Cleve Dean


Luther Cleve Dean was an American farmer, professional arm wrestler and strongman from Pavo, Georgia.

Early life

Dean grew up on a family farm, raising hogs and harvesting cotton and tobacco, which moulded a strong work ethic and formidable physical strength. As a teenager, he carried bags of feeds to the hog pens and was already weighing at the age of 21. He was also reported to have lifted the rear end of their seven-ton John Deere tractor for fun.
At the age of 22, while working on the farm he suffered a severe back injury, which crushed and fused his 4th and 5th Lumbar vertebrae. It reduced his mobility and led to a rapid weight gain to.

Armwrestling career

Dean was proficient both right and left handed. He started his career in the mid 70s in local armwrestling contests and was weighing, dwarfing his opponents. He entered his first tournament in 1977 where he emerged overall runner-up. In 1978 he won world wrist wrestling championship without losing a single match.
On a supermatch which was held on 15 November 1978 at Silver Slipper casino in Las Vegas, Dean who weighed defeated the 6 ft 5 in, undefeated world champion Virgil Arciero, 2–0 to become the undisputed king of the table.
Throughout his career he won around 90 championships, including supermatches against Virgil Arciero, Dan Mason, Rick Zumwalt and many others, and many championship titles including AAA sit-down national title, WAF world title, Yukon Jack world title among others multiple times. It was said that during a promotional event in 1983, Dean took on about 500 men off the street who came one after the other and nobody lasted a full second against him.
Dean enjoyed eight straight years as the undefeated armwrestling world champion and was defeated only a very few times during his entire career, including by John Brzenk and Scott Norton.
He played a famous cameo appearance in Sylvester Stallone's Over the Top .

Strongman career

Following an impressing armwrestling dominance, Dean was invited to compete at the 1979 World's Strongest Man and 1980 World's Strongest Man competitions where he finished 6th and 9th respectively irrespective of the disadvantage he had in moving events due to his reduced mobility resulted from his back injury.

Physical stats

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    Personal life

Dean was a devoted family man. He was married to his wife Ruth and together had three children: Shannon, Terri and Leann.
He loved working on his farm and ran a business selling mobile homes.

Death

Dean died on 10 May 2011, after suffering a heart attack.