Wendell Sailor: ‘I’ll never arm wrestle again’

WENDELL Sailor reveals how he felt helpless and sick after seeing his good friend Ben Ross break his arm in a light-hearted arm wrestle gone wrong.

‘I’ll never arm wrestle again’

I USUALLY jump out of bed in the morning, but mentally I just feel crap today.

I just feel so drained. I just want to know how Rossy’s going. I’m feeling so flat and I can only imagine how he’s feeling.

What a lot of people need to understand is we were doing it for the right reasons. It was for Men of League, a great cause.

When the arm wrestle competition first started about a month ago, we were all having fun with it. But, like most things like this, after a while it starts getting competitive.

In the green room before we went out last night there were a few mind games.

I reckon one problem was we had an hour between arm wrestles. We were out the back, talking and we weren’t really keeping our arms warm.

I’d won round one and when round two came, I could see in Rossy’s eyes that he just wanted to win the second one so we could go to a decider.

One of the girls brought out a winner’s cheque, and he said to her, “What are you doing? This isn’t over. I’ll win this one and we’ll take it to a third.”

I was sort of half laughing. Then we locked in and there was a little bit of banter and a little bit of sledging and it was all good.

I said to him, “Mate, you’ve got to be nervous. You don’t want to be beaten two-nil.”

You’re just planting little seeds. And I reckon what’s happened is when we’ve taken the strain he’s thinking, “I’ve got to take it to a third.”

“It was just gut-wrenching.”

And then we got started. He got the jump on me, and I felt a strain through my biceps tendon. I’d actually been waking up really sore the past week from the previous rounds and undergone a bit of treatment on the biceps at the pyhsio. You’re using muscles you don’t normally use.

After he got the start on me, I’ve pushed back. And as I’ve pushed I saw him use his bodyweight a little bit, which you do anyway, to try and stop me coming back to that point.

At that stage, that sound, the look on his face, what just happened. It was just gut-wrenching. I thought he might have pulled a biceps muscle. But just to see his arm hanging there, I felt so helpless. I didn’t know whether to pick him up or what to do. There’s so many emotions running through your head.

I called out, “Ambos! Ambos!” I think I even threw a swear word out there.

People didn’t know if it was staged or what was going on. They couldn’t really see what had happened.

The crowd looked on in silence.

We’ve all arm wrestled before. At a party, mucking around with mates, at a footy trip. But I’d never seen anything like that before except when my son came home from school one day, about a year ago, and showed me a YouTube video of people arm wrestling and snapping their arms and getting broken bones.

The professional who was there last night said he’d also seen it happen six or seven times.

I’m not trying to preach but if you’re out there and you like arm wrestling, just understand there are so many things that can go wrong.

I’ll never arm wrestle again now. Not even for fun, not even with mates.

I used to like to do it for fun but I’ll never arm wrestle again after seeing what just transpired there.

He texted me last night at midnight and I tried to get in contact with him this morning, but he must have been getting heaps of calls, just like I was.

I’ll make sure I go and see him. I’m trying to get a hold of his wife too because I can only imagine her sitting at home cheering for him and this happens.

Rossy actually drove the Men of League bus to the show, transporting some disabled people, so I was sitting there at the end of the night thinking about all that and I know it wasn’t my fault and it was an accident but you still feel so bad because something so fun and for a charity cause can go so wrong.

But people have been really good and accidents do happen.

The other thing is Rossy’s had his fair share of accidents, the poor bloke.