Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 314 | Uncle Si Will Never Fight a Girl, But It's Not Why You Think & the Champion Arm Wrestler

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Phil and Si remember racing cars on foot to earn extra money and prove their manliness. Arm-wrestling champion "Monster" Michael Todd shares his crazy adventures. Phil reminisces about his arm-wrestling days and makes it very clear why those days are over. Monster talks about fracturing his arm more than 70 times — and he's not done yet. Jay Stone tells Si about a girl at his gym that took him down. Al tells the story of his appendix rupturing. And Si says he'd never fight a girl, but it's not for the reason you think. -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So we sent, we sent Jace out on assignment to just let things happen to him so he'd have stories when he comes back. So we send him out from time to time. So y'all put him out in the world just saying, hey, we're going to see what's going to happen. Yeah, you don't have to, you don't have to send him any place in particular or anything else. Or give him an agenda. No, no agenda. Just let him go.

And just you bring the story now. And interact with people. And it's constant conflict, battles. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. The man is just, and then he comes back, and we basically have a podcast or two of his interactions that usually end up with the public. He will never.

Miss Kayne never ceases to remind me. She said, out of those four boys, she said, one of them. She said, I argued with. them until from the time they were this high. And the moment he could speak. The moment he could speak, she said, I've argued with that, Jesus, his whole childhood. It's almost 50 years now.

And he claims it's because she never got his humor. Yeah. He was just joking. It was all a joke. Yeah. And she didn't get it. I said, well, Jason, what's the problem now with the rest of the world? Because nobody else is getting your stuff either.

Nobody can get along with you. Nobody else can get along with it. Well, since he isn't here, so laughing and having fun is actually encouraged. Jay nickname Jay's the fun sucker because he sometimes will suck the fun. Well, sometimes. Not all the time. I nicknamed him Lone Wolf McQuaid. Which that fits him pretty well, too.

So in his place to show you how hard it is to replace Jays, we have three guests today. We have, of course, two from my. our sister podcast at the duck call room we have sigh returning to unashamed we got stone making his return as well and you guys brought a guest so introduce we did so i keep hearing these stories phil when y'all are coming up sigh always said the the phrase in the robert among the robbers and men was who is a man who's a man so when i met this guy we carried that one you know that's why no shoes nope barefoot only we travel barefoot about two days years at the peak of the Hoosier Man, no shoes allowed. So I look back at it now.

It's kind of done. A lot of getting drunk. And you bring in an arm wrestler, this is arm wrestling king. A lot of that was mixed in, getting on the highway. And we figured out that a human being on a 40-yard run in the middle of the pavement, everybody drinking, we get out there. It was Highway 167 going in Arkansas. And you could park your car, and the bet would be I can outrun any vehicle at 40-yard. Drag racing. A human being drag racing, a vehicle. I continued to make money with that and making a lot of money.

But the arm wrestling was there at the bar. That was out back. So I used to... The arm wrestling reminds me of my days of wickedness. Why is it going to be wicked? Our man, we were, we were... Nothing against you, Mark. We were children of the devil, my man.

So I'm released he's got it cleaned up. there's no getting drunk and doing it. So Jay, you brought a real man. That's right. So when I met Michael, I thought this is the guy that Phil and Zah are always talking about. Who's the man? Well, this is a man. This is right here.

No, he's the man. He is world champion arm wrestler. And proves you can follow Jesus and be an arm wrestler at the same time. That's right. That's right. Living the proof of that. Anyways, I just thought that since y'all were trying to figure out who's the man, I actually met the man that y'all were talking about.

And y'all could get some, you can maybe, I knew back in the day you had some arm wrestling experience of your own back when you were a heathering. He was working on, he was working on his testimony. Yeah, working on his testimony. I have, look, I have softened. Look at that bicep. That's what he tore. Yeah.

This is what you look forward to, dude. Look. All this just shifted in a moment. and, you know, all kinds of purple and green came up into my, but there I am now. Dad, what were you doing when you tore your bicep? What was that? It was some big heavy project. All I did was reach quickly for a falling shotgun.

And when I caught it, I went, oh, hey. And I looked down there, I said, arm wrestling is over. No more arm wrestling. So you were a lefty? Huh? You were lefty arm wrestling? No, it just, yeah. Yeah, my left one went out, but my right hand.

but I swing everything. I swing. You pass left hand. Yeah. Well, now, so this is Michael Todd, by the way. I guess he'll be known as Arm Man, the rest of the podcast, because dad has to nickname people. But so you are the world champion. Yes, sir.

And for those of you listening, you probably really need to go to YouTube to really appreciate this podcast to get a look at Michael because he's quite the specimen. And so Michael came to us by way of Matt Lida. Yes, sir. Who is not a man. Yeah. He's a fake man. Yeah.

And so, but because the nine lines is one of your sponsors, right? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. They partnered up. My wife and I are doing a nationwide tour across the United States, basically just exposing people to the sport of arm wrestling, taking all in all comers and just having cool life experiences like this. Nine line jumped on board, thought it's a cool thing we were doing.

