For those of you who may not know me, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sean Hancock, some know me as Boom. I am an arm wrestler, Promoter, and International Master Referee. I am also the PAL representative for the USA.

In 2019 I started writing articles for this website. Until now, I have only written stories about the lives of American arm wrestlers. Today I am writing about something that is affecting these arm wrestlers as well as other arm wrestlers, referees, and promoters around the world.

WAF Bans

I am not writing about the reason for the bans. We have debated that matter for the past five years. I am writing to you now about the current ban threats that are still taking place today and the damage it is doing to the sport and the lives of people that love our sport.

The bans have now expanded. It is no longer just athletes being banned for competing at an IFA or PAL event. Now it is referees, and tournament organizers being banned. It is arm wrestlers being banned because the referee over their match was an IFA referee. I will get into each of these topics individually and deeper into the story. Please read further.

Last week I made a public post on my Facebook page "PAL Armfighter". This post was short and simple. It read in part, "If you support ban threats in any way you have forever made an enemy with me."

You may have read it yourself. It seems people from many countries did. Since that time, I have received an outpouring of support from scores of people from all around the world. These people have told me their stories from the bans within their country.

I received messages from leaders and promoters in countries like Sweden, Mexico, Canada, Norway, Germany and other European countries. I thought we had it bad in the USA, many countries are being affected worse than we are. Some of these promoters who are trying to rebel against these ban threats are even being threatened with their lives. The stories of fear and control are horrific.

Some of their stories first:

Most of these countries have similar tells of one or two individuals associated with the WAF trying to squeeze out anyone who is not WAF. It isn't an alliance the corrupt seek, it is full control for themselves. These other promoters are banned by the WAF. With them out of the way the WAF promoter will assume full control of armwrestling within that country.

From what I understand, each country has its own WAF representative. This representative is the one responsible for issuing bans to athletes within their country. Due to this, and the corruption and greed of these individuals, the threats by some are more than just bans from WAF competition.

As I said before, some of these WAF goons are threatening bodily harm to competing promoters. A direct quote by one is "If they find out they're going to kill me". Others are banning athletes from going to any tournament that is not WAF (in other words not their tournament). While some are banning athletes if their referee was not a WAF referee. Can you imagine? This all may seem very far-fetched, but please allow me to tell you some stories of my own. 

As you may know, in 2019 the WAF issued the first ban threats followed by its first list of banned athletes.

My name was on that list as well as everyone who competed at the 2019 Zloty Tur, making it impossible to compete or referee at any WAF-governed competition.

My story:

Before I get into the wrong that has been done to me and my organization, I need to give some back story.

Several years ago, I started hosting some high-value matches. At the same time, Engin began the East vs West series. I never considered my production to be a threat to Engin in any way. I did not offer the money or platform he did. But, after all, I was promoting the PAL and using some of the same athletes he was. Before long some of the athletes I was using started telling me they could not compete for me. More than a handful of athletes told me personally that Engin called them and forbade it. I had already flown one of these individuals to my production spending money on his flights and hotels. After he arrived he received a phone call from Engin. I lost a lot of money there. What's sad is this particular arm wrestler still hasn't competed for East vs West and that was over two years ago. I've also been hired to referee high-level matches only to have the promoter say they can't use me due to Engin's phone calls threatening them with bans if I am their referee. Brazil's number one arm wrestler was made to sit out of a high-value match due to me being the referee. I have story after story and could go on forever but at some point, I will lose readers so I will stop here with the personal harm. 

People it is time to stand up! This is happening over and over. Armwrestlers will not attend their own state championship or National Championship tournament if that tournament is IFA or PAL out of fear of being banned. In other countries, arm wrestlers will not attend any tournament at all if it isn't WAF due to fear of many kinds. 

For several years now I have been saying that someone with a trusted voice should take a stand. I never intended to make that voice my own. Not out of fear but, I never felt like my voice was big enough. I have since learned that a voice is a voice. If one voice can convince another voice to take a stand then one voice becomes two, then two become four until there are enough voices to be heard over all other noise. Here I am and this is the noise I want heard. First, I don't blame Engin, he is only doing what his WAF-led country is making him do. He has a big name in the sport. Can he stand up to his country and the WAF and the ban threats? I believe he can, but why would he? As long as he is profiting from us he has no reason to stand against the ban threats.

At what point do you stand up for what's right? Bans are wrong period! Until we stop supporting any organization that threatens any ban, they will continue. Maybe you believe I have a vendetta against the WAF. That's the reason for all of my noise. How far am I willing to go to stand up to this? The answer is this, even if this stand causes me to lose all of the positions I have gained in this sport, I will stand up still. I have lost one business associate already and another one telling me I am shooting myself in the foot. It is not harm I seek for you or me, even though I may very well bring more harm to my events. I will stand UP! 

Five years of ban threats is long enough!

They need to go!

Stand UP!

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