Larry “Wheels” Williams has received a lot of attention over the last several months because of his affiliation with arm wrestling. He lost his match at “King of the Table” to Alex Toproll back in May, but his journey and effort led to him receiving new followers from the sport. They may not know that Wheels’ roots were from the world of powerlifting. He will be showcasing those roots now because he plans to return to the platform later this year.
On June 25th, Wheels had announced on Instagram that he had relocated to New York with intentions of competing in a powerlifting meet in 12 weeks.
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There was uncertainty of which meet that Wheels was referencing, but he cleared up the confusion in a YouTube video posted on July 7th. He will take part in Revolution Powerlifting Sydnicate’s (RPS) event called “Long Island Insurrextion”, currently scheduled for September 11th, 2021 in Farmingdale, New York. He mentioned the date of the meet and the organization putting it on at the 23:55 point of the video below.
His last powerlifting meet was at the 2020 Arnold Sports Festival. Wheels took part in the XPC meet, where he placed first in the 140 kilogram category. His best lifts (raw with sleeves) are below.
Squat – 394.5 kilograms (870 pounds)
Bench Press – 292.5 kilograms (645 pounds)
Deadlift – 387.8 kilograms (855 pounds)
Total – 1,074.8 kilograms (2,370 pounds)
Already Setting New Personal Records
What you will also notice in the video is that Wheels picked up right where he left off the last time he was competing on the platform: by setting a personal record. At the 21:16 portion, Wheels can be seen squatting 378.8 kilograms (837 pounds) out of a monolift while wearing knee wraps. He called this a “PR” after the attempt. According to Open Powerlifting, Wheels’ best squat in wraps is 328.7 kilograms (725 pounds), which he achieved in 2014 at the age of 19. The RPS North American and New Jersey Championships was the last time he had competed with wraps. The now 26 year-old would use knee sleeves for the remainder of his powerlifting career.
While fans will have good reason to celebrate Wheels’ return to the sport that made him famous, it will be short lived. He is scheduled to return to armwrestling this November as a part of “King of the Table 2.” Details of that event have yet to be announced as of this writing.
Featured image: Larry Wheels on YouTube