And so that's how I got to meet you guys. So it's funny. So I pull in, I come home yesterday from preaching. I pull into my drive. driveway. And there was a redneck dream parked in my driveway. Yeah, exactly. And so I saw it and I thought, what in the world? Because there's a big picture of Michael's side of it, arm wreck, a monster man. And I thought if he's going to drive out to Phil's tomorrow and every redneck is going to be lined up waiting for him to come back

through just to salute him. Because, you know, you saw the travel traders. I told you, I said, People live in motorhomes and travel trailers around here, but his is tricked out, I mean, to the max. I saw it. The last time I saw something like his rig was when ZZ Top pulled in here. That's right. And their tour bus. They had two of them. And I said, what's with the two buses?

Why don't just two of you? Why don't you just keep it down to one? He said, it's like a long marriage after years. He said, you learn two buses is the way to go. One, he can't live together. Yeah. One in one bus, one and the other. I thought, makes sense.

Well, Phil, Al says that you used to arm wrestle those loggers and pulpwood haulers for money. Yep. And look, I don't, so I used to climb, Mike, I used to climb up in a magnolia tree that was behind that bar. I was about six or seven years old. And there's a lot that happens outside of bar. I don't know. I don't know if you have a bar in your past. I don't even want to go through at all.

I don't want to hear about it. This is owls, child. That's my child. It's my child. It's basically outside bar observation. So I saw a lot of stuff. But one of the things that, I mean, really, to be honest with you, made me proud because it's your dad, you know.

But every time they would come out, of course, the one advantage dad had is that he wasn't drunk and they were, which was good. That helps, I think. But he had some kind of technique because I never saw him lose. And I saw a lot of matches. And there were some guys that looked sort of like you, but they were just kind of country strong, you know, pop-foot guys and all that.

Robert Brunay was on the football squad at Louisiana Tech. He was the arm wrestling king. Is that where you learned for your technique? Robert Brunet from Lurow's cutoff played for the Washington Redskins. I told him. I told him a man about that early. Yeah, he played ball at Tech. But he was, he was the king.

I remember him, okay. He wasn't as big as you are, but his arms, his biceps. Yeah. His biceps was besides years. he looked like a freak yeah he was he was a bull strong young man but back to who's a man when that was going on i was saying no hey don't no i'm a boy i ain't i ain't in this okay so phil what was your what was your secret to beating those pup boy guys was a technique what kind of technique did you have

it's hard to say about the configuration of some people don't seem like they would be really good at arm rats and then they are absolutely and some people you'd think with just the the girth of the muscle, they would have to have it, but it did, there's a, there's, there's, there's kind of a leverage thing, right? I mean, tell us kind of the, the, the, the, the physics of it. Well, basically, so, uh, most people who are good at arm wrestling are just those hard working manual labor people, people, because hands and wrist are the most important part of arm wrestling. Uh, most people think it's just pushing to the side or whatever, but the actual sport of arm wrestling is more of a tug of war. So you start hands in a center of the table,

we want to pull the opponent to you. So you, your hand and wrist are, you, you're hand and wrist has to be strong, but your back's the biggest muscle use. But if your hand and wrist isn't strong enough to support that, it doesn't matter. So I would come on. So your guns are just for show because you're doing all your hard work with everything else. Right, right? Yeah. So the biceps, the biceps help. The biceps help, but mainly it's a back movement. It's a hand and wrist. There's supination, pro nation. There's a lot of different things. The funny thing is, because I've been doing this for 31 years, I started in 1990 at the Saline County Fair. And people are like, yeah, that guy's stronger than you, but you know the technique.

Well, no, his bench press muscles are stronger than mine or his squat or deadlift muscles. My arm wrestling muscles are highly developed because I've done, I've arm wrestled a million times, right? So it's just whatever you do. And I've always taken the approach to arm wrestling. A lot of people say, we can only train a body part, you know, so many times a week. Well, if you're a mechanic, you can't go to work today as a mechanic and say, well, I can't go tomorrow because I worked yesterday as a mechanic. So I just treated arm wrestling like a job. So I trained my hand wrist and four arm every day.

And that's the reason I've done as well as I've done. It's been successful. Yeah. I read on the internet where you broke, you've broken your arm seven, or either of your arm 70 times. Is that true? Is that just, because we don't believe anything we read on the internet. And you should not. Okay, good.

That is one example. So my left elbow, the doctor misdiagnosed me 11 years ago and said I had a muscle tear. So I was all black and blue. And I was like, oh, no big deal. So I went into a world title match in London. And I drove in against a guy. I got in great position. And I'm kind of putting on a show for the camera and pow.

Meetoplatel ligament ripped off the bone. The flex match rose up the forearm. I'm the elbow dislocate six inches. So I'm facing this way, it lands on taking it behind me. So that's what they went in and they rebuilt this. I didn't have health insurance for like the first 20 years of arm wrestling career. So I finally did. And I'm like, well, let's x-ray my right arm.

Well, they x-rayed my right arm. And at the time, they said they found over 70 fractures. That's true. Yeah. So my right arm, I've lost 19. A half inches range of motion. This is horrible. So check this out.

So that seems like a barrel of fun. That's as far as the straighties. Wow. Look at that. This is a bad one. Yeah. That's as hard as it's. right there.

That's bone on bone. Wow. Good grief. Yeah. So back to our earlier comment about who's a man. Yeah. Forget who's a man. I'm back to a boy.

