Spring Valley Couple Winning Their Personal 'Arms' Race

It’s often hard to know when you are in the presence of athletic greatness. Granted, standing next to a 275-pound, chiseled-out-of-granite linebacker, or a 7-foot basketball player, it’s sometimes easier to tell.

Upon meeting Spring Valley resident Allen Fisher for the first time and seeing a warm smile and gentle disposition, you wouldn’t necessarily get the sense that you’re talking to a truly dominant athlete.

But feeling his vice grip of a handshake, it’s not surprising to learn that in the world of competitive arm wrestling, the man is no less than legendary. Fisher, and his wife Carolyn, have carved out a legacy of greatness in the sport.

Allen has won an astounding 26 world arm wrestling titles; while Carolyn has “pulled” home five world championships of her own. Their career of dominance has spanned nearly three decades (though not consecutively), and garnered a lifetime of praise from adoring fans all over the world. Though it’s not a sanctioned sport, it is widely popular across the globe. The World Arm Wrestling Federation features competitors from more than 40 countries.

How It All Started

“I could sure use a new pair of cowboy boots,” Carolyn Snow thought to herself one fateful day in the early 1980s. That was the prize for the winner, and she admits was the motivation for her entering her first arm wrestling tournament as a young woman growing up in a small town in Alberta, Canada.

Though she had never trained for a tournament, she knew that she was gifted in the art of “pulling,” which is insider slang for arm wrestling. “It was just exhilarating,” she says.

In only her third-ever tournament, she won the Canadian nationals, in four different categories: right-handed, left-handed, lightweight and heavyweight.

Allen Fisher found himself similarly successful, despite being a novice. He entered his first ever event in August 1979. Having never competed before, he placed fifth. He says he knew pretty much from the start that arm wrestling was something he was very good at.

His strong performance caught the eye of Jack “Popeye” Wynn, another legend of the sport. Wynn talked to Allen and learned that he wasn’t training with anyone. At that time, Allen was a slight-framed 23-year-old who weighed about 150 pounds. Wynn was a veteran of the sport, and weighed about 220 pounds.

“He took me under his wing,” Allen remembered. “I started training with him, and I really took my lumps. He would just pound my arm relentlessly.”

At the Wide World of Sports tournament in Petaluma later that year, things changed, as Allen squared off with and finally beat his mentor in a sanctioned tournament. That victory gave him confidence, and Allen rolled through the amateur ranks, chalking up win after win. Seeing his dominance, tournament officials continued to move Allen up in weight class, to no avail.

A year later, he was world champion, winning the National Arm Wrestling Association Las Vegas Professional World Championship – the first of his 26 world titles.

Boy (Champion) Meets Girl (Champion)

As both Allen and Carolyn continued to rack up victories, they would occasionally run into each other on the circuit. Their interactions started with a hello, and early on evolved into a friendship. Carolyn remembers seeking out Allen’s advice and getting tips from him during one tournament.

Allen remembers those times as well.

“Carolyn was the most beautiful woman to walk onto the stage in those days,” he said. “Sometimes after a tournament we would stay up and talk all night.”

Their friendship became more in 1983, after both winning the Canadian/American championships in Reno.

“The next morning we met up and walked to church together,” Carolyn remembered. “A few hours later, Allen got on a plane to come back to San Diego, I was going back to Canada, and I started crying.”

They continued to correspond through letters, and eventually began dating. Carolyn moved to San Diego and the two were married. In May 2011, they celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary.

“We are the only husband and wife team to both win the world championship,” said Carolyn. “Over the years we’ve kind of become the Ozzie and Harriet of arm wrestling.”

“Over the Top”

Ask people on the street to do a word association with the term “arm wrestling” and many will call out the name of Sylvester Stallone’s classic movie Over the Top, in which Sly plays Lincoln Hawk, a truck driver who enters a national arm wrestling tournament.

But what most people don’t know is that a lot of the arm wrestling footage was actual tournament action for a nationwide competition being held in conjunction with the shooting of the movie in 1986.  (Check out Allen taking down another puller at the 1:44 mark of this clip http://youtu.be/8QzOPf4ygYk.)

The Fishers remember the tournament as a grueling event with a very large field.

“The people that stayed awake won,” Carolyn laughed. “There were about eight or nine tables going at once. It was a 21-hour competition.”

She said that Stallone met and talked with all of the competitors and wished them luck. In the end, Allen wouldn’t need it, however. In perhaps his most famous victory, he took down the field and took home $5,000, the biggest purse either of the Fishers had won to that point. They used the money on a down payment for a house in La Mesa, which they flipped to buy the house where they now live in Spring Valley.

The Pursuit of Normalcy

The Fishers have done countless TV, radio and print media interviews throughout their career. Allen’s tournament wins have been featured on ESPN. They are often recognized by fans all over the country. Yet, being arm wrestling champions in no way defines who they are. In fact, a walk through their home would give you no indication that either one of them had ever gripped a table.

“We weren’t really good at chronicling our arm wrestling history,” said Carolyn. “We have very few pictures of us arm wrestling.”

For my interview, I asked Allen to take me into his backyard training ground, a less-than-intricate system of rubber cables attached to windows and trees, free weights, a workout machine and practice tables.

Amid it all was a large pile of trophies that have been accumulated over the years, which were left exposed in the backyard, covered only by a dusty plastic tarp.

“I get asked a lot, ‘Why don’t I promote myself? Why don’t I affiliate with products,’ ” Allen said. “God made me a champion in this sport. He’s the reason I’ve been successful to this day. It’s really not about me. If it was, the trophies wouldn’t be sitting out in the sun. I’m not proud of trophies, but rather I’m proud of the privilege.”

The couple has lived proudly in Spring Valley for 22 years, and have put down roots with their two children: Megan, 21, and Austin, 19.  Allen owned a commercial glass and door business for 12 years, while Carolyn is a P.E. teacher at Heartland Christian, a private Christian school on Kenora Drive.

They also own a virtual franchise called Juice Plus, a nutritional concept that offers fruits and vegetables in capsule form, allowing people to more easily get their recommended daily servings.  

In addition, they host wrestling training camps where they teach people from all over the country the training, focus and techniques it takes to be a champion. Despite all of the accolades, however, Carolyn says they just want to try live lives that please God.

“God divinely appointed us to be together,” she said. “We are hoping we can be a source of light or inspiration to others.”

So the next time you see Allen and Carolyn Fisher in Spring Valley, go ahead and give them a handshake – if you dare.