Somebody had to point a camera at it
Long-form interviews, event coverage, documentaries, and practice night. Rooted in the Southeast and pointed at the whole sport.
Rooted in the Southeast · Grassroots to world stage
Coat of Arm Wars started in July 2022 with a phone at a practice night, and a channel description that still reads: “At CoatOfArmwars we want to put a spotlight on Southeast Armwrestling.” The Southeast had good pullers, real rivalries, and a tournament scene almost nobody outside it ever saw, for the single reason that nobody was filming it.
That is still the home table, and it is no longer the edge of the map. The biggest videos on the channel now are shot at East vs West, and the interviews are with people who run the sport internationally. The camera went where the sport went.
Four years and 1,217 videos later, the channel does five things. It films practice night every week, because that is what keeps a small channel in front of people. It sits down with the people who run the sport for an hour or two at a time, because nobody else is asking them anything. It covers events from inside the ropes. It reviews the equipment people are about to spend real money on. And once or twice a year it stops and makes a documentary about somebody whose career deserves one.
None of that is a content strategy. It is the same job from five angles: make the sport legible to people who are not already in it, and give the people who are in it somewhere their story gets told properly.
21.5K
Subscribers
Since July 2022
2.96M
Lifetime views
Across every format
1,217
Videos published
The archive is the asset
1,108
Shorts in rotation
Practice night, every week
James Latta
Chief Armwrestler · South Carolina
Every frame on this site is his, shot at East vs West 24 in Little Rock. The channel is a one person operation run out of South Carolina: he books the guests, runs the camera, cuts the episodes, and shoots the stills.
He is also the South Carolina franchise owner for 98% Armwrestling, which puts him on the organising side of this sport as well as the filming side, and carries the option to put events on in the state. And he pulls: he competes at 70kg / 155lb for Team Georgia Walls of Power and Team Dirty South, and by his own account was former number 10 ranked, both hands, at 176lb in Georgia.
Between the two, that is why the access looks the way it does. There is no crew to accommodate, so he ends up in rooms a crew does not get into.
In the sport, not just filming it
South Carolina franchise owner
98% Armwrestling
The organising side of the sport rather than the filming side. The territory is his, and it carries the right to put 98% events on in the state.
Credentialed coverage
East vs West
Behind the scenes at EVW 24 in Little Rock. Press day, walk outs, and every photograph on this site.