He's a little deeper inside the art of arm wrestling that I ever was. I like because he's painting this picture of what happens to his arm. So three weeks ago, I was swinging a golf club and felt the pop. That's how not less of a man. I swung a golf club and hit a ball and snapped. I mean, I reached for my falling shotgun and ended up with all this changing spots. And we took a picture of it. And the nurseman that runs with us, he's a nurse practitioner.

So with us, that's the greatest surgeon and doctor of all time. That's it, boy. A nurse practitioner inside the blind with you. He said, let me take a picture of it, and I'll send it to a buddy of mine. He took a picture of it, and it turned purple and green and yellow from the tear. and his surgeon said, the surgeon that fixes, he said, oh, I can fix that in 20 minutes. He said, but is it hurting right now? I said, it hurt for about three or four days, but I said, when I first did it, I thought, man, it hurt.

But now, no problem. He said, let it ride. Let it ride. I said, that's why you need to know somebody. So instead of saying, he said, I can fix it, put it all together. He said, but it'll grow back where you won't even know what happened. I said, pay, okay. There you go.

looking at it, I'm not sure. I know something happened, looking at that. Because you now have a unicep, not a bicep. It might be them, it might be from the pristine waters of New Zealand. There you go. I take one pharmaceutical,

one pharmaceutical, one baby aspirin a day. That's it. Hey, Omega X-L, I'll tell you, I'll have aches and pains and when I now, I'll take it, I don't have aches and pain. That would be either. That was a free commercial. That's right, boys.

Hey, one more time. Fish all, ladies and gentlemen. That's right. Get off the marijuana all. That's right. Hey, from the pristine waters of New Zealand, boys. So let's take a break. So, so, side, you were, and you were there, what most people don't know is, so you lived in Junction City right around the early 70s.

During the Who's the Man era, and you were there maybe, what, two years, three? I was never part of that who's a man. He backed off. Yeah, I backed off and said, I'm out of this, guys. Well, you'd been to Vietnam, so you understood a little bit about the who's a man era from doing that. So you were with us, and of course my theory has always been that the reason Jace acts like you sometimes, but not near as fun, is because he was, you and Christine used to keep him when he was just a toddler. I didn't even remember that. Yeah.

Yeah. And then Christine said, well, you stupid idiot, y'all? She said, we kept him every weekend. He said, that's why you and him can't get along, y'all are too much a lot? Well, it was the double whammy? I don't know why he missed out on the fun part. He's like you on the argumentative stubborn side without any of the fun. Oh, I understand what I can't argue with in all the times. No, exactly. But, you know, it's always fun to talk about. So not only did, have y'all talked about when Phil used to race?

the cars. That's what he was talking about. The 40-yard dashes. You can outrun, you can outrun 98% of the vehicles, 99, because they will spin somewhat when they won't. No traction. And you're running on foot, barefoot in this case, but I could cross the fort.

They were gaining on me quickly, but I could not outrun a Harley-Davidson, but they barely beat me. Or a horse, right? Or a horse. Yeah, or horse. But anybody that got in a vehicle, once they spun their tires just a little bit.

Any rubber burning, and I was on down toward the 40 yards, and there were a lot of people faster than me, but I collected 20 bucks. It was 20 bucks riding on every one of them, $20. You got to remember, too. I made many $20. I run a vehicle on a pavement, on pavement. Dad was still a college athlete at the time.

I mean, he was just out of college, and he had played, you know, leave it to a redneck, okay? By the way. Any way to make a dollar. By the way, for you ladies and gentlemen who are listening to this, don't ever do those kind of things. Don't even get involved in that at all. It's a DED. I agree. That's it.

And so, but dad was always like, what I love about it is some of the entrepreneurial spirit was already alive then too in terms of how to make, have a business and all that. By the way, once you got lined out spiritually, it worked up. Yeah. By the way, I read through this, Alan, I was. surprised that there is a somewhat a lengthy number of years, all the empires about arm wrestling, you know, could have been going on 4,000 years ago. Yeah, they said this in these pharaoh tombs I read, they found like drawings of people arm wrestling. So you're talking about, and that's 4,000 years ago.

So, I mean, this goes way back. Pretty interesting. They don't know for sure exactly what they were doing, but it looked like they were arm wrestling. You know, we're living in posts, spears and knives and bowing arrows and whatever clubs. But, you know, during that era, you would probably, I mean, you know, to beat someone, which would be basically an arm wrestle, but there's not many just sharp-pointed sticks and spears. Arm-rassing techniques would be handy to keep you alive. That's true.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, in the Greeks. Wouldn't you think? I like the way you're thinking. I would have done really well back in it. You would have stopped out, Mike. We can't go get our gun because they haven't invented, they haven't invented gunpowder to 1,200 AD, I think it was.

But you said, well, no gunpowder. This was just basically a lot of hand to hand to put it mildly. Right. Hand to hand. Well, you think about them soldiers and all. I mean, having a skill set that he has pinning somebody on the ground in a hurry. That's right. You know.

And being able to break your arms every time and still hang in there. Yeah. I mean, that alone makes it pretty special. Well, one of the most impressive things about Phil that I've seen over the years is his tolerance for pain. Yeah. It is, I've never seen a man. And I asked Dr. Hilburn, who's my dentist? He's Phil's Dennis.

