TAWF talk: Surrey roots for team arm wrestling league coach, athlete<\/p>\n
Published 3:00 pm Wednesday, March 4, 2026<\/p>\n
Team arm wrestling is the latest pursuit for Marlon Hicks, former Surrey resident now involved in Vancouver\u2019s entry in a new league that aims to elevate the sport across North America.<\/p>\n
On March 28, Vancouver Wildcats battle Calgary Rangers in the Alberta city\u2019s GRAND Theatre in a pre-season showcase for Team Arm Wrestling Federation (TAWF) on Fight Network.<\/p>\n
Hicks, a 15-time national champ known for his lightning fast hit, won\u2019t compete for the Wildcats, he\u2019ll manage and coach. The 15 team members include three women (his wife Dawn Hicks among them) and 12 men in various weight divisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a chance to bring arm wrestling to a wider audience,\u201d said Hicks, now living in Boston Bar. \u201cThe point system (will) make it more enticing to an audience, not just arm wrestlers or arm wrestling fans but people who enjoy competition or combat sports, things like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time that we\u2019ve ever done anything like this in arm wrestling, where it\u2019s all done by points, not a win-or-lose type of format,\u201d Hicks added, \u201cso it is going to be exciting, especially in a team sports type of situation. Hopefully it brings more interest to arm wrestling in general.\u201d<\/p>\n
Founded in 2025, TAWF is advertised as the world\u2019s first professional team-based arm wrestling league. Eight franchises \u2014 four in Canada, four in the U.S. \u2014 will compete in a 14-week season starting Nov. 7, ending with a Canada-U.S. final.<\/p>\n
The scoring system rewards pins, flash pins and strategic bonuses like captain wins and shutouts in left and right arm competition across four rounds.<\/p>\n
An inaugural pre-season showcase in October featured Toronto Smoke vs. Montreal Saints, with more to come in Calgary, New York and Las Vegas this spring and summer.<\/p>\n
The event in Toronto \u201cdispelled the misconception that arm wrestling is purely a strength sport, highlighting it as a mini martial art filled with strategy, technique, and team camaraderie instead,\u201d says Jason Costantini, TAWF co-founder.<\/p>\n
The Vancouver Wildcats team is now fully formed, Hicks explained. \u201cDawn and I are from Surrey and lived there for years. We have some athletes from the Vancouver area, even Prince George, Vancouver Island, lots of places.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like any sport, arm wrestling has its own vocabulary, with words like pull, grip, hit and hook top of mind among competitors. Hicks began learning those words as soon as he was able to read and write<\/a>, as a preschooler growing up in the Edmonton area.<\/p>\n He moved to Surrey in 1995, after 15 years of competing in arm wrestling.<\/p>\n \u201cI started arm wrestling in 1980 or \u201881, when I was young,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cI was still a kid when I won a national title back then. My dad (Dave Hicks) has been a fixture in Canadian arm wrestling for my whole life. He introduced me to it at a young age. He\u2019d cart me and my brother around the country while he was arm-wrestling, and they\u2019d have kids divisions that we entered.\u201d<\/p>\n