The Man Boy & The Wimpman

This was my experience many years ago during a family reunion. I was about 21 years old and was sitting at the kitchen table when a conversation arose concerning how unusually strong a 8 year old cousin of mine was. The kid was supposed to have lifted weights since even before he could walk (by strapping small weights to his legs and wrists; at 6 months old). Later as he grew into a very large body for his age, his dad had him competing against older boys in both boxing and wrestling. His dad boasted that his son already was the heaviest and strongest kid in his charter school (which went up through the 8th grade! His dad and others at the table then shared an amazing story about how he knocked out his 250 pound dad by accident when they were exchanging fake punches during a commercial break, a few months earlier while watching professional wrestling on television. They said the kid had thrown a punch at his dad's face which accidently fully connected with such force that not only it had broken his nose, briefly knocking him out... but the force of the impact also had pushed the small bones and cartridge behind his nose blocking his tear ducts (requiring emergency surgery the next day to repair as his eyes could no longer water).


After hearing the above story, I made the HUGE mistake of saying, "that sounds unbelievable", in the presence of his proud dad who was telling the story. So he called his 8 year old son from the next room and had him compare his arm muscle to that of mine. I have to mention at that particular point in college, I only weighed about 113 pounds and stood about 5 foot 9 inches tall. I also was a completely un-muscular man with a 28 inch chest, 7 1/2 inch biceps, 4 3/4 inch wrists... well you get the idea! In any case I knew I was in trouble the moment the musclekid walked through the door from the next room wearing a pair of blue overalls and a long sleeved tee shirt. Although he was fully dressed -- this kid was so muscular that his huge thigh and butt muscles bulged through his pant legs and that his biceps lifted up extraordinarily the upper portion of his sleeves without even having to expose them. After an initial display of the boys’ muscularity by having him flex through his clothes - his dad had him pull off his shirt, then he had him remove his overalls; and had him wearing only a pair of shorts stand back to back to me ( he was only 5 ½ inches shorter than me at the time, at 5 foot 3 ½ inches tall! He also had both of us (similarly dressed) get on the kitchen scale to see who weighed the most. The 8 year old weighed even more than he looked at a lean but very muscular 153 pounds, while I weighed as I said only a skinny, yet flabby 113. Thoroughly embarrassing me with his kids superior muscularity (his biceps and thighs bulged nearly triple my size) he than insisted that we wrestle in the backyard, or if I preferred to box him with a pair of boxing gloves on! Frightened at the prospect of having the shit beaten out of me by this huge-muscular kid in the back yard...in front of about 20 cousins and neighborhood kids, I tried the delaying tactic of challenging him to an arm wrestle instead... hoping to be saved by the dinner bell which was to have supposed to ring in a few minutes.


The arm wrestling match was a complete joke with the kid so strong he could hold his arm virtually completely still while I was trying to struggle against him. I discovered during the match that his forearms were more than twice mine in size, that his hands were not only more muscular but that his fingers were even longer than mine by about 50 percent. Of course he beat me easily first with one arm against one, then with both of mine against either one of his. He taunted me saying that he had more muscle in one of his arms than that I had in my entire body! That gave me an idea for another delaying tactic, I suggested that we leg wrestle before wrestling in the backyard. If I was mismatched in arm wrestling this kid, you should have seen how enormous his thigh muscles were…even compared to my 22 inch waist. We leg wrestled in an Indian style by crossing our legs. With one mighty heave, he simply flung me over himself and while I was momentarily stunned then wrapped his big muscular legs around my chest – trapping me so that all I could see was the striated muscle of his thigh and that of his butt that was in my face.


His dad rescued me but then he insisted that we get the wrestling match over with. His 8 year old son, helping me up by grabbing me by the waist of the cut-off jeans that I was wearing – momentarily curling me off the floor with his enormously strong arms - a good 2 feet up before putting me down gently. His dad was so confident that he could beat me, that he had him get on the ground on all fours (defensive position) and said that I could have a five minute head start against his son before he would blow the whistle giving his son permission to wrestle. So for an eternity I struggle against this very strong boy trying to show the others watching that I was at least trying. I tried to bend his legs using both of my legs to no avail. I tried to bend his arm at the elbow by pulling with both arms with the same lack of success. Hearing the kids that were watching snickering at me, I even tried using both of my legs to at least bend one of his arms (completely failing as I have to mention that this kid was used to curling 100 pounds with one arm while I could only curl with both of my legs about 65 pounds or about 30 pounds with each leg). Finally, while I was exerting all my strength using my legs against one of his arms, holding on to his waist for leverage, his dad blew the whistle signaling his kid to wrestle. Suddenly he sprung up grabbing both of my legs leaving me to dangle upside down across his back with my face, facing his muscular butt. He ‘accidently’ stumbled backwards , shoving his butt into my face against a yard fence and tightened his butt muscles so as to crush my face. He than lifted me like a rag doll over his head and with his 40 pound weight advantage and with his tremendous strength, he pumped me six times over his head. He than unceremoniously tossed me into an old child’s sandbox and finished me off by pinning me down with one large hand around my neck and with the other holding both of my arms at the same time by the wrist over my head.


A post-script: I met my cousin about ten years ago by accident at a grocery store. I somehow expected that he would be 7 feet tall and 400 pounds because he had been so big and strong as a kid; but he was actually 2 inches shorter than me as he had only grown to 6 feet while I continued to grow in height until I was about 6 foot 2, after I had graduated from college. He still was tremendously muscular and in tremendous shape, however. His wife and 4 year old young son was with him and he introduced me to them as the college guy that he was able to win in wrestling as an eight year old. He had his 4 year old son flex an already impressive bicep at me. His son was the splitting image of him when he was younger.