an arm wrestling table. Ever since then, they’ve been meeting and practicing.

“At first it was every two weeks,” Gabriel said. “Now we practice every Sunday.”

Gabriel, AJ and his other son Luke went on to compete in the Texas State Champion- ship in November of 2024. They all won first place in their respective amateur divisions.

“Since then, we’ve been entering tournaments, mostly in Texas,” Gabriel said.

They soon stepped up from amateur to professional competition.

“There’s a national rating scale, so once you reach a certain rating, you would be considered moving up from amateur to pro,” Gabriel said. “And it all depends on who shows up to the tournaments. We’ve been to tournaments where we’ve done very well, and we’ve been to tournaments where we’ve gotten smoked.”

Similar to combat sports like boxing and MMA, arm wrestlers compete in division based on the competitor’s weight. You can choose to compete in a heavier weight class but never in a lighter class. There are also left-handed matches and right-handed matches. Most arm wrestlers are dominate in one arm but compete with both. Gabriel and AJ are both stronger with their left arms.

This past April they competed in the USA National Tournament in Ohio, and that’s how they qualified for the World Championships in Japan.

“When we went to Nationals, we had no idea how we’d do,” Gabriel said. “I was mainly going to watch him compete. I competed, too, because, why not? My thought was that if he got fourth or fifth, why would we go to the World Championships. But when he got first, I thought, ‘How can we say no to that?’ So almost immediately after that tournament in April, we started making plans for this trip.”

Neither of them had ever been to Japan before.

“I’ve got places on my bucket list, but Japan wasn’t one of them,” Gabriel said. “It was an awesome experience all the way around. We didn’t do much sightseeing. We just didn’t have the time. But we fully immersed ourselves in the food. There were American food options available, but we didn’t do any of that. We ate ramen. We ate sushi. We ate some wagyu beef. We were totally enjoying that for sure.”

Some folks might assume that a high school principal who competed for a world championship in arm wrestling may have been a coach earlier in his career. That would be an incorrect assumption.

“I was a fifth grade math teacher mostly before I got into administration,” Gabriel said.

Gabriel said the kids at Flatonia ISD have been following his exploits, and a few of them gained an interest in arm wrestling.

“I have brought my arm wrestling table to school a couple of times for fun, to let some of the kids try it out,” he said. “This has certainly generated some interest.”

Gabriel and AJ are part of a local arm wrestling team, which hosts tournaments in Shiner every December. Find them on Facebook by searching for “Yoakum Arm Benders.”

“There is a youth division, and the kids compete for free,” he said. “I always encourage kids to come try it out.”

Gabriel offered a little advice for prospective arm wrestlers – technique is just as important, if not more important, than strength.

“If a guy who is stronger than me – even considerably stronger than me – doesn’t have good technique, then there’s a good chance I can beat him,” Gabriel said. “If two people are close in strength, then technique is going to win.”