I said, is it true that Phil comes in here? When you're drilling on him, he takes zero, zero pain killer. He said that's 100% true. He doesn't like to know. And I also learned. I simply ask how long is this going to take? Yeah. And when he says, oh, a minute, I said, I can stand anything for a minute.

Get after it. I said, I don't want my mouth all. I said, you know, dead. I said, just do what you got to do, Doc. Let's go with it. There you go. You walk out and you feel no ill effects of anything. I mean, you're in and you're out and you felt about a minute's worth of pain.

But after that. And this is coming from Stone who has to get on gas to get his teeth clean. That's right. It kind of gives, by the way. That's what I call it a low pain towel. That sounds like something Matt Lottie. It adds to the, this is good for you, for the arm wrestler man. I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

Well, when you're in a bind, you say. you must remain content during this venture. I know what it is to be a need, what it is to have. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. That's a good way to roll. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, if you can pull it off.

Yeah. It's not as easy. Some things pain is with it. Pain comes with a lot of things, including what he does. You take about the wear and tear on the whatever his arm, when he's strength, muscle popping, you know, bone cracking. You're like, you would have to have a high tolerance of pain, or you wouldn't do what he does.

So you've experienced your share of pain. Do you get gas when you go to the dentist? I have not, but. No refraxion on you, Jay's. No, to each his own, Jay, to each his own. You're no less of man in my eyes. But, yeah, so I've just, I've always had relative, certain things I have a high pain tolerance.

Other things my wife will tell you I'm kind of a wist. So, uh, well, having hands, the sizes of plates, myself, I shook his hand there. He literally enveloped. I mean, like, I could have put both in it. Yeah, it disappeared. Yeah, just, you're just disappeared. So I said when they prepare you, uh, uh, to go into a war like Vietnam, two lines for them, three, four lines.

And they're just coming by like cattle. And he said, they're standing there with. look like blow guns. Oh, yeah. But it's got needle, air needles. And they're just, they're just popping you for this and that. One in each shoulder. One in each shoulder.

They just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And they tell you when you're doing it, do not flinch. Don't flinch. Because if you do, it's just going, it's like a laser. You know, they flinch. It's hard not to flinch when you're being perforated with these pharmaceuticals on both sides. No telling what that was. Oh, no, no.

Now, going back to being content. Now, when you go through something like when you go to theater, you go to war, you get a perspective on what it's like to have an air condition or have a toilet that flushes. Yeah. So when you get back from something like that, you have a different perspective. You say, boy, this flushing toilet sure is nice. What do you know, Jay would describe what it was like at the latrine. When you're pouring the diesel over in there and right, right? start on the front side though so how many you got lined up and there's there was at first

there was always a long line you know you had the the drums when they got full they had to be burned down to a sludge and then put back in there so I'm trying to be I'm trying to tell the story in a way that's suitable it's hard yeah so if you were below an E5 you had that detail. So you'd have to stir the pot like a big gumbo, get it down to a sludge, bring it back in. And, you know, that was one of the worst things about being over there, you know, and they had the big blowfly.

Well, I'm glad now because I can't smell anything. Yeah. I'm glad I have that particular ailment. Is the roast done? Yeah. Yeah, the last thing he would think about when doing that, you know, you don't want nothing to eat that thing. But I will tell you one thing, when I got back home from that 12-month tour in Afghanistan,

I was very content with what I had. And your appreciation level was way up. That's right. And now, especially, I am very content and very appreciative and very blessed. Well, it was interesting because when you got back, because you left, I would say you were still unsettled, you know, just generally because we knew Jay well. And then, of course, he kind of got the thought process since he was literally almost out. and then all of a sudden, here we are at war.

Yeah. That it was kind of like, you know, this must be it for me. Because, I mean, that would be easy to think that way. Stop loss. Right. I was on stop loss for 12 months. So my contract ran out right before we left. And you know what the stop loss is.

They freeze your contract. They say, oh, you're going. Yeah. We need all the men we can get. So I was like, oh, good grief. You're in whether you want to be or not. That's it. I can still remember Jay coming forward at WFR.

I was working there then. And with his whole family, his grandpa, had served in World War II was there. And we prayed over him that God would keep him safe. And little did I know when he got back home and found contentment and a closer relationship with God that he would wind up marrying my daughter, which is why I always say, look, be nice to people because you never know they may marry one of your kids. You're a jerk, you know, then you got to deal with that your whole life.

I'm the one that brought it up. You ought to marry that granddaughter of mine. I said, I'm recommending you. I said, to Al. I said, you got to check with Al. That's her dad. I'm her granddad. I said, tell Al, the granddad has said,

he passed. He passed. Marri and Stock. Good to go. He passed message. So Stone, I said, take that message to Al because you got to clear it with him. I said, but this will help you, I believe, if you refer to me having vetted you. He'd be properly better.

So he went to see Al, Al, gave him a few little rules. Wait until she gets to be 18, I think. Yeah, that was. That was important. I told him, I said, when he said, she's not my 17. I said, that's what I'm saying. Move now. Make him move now, fun.

Don't wait until she's 20, son. Just to make things clear, that was 17 years ago. Can you believe that? 17 years ago? Unbelievable. Jay was a little hard. Let's take it. Now she's got grown kids sitting there.

