National champion arm wrestler and Rockwood native Zack Lee looking to grow sport

One of the nation’s best arm wrestlers calls Somerset County home, and Zack Lee is looking to elevate the sport even more with Team Blackout, which includes members from Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia.

A 35-year-old who lives outside Rockwood, Lee is a three-time national champion who has been involved in the sport for two decades.

“There’s nothing better than being able to put your arm down and dictate what’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s the closest thing to a fist fight you can get without fighting someone. On the table, it is a fight. There’s a lot of jockeying for position, angles, hand height, which way you’re going, up, down. To the untrained eye, people have no clue what it involves.”

Lee has never been one to back down from a fight, as he proved two years ago in a war of words with 13-time world champion Travis Bagent that led to several podcast episodes and YouTube videos on their feud.

A corrections officer at SCI-Laurel Highlands, Lee isn’t worried about impressing Bagent but instead is concentrating on his competitive career. The current United States champion at 180 pounds, Lee said he has won 27 state championships, including titles in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia.

“I’ve been arm wrestling since I was 14 or 15 years old,” Lee said. “My dad was a national champ and taught me a lot.”

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Lee turned pro about a decade ago and has been competing all over the United States ever since. He recently defeated Sam Harris, a two-time world champion from Bedford County, which brought even more opportunities.

“I just beat him 3-0 and got a call from the guys in Turkey,” Lee said. “They want me to come pull the world champion from Lithuania.”

Lee is gearing up for what he calls “the biggest tournament of my life,” next month in Tennessee. The event features the top 12 arm wrestlers in North America in a round-robin format, meaning Lee will need to beat all of them to claim the top prize of $5,000.

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That’s one of the reasons that Lee trains seven days per week for arm wrestling. A District 5 wrestling champion for Berlin Brothersvalley in 2007 who wrestled at Lock Haven before embarking on a mixed martial arts career, Lee knows that training with teammates is much more effective, which is why he formed Team Blackout.

“I have a couple of national champs, state champs,” he said of the group, which includes members from Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. “I have guys that are brand new, intermediate, mid-level guys and a couple of really good guys. They help me train. I thank them for their support. Without it, I wouldn’t be this good.”

One of the arm wrestlers who turns up regularly for practices in Lee’s basement is Meyersdale graduate Eli Kerr. A veteran of Toughman competitions, Kerr enjoys combat sports.

“I think this is just in line with a lot of the stuff I’ve done in the past,” Kerr said. “It goes well with my powerlifting, Toughman background. It’s like boxing or wrestling ‒ you versus another person.”

Despite the appeal of the one-on-one battles, it’s the team aspect that has attracted Kerr to arm wrestling.

“The biggest thing is the community, actually,” Kerr said. “Coming from the wrestling community, I could wrestle guys in Bedford, and 10 years later I’ll run into someone, and they’ll say are you Eli Kerr? ‘I wrestled you at such and such in 2011.’”

Kerr now lives in Morgantown, West Virginia. He started his own team ‒ the 304 Arm Breakers – there and held an event in January that he said was very well attended. He’s planning to host another arm wrestling competition in June or July.

“After high school, I think people miss the community of high school sports or high school activities,” Kerr said. “Arm wrestling kind of brought that brotherhood back for me.”

Kerr, who competes in the super heavyweight division – 245 pounds or heavier – and has won state titles in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, credits Lee with having a profound impact on his career.

“Zack’s the one who got me into arm wrestling,” Kerr said. “He’s helped me progress through the system. He’s pointed me in the right direction. If I ever have questions or want to gauge where I’m at while getting ready for a tournament, he’ll give me some good pointers.”

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This article originally appeared on The Daily American: National champion arm wrestler Zack Lee building on fantastic career