I know. Let's take another break. Yeah, we have our 15-year-old Jay's oldest, the granddaughter's sitting in to that, along with Rebecca, Michael's wife, who's really the brains of the operation, right? Pretty much. We met her because we had dinner with you guys last night, and we met her and we said,

okay, now I see how all this is working. She is a woman. The Bible would say that she's a woman of noble characters. Exactly. That's good for a man. More precious than stones. That's right. Or stones.

Diamonds, rubies, all that. So I was saying about this, what we started with, with the who's a man. So I told a story yesterday in my sermon about where sometimes a high pain threshold can be a curse because sometimes painful things happen to you because you need to get help, you know, which dad's discovered this a couple years ago as well. You bet you.

And so when my appendix ruptured, I mean, I literally, I remember when exactly when it happened, two o'clock in the morning, I run out back. I mean, I'm in underwear and I'm outside and it's in December and I'm just sweating profusely. and then I just throw up in the backyard and I was like, man, I got a bad crawfish or something, you know, last night at the restaurant. So I thought it just like a stomach issue. What had happened was that thing had ruptured right there. So I went back in, laid on the couch. I just couldn't find a comfortable position.

That could kill you. Oh, I could have been dead. Some people don't even survive minutes, you know, after it happened. So I laid on that couch and squirrne, went through up again, went back in, laid down. I didn't go back in there where at least it was. I was laid on the couch. And finally I dozed off about five. in the morning. And when I woke up, I felt better. So I just thought, well, whatever that was,

that was rough, you know? And Lisa said, are you going to, to the building? It was a Sunday morning. I said, no, I think I'm just going to hang here. I didn't get any sleep last night. And through the day, I just didn't feel quite right, but I didn't feel super sick. So a couple of days go by, I said, man, that's some kind of virus or something. And, you know, I didn't have any, like, outer pain. And so, but then about the third night, I dreamed that I was drowning. You know what I mean? I was like, in my dream, I'm trying to, and Lisa reaches down and pulls me out of the river by my hair. You know, that's in my dream. And when I woke up, she was patting on the top of my head because I was just soaking wet with sweat. And the whole bed was wet. So we had to get up, change the sheets. That's how so much I sweat.

So what it was, your body is like trying to. You're saying you're something bad is going on here. So I just said, hmm, who's a man, I guess? Who's a man? With those words ringing in my ears. So I learned. I learned from Phil. A bad phrase.

You know, Sa, I've learned a lot of things from Phil over the years. But the number one thing I learned is that you do not go to the doctor unless you are bleeding from an orifice. That's what a surgeon told him a long time. That's what a doctor told him. So I spoke at WFR that week on Christmas Eve. We had Christmas Day. I felt pretty good. The day after Christmas, I felt so good.

Now it's a Saturday. So it's almost a full week. And I said, you know, I'm going to go hunting today. You know, y'all have been killing some ducks. So I come down here. But what I didn't realize is by all that, you know, effort to get out to the blind and all that, I mean, I exerted myself, but I was in no shape to do it. So I got out to the blind.

And, I mean, I just felt terrible. the worst I'd felt through the whole process. I'm just sitting there. Everybody's, bum, bum, bum, bum, blah, blah, and we killed 30-something ducks that day. There's a picture of me laying on top of this big pile of duck. And so, but I never got up. I never shot.

I never made it. I just sat there in between Jeff and got up. Well, I remember Jeff saying that morning, uh, Jeff told Phil. He said, Dad, I think something's wrong with Al. I think we need to get him, get him to the bank, to the hospital.

And Phil looked down there, Al's laying out white as a ghost. And Phil looked around. He said, what time? What time is it? Somebody said, nine o'clock. Yeah, Phil said, we ought to get them at least to 11. Once again. I'm like, Jeff, I was worried about you.

If I had known his appendix half-vers. Who's the man? Yeah. But that was the first time. By the way, when they finally found that you go in there, they find it, they say, man, we need to move on this quick. Well, by now, Lisa is just like, she is so on my case. And so now it's Sunday.

And I was saying, all right, well, if it's not better tomorrow, let's go, we'll go do the CAT scan. Because the only thing I could do is do a CAT scan. That's what the nurse practitioner told me. I didn't want to go to the hospital. It's Christmas week. But obviously, I knew now something ain't right. And so Monday, I go in. They do the CAT scans, half a day fighting with insurance, whether you need to.

I'm dying. And they don't want to, huh, who's going to pay? I was like, look, I'll pay for it. Let's just get this over with. Finally got the thing done. Lisa and I have a commercial. We're doing a commercial for somebody. And so I never forget we were in the, we were in Willie's Diner, and we were setting up to film this commercial.

And the guy that works for us at the church was one of the guys on the film crew. He still remembers this. And so I get the call from Michelle Phillips. And she says, the first thing she said was Glenwood or St. Francis. And I was like, what is it? You know, that's our two hospitals. Right. And she said, your appendix has ruptured.

And it's formed like this wall around it. but it, I mean, it looks like a bomb went off in your guts. And she said, I mean, we got to deal with that now. So I hit mute on the phone and I said, how long it would be before you all get this set up? He said, we're almost there five minutes. So I hit the thing back and said, I'll be there in 20 minutes. So I finished, I filmed the commercial. He was a man.

I filmed the commercial. And the commercial, I've seen it since. I looked so bad. I mean, I was dying. And so I go to the hospital and within an hour. You know, the guy comes in, he says, look, and Michelle got this guy. He does these laparoscopic, like people closing off their gut, you know, to try to lose weight or whatever. So he's really skilled at doing it through the laparoscopically.

And he knows it too because he, you know, his doctors. He's like, I'm the best in the state of Louisiana. I was like, well, good. That's good for me. He said, but I will tell you this. He said, I've had two cases that I just couldn't get it done and had to split them open to do it. He said, and I got to tell you, the reason I'm telling you this is there's a pretty good chance. You're going to be number three because he said, you got a mess in there.

He said, how long has this been going on? I said, about eight days. He said, oh, my gosh, I can't even believe you're still alive. Yeah. So, but when I woke up at four in the morning, we talked about how surgery, you know, I never remember anything. I was talking to the anethesis, and the next thing I know, it's four in the morning. I wake up, you're kind of like, where am I? And I went to get up, and there's something hanging out of my side.

and it's like one of those drain tubes. But I noticed I wasn't split open because that's another two weeks of healing up if you have to get that done. So I learned a lesson there that you probably are just going to go to the doctor if you're not quite sure. Who's a man, dear?

Can't lead to you. Who's a man? Who's a man can land you in the hospital bed? What are you talking about? Let's take another break. So one of the things I thought was interesting about because I did a bit of research on arm wrestling, as a sport, according to what I found on the internet, you can tell if it's true or not, it wasn't really like official until the 50s is what this says.

Is that true? Has it been around as a competitive sport for about 60 years? Yeah, going on 70 years. So there was a lot of action going on back in those days. Then it went to Wide World of Sports. Petaluma, California started holding the World Risk Wrestling Championships. And I don't know if you guys remember, but remember ABC's Wide World of Sports? Oh, yeah.

So it was filmed on that for a long time. Risk wrestlers were you locked hands in the middle and you pin your opponent to your form. So that's how I got started in 1990. And then I got involved in arm wrestling where there's hand pegs out the side, elbow pads, pin pads. So there's a lot more technique involved. But yeah, so it's been around. There were some really good guys back then. And so there's a guy, John Brzeink, who's greatest arm wrestler of all time.

And the reason he is is because he dominated in an error that that error will never exist again. And there are freaks from European countries now that are just insane. So when he was doing it, it was mainly North America. The Eastern Europeans were just starting to get involved. But that guy, he was 200 pounds and traveled the world and just took on all comers and basically went undefeated for like 20 years. I mean, he lost a few matches here and there, but he was the best that ever did it. And now there's just in the super heavyweight division over like the 22, 240 weight class,

top 10 in the world, five of us are from North America. But if you take any of the other weight classes, it's dominated by Eastern Europeans. Strength is very, it's almost, it's weird that their culture is different. It's almost more important to be strong than it is to be wealthy in some of those countries. Which those guys did really well in all those strongman competitions. Strongman, Olympic lifting, power lifting, all that stuff. When I watch the World Strongest Man competition, I notice there's a lot of competitors named Magnus. Yeah.

Well, so the Icelandic countries are very strong in strength sports like Strongman. They don't have as big of a heritage in arm wrestling. The arm wrestling is really more Eastern European, where they are more Olympic lifting, and they have those accolades. But there's some very, very strong, strong people out there. I mean, it's just like people talking about my hand. My hand's not big, especially considering the people that I've been around very,

like a friend of mine, I should have showed you all this video. So my training partner, his name is, we call him the gorilla. He's Corey West, 31 years old, great kid. The gorilla. You're the monster and he's the gorilla. Well, the kid, he looks like a gorilla. Like he really does. He's a little bit taller to me.

He's about 420 pounds. He's got a 26-inch skull. Massive. That's bigger than Barton's skull. I'm telling you guys, this kid sounds like that. Now I understand why he's got monster on his feet red. That's his man. That's his big day, yeah.

So there's a video of him. He worked at this plant. And these guys, they lost a key to a set of a padlock. So one guy went to a set of bolt cutters and everybody else to stand around. Where Corey reaches down, who would do this? Who would even think to try? He reaches down and grabs a padlock and snaps it off of his hand. Whoa.

And I'm like, who would even think to do that? Like, I'm not even thinking that it's a possibility. I'm just going to be sitting there telling stories about who's the man. There's no way I'm trying that. I told the story so many times about two months later, he's like, hey, man, check your inbox. I looked at my inbox and there it was. He's like, we told the story so many times I felt like I should do it again. I got a video on my phone and him reaching down and grabbing this padlock and just

snap it off of this bare hand. See, I'm so embarrassed because I tried to cut one off with the buck. boat cutter one time and couldn't get it done. I mean, using a bolt bolt cutter. I couldn't get it done. I hate to admit that. And this guy's like ripping them off. You know, the funniest part to me

about that your appendix story is that's not the first time something like that has happened. Si had a heart attack while we were duck cutting and the same thing happened. Cy's laying on a log holding his chest and

Jay says, well, well, side needs to go to the hospital and Phil said, what time is it? This is a man that does not wear a watch for a ride out loud. I've never owned a watch. I thought for good reason, but I'm re-evaluating that. The bottom line is if something bad is going to happen to you in a duck blind,

you want it to happen after 10 o'clock. Yeah, that's right. Because the 10 o'clock flight, we got to wait until that happened. After that, we might can get about to mending your whatever's wrong with it. Michael, that how has the rules changed on arm wrestling? Because when I remember it, you couldn't move. You just had, it was all with your form. You know, you didn't move it. If you did, you cheated, you lost. Okay. So that's how, that's how probably every one of us who ever arm wrestled just growing up,

arm wrestled that way. Right. The rules of arm wrestling have pretty much been the same since it's become an organized sport. You cannot make contact with your, your competing hand, like your shoulder can't touch it. You can't put your chin on. I mean, there's really, You'll freak out. I've seen some stuff. Some people do. It's crazy. But yeah, we all started just like you're, I mean, I grew up just like this.

You're just supposed to push them down. And then you get to the professional sport of arm wrestling. And, you know, you, it's really, you get to use your whole body. But those rules have always been, they've always been the same since the sport was organized. Oh, okay. There's like a most start, right? Like you can't start. You can't.

So if you go before the cadence, ready go. It's a false start. Okay. Two false starts a warning. Two warnings is a foul. Some leagues have two fouls you lose Some leagues give you a third foul There's just a variety of rules

The World Armed Wrestling League I'm the world champion For the World Armed Wrestling League They have made the elbow pads longer So instead of 7 by 7 square They made them 7 by 9 They've incorporated running fouls Because a lot of times you'll watch Like a World Championship event

That's very strict rules And you won't even get to see the match over Because the guy fouled out And they're like, what happened? Well he falls starter or his elbow hopped just a little bit And that's not super entertaining. People, you know, unless you, unless you are truest, purest of the sport, you're like, well, that wasn't very cool. So they've made it more entertaining to the point to where you actually have to see pins.

Like, there's a little bit more freedom to do some crazy stuff, but at least you get to see the outcome of the match. So I've been involved in some, I've been involved in some seven plus minute matches from the time, you know, we slip, strap. And from the time one of us gets pinned. Seven minutes? Yeah. Yeah. And that was round, that was round two. and we did five rounds.

So just the second round was seven minutes. Oh, my goodness. That seemed like an eternity. It's a long time. Most matches are pretty quick. I'm the guy that I basically made a career out of winning the unwinnable match. The match, it's impossible to win from, I'd be in a particular spot. And if the guy wouldn't pin me, I'm like, well, I might as well pinning.

So I would just get into a spot and I was too stubborn to quit, and that's why I have all the fractures. You weren't content. I did not follow the word. He has not learned it. Let's take our last break. So you said you're on a tour. We got an audience everywhere. So do you know kind of where you're headed on your next few stops?

Because people might want to come check you out. Yeah, we're going to have a lot of fun. So it's six different legs. So we just finished the Northeast tour, which basically ended up coming all the way down here. Right. So we go home tonight. And then we're home for two weeks. Then we take off on the Northwest tour.

So we're going to go up. We're going to see a lot of the state of the national parks. We're going to Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone. We can go up to Sturges. We're going to take the RV through Sturges and, you know, do the beat the champ against some of the bikers and stuff. I think that'll be fun. So is there like a, you have a website or someplace?

Yeah, so just YouTube, Monster Michael Todd on YouTube, and then you can look at our community tab, and Rebecca puts up where we're going to stop at. Now, she is making, she's calling an audible. I did way too much arm wrestling on this tour. It's been 21 days, and I've arm wrestled with like 16 of those 21 days. And I thought I was going to be pulling off the side of the road, breaking out the table and just taking on normal people. Well, there's an app called Armbet, and all these arm wrestlers are on it, and I had the precise mode for my location.

So every time I'd stop, these arm wrestlers, like 15 or 20 arm wrestlers to show up, my arm is so beat up. I've arm wrestled probably a thousand matches in the last three weeks, and my arm heard so bad. It's against legit arm wrestlers, right? They're following you around, waiting for you to stop. One guy's like, listen, I'm not going to go ask him. I'm just going to follow him. I know he's got to use the bathroom eventually. He's got to let his dogs out to pee.

So he just just bawled me the whole way. And once I stop, he's like, hey, man, what's up? And it's not exactly like you're traveling incognito. No, no. It's like a 30-foot, you know. Well, in the spiritual realm, we're going out and trying to stress to others to make the big break from the evil one and come to Jesus. And he's doing it in a physical way.

Yeah. You know, he's there to what that old guy tell? I must break you. Rocky Ford. Rocky. Speaking of Sylvester Stallone, didn't he do in the 70s like a arm wrestling movie? Oh yeah. Yeah, over the top.

Over the top. It was like 1985, 86, something like that. So I was a big fan of that movie prior to get, because I was only like 13 at the time. So I liked it just because I like Stallone because of Rambo and all that of the stuff. But eventually when I was 20 years. It was like a trucker, right? Yes, sir. Okay.

So the guy in the end of that, Bull Hurley, it was the character he played. His real name was Rick Zunwald. when I was 20 years old at tournament in Texas, at the Texas State Fair, it was his comeback tournament, and I beat that dude. He was like 6-6, 3-50, he had a 21-ring, 21-inch 4- and 24-inch bicep massive individual. So you actually got to compete with the guy on the movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all the guys from the movie. We're all real good friends. Do you ever meet Stallone? Yeah, I've met him a couple times. I've actually got to open up the Arnold Classic Europe with Schwarzenegger, and I've had some pretty cool life experiences, so it's been fun.

And when you play King of a Hill, How many have you actually arm wrestle in a row? So against the, okay, well, we have practices pretty regular and we'll get, and it'll be a bunch of arm wrestle, like actual people who know that our arm wrestle. And I've done 30 plus minutes back to back just running through everybody. Say there's 15 or 20 people and just, I'll just go through every one of them back to back to back to back. Now, the Guinness World Record, this is against non-arm wrestlers. The most arm wrestling matches in 24 hours, it's 1,050.

Yon and Chescue, a guy from a mania, did it in the mall in Romania. So he set the Guinness World Record. I've been wanting to break that world record for like the last couple of years. So Nine Line is talking about setting up something for me to do with them. Red Con was talking about me, possibly doing with them. But you have to have a venue big enough to where I can get 1100 people to try me, right? So I'd like to arm.

But if you give me 1100, no offense, but if it's just normal people, I could easily arm wrestle 1,500 people back to back. They need to line it up like a Luke Bryant concert. or something. You notice when he said normal humans, he pointed at me. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, extremely special, awesome individuals such as yourself. His particular skill set should remind us that we really appreciate chasing ducks.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a simple life. We got guys coming. He's got guys coming after him. I'm like, duck hunting's a lot more fun. It's interesting to me is the mindset that somebody, I mean, take one look at Michael's up, they want to take him on. I look at him and think, I don't want to, I mean, I like him.

He's a nice guy. I don't want to, nothing physical. I don't want him, you know, because I will get hurt. In his line of work, your reputation is bringing them. They're coming at you because, you know, you watch these Matt Dillon episodes. A lot of them. That's all that, boy. Gun smoke.

You got a reputation, and I am here to come. kill you. Well, it's not that bad with him, but it is a deal like, I got to bump him off. Is that true? Yeah. So you're definitely, people want to take a crack at you for sure, especially if they, and there's always somebody. And your reputation is actually, is your front. Al, what did Rick Flair say to be the man? You got to beat the man. Oh, no, no, no. Well, no, no. It's like, I'm like to Russian and Rocky. I must break you. So also, your wife, Rebecca, you told, I. I didn't know this, too.

You said it earlier before we started rolling, that she is an arm wrestler. She's a seven-time national champion, and our son, Ryan's also a seven-time national champion. Our arm-rassling woman. Yeah. You're the first arm-rassling woman I've ever seen. I'm not really in the TV and all this internet. Have y'all ever arm-rasseled each other? I know you're in a different weight class.

I'm the one. We don't want to fend the female line because everybody now, hey, hey, hey, you know. So they would say it's not her. No, it's not. One thing, there's a woman at my judicious school who who whooped the tar out of me a couple weeks ago. So I have an appreciation for strong women. Oh, no, no. Hey, I've always told everybody, look, I will fight 10 men.

Okay. Now, against one female. I said, because the 10 men got a little common sense. A woman to kill you. Point blank. I'm not sure if that was a compliment. I don't know if that's a compliment or not. I'm not sure how a woman would take that comparison.

Words to live by the worst of living. Well, and I also know in our last couple of minutes here that Lada told me that you're a man of faith as well. Amen, brother. And so that's obviously helped you through your life and everything that's got you to where you are. Because you're doing it for God's glory, right? Yes, sir. I mean, you know, obviously, Philippine's 413s by fair. favorite quote because, you know, I can do all things through Christ. But I'm just, I'm blessed to

have this opportunity to go out and do the things that I love to do, to do it, to have my best friend along with me. And it's so much fun to, to just fellowship with people, you know. And you don't have to push anything down anybody's throat. You just have to be the best version of you you can be and let your light shine, right? So it's, I'm just truly blessed. Ambassador of Christ. Yeah. Well, I always say whatever, dad says, everybody has a gift, right? Everyone has a skill set. And they search for it. But when you find it, it is, well, it's comforting.

It is. And we always say when you find that, you go full board, giving God, glory, and everything that you do, which is exactly what you guys are doing. That's a unique skill set, my man. It is. And we got to experience it and enjoy it on our podcast. Thanks, of all people, Matt Lively. I guess Matt is good for something. No, no.

Look, hey, that's why it's so important, okay, because you never know what you're going to run into. Right. And how it will affect your life. That's exactly right. Yeah. Look at you, Sal. You didn't even know what you were going to do until you were 63,

and now everybody's favorite uncle. Hey, I told Willie, I said, hey, when I found out, I didn't even know it. Willie said, well, the first thing I was going to do when my dad gave me the company is I was going to fire you. And I said, well, hey, when your dad gave you. you the advice of don't mess with Uncle Si. I said, you done well to follow it, son. I said, because I was the diamond in the rough.

That's right. They were going to use Sai like Mountain Man. They realized that Si was the show. Wow, which was awesome. Well, so check out the duck hall room. Also, check out Michael if you want to meet him. Don't line up to arm wrestling. Just meet him and tell him.

You heard about him on Unashamed. We don't want to wear him out. Here's advice. Do not mess with Rebecca. She will pin you in a heartbeat. That's sound advice right there, I tell you. That's a good, that's a great closing line. So thank you, Michael.

Yes, sir. Thank you guys for having me enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV at blazestiv.com

slash Unashamed.