Maybe it was the sudden hush of the crowd.

Loud, crowded bars have a way of suddenly going quiet in the seconds before a fight breaks out. Or something collectively surprises everyone.

Anyone who has ever worked in a bar knows that collective hush, that sudden inhale and holding of breath by dozens of lungs.

So, maybe it was the hush but, 25 years and counting, I still swear the floorboards creaked. I still believe the wooden flooring rocked under my feet.

Working as a bar back at the old Mill House in Remerton, I came around the corner of the outside deck to the porch, expecting trouble.

I found a giant.

He towered above the crowd. The floorboards did creak. The wooden planks staggered under his feet.

Cleve Dean.

He was from nearby Pavo but was known around the world as the “Arm Breaker.”

He was an internationally known arm-wrestling champion. He won matches throughout the United States. He competed around the world.

Cleve Dean appeared in the 1987 Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie “Over the Top.” Legend claims that Stallone’s character was supposed to arm wrestle Dean at the movie’s conclusion.

Producers reportedly felt no one would believe even Stallone could defeat Cleve Dean, who stood 6-foot-7 and weighed 300 to 400-plus pounds during his championship years. Dean’s hand could eclipse an entire beer can. Stallone’s hand would have vanished in the massive vortex of Cleve Dean’s palm. So a more believable opponent for Stallone was selected.

In his prime of the late 1970s and early ’80s, Dean won more than 60 world championship titles. He could grapple either right hand or left hand.

“I totally dominated arm wrestling and wrist wrestling there for so long, I reckon I just got burned out,” Dean told The Valdosta Daily Times in a 1996 interview. Referees became more difficult than his competitors. “It got to be where associations had entire Cleve Dean rules.”

By the early 1990s, he had left professional arm wrestling. His weight ballooned to more than 600 pounds, according to some reports. He was 100% disabled. He suffered constant back pain. He trained and lost weight. He returned to arm wrestling in 1993, a move he called “premature.”

By 1996, he continued working out through isometrics, a stationary bike and walking through chest-deep water. He struggled to return to his 300-pound prime, reducing a 72-inch chest to 64 inches.

In a 2011 interview with The Valdosta Daily Times, he said, “I’ve met more people than, well, anybody around here, I guess. I’ve met some of the most famous movie stars there are, some of the most famous athletes, people from every walk of life there is, boxers, baseball players, football players, and gone and judged the Strongest Man competition. I’ve been a judge for that a couple of times. So I’ve sat elbow to elbow with some celebs, and it’s not something I’m bragging on, but it’s something I’m proud of and thankful that I was able to do and going to these places and seeing these countries firsthand. I’m proud of it. I’ve been very blessed, very fortunate to do the things that I’ve done and see the things I’ve seen, and met the friends that I’ve made.”

Later in 2011, Cleve Dean died. He was 58 years old.

But that night, somewhen in the 1990s, Cleve Dean walked across the Mill House porch and through its doorway.

Beer bottles vanished like thimbles in his hand, though I don’t recall him actually drinking a beer.

The average adult male hand looked like a small child’s hand when held up and compared to his massive hands.

He was a gentle giant. Congenial. Friendly. Towering over the bar.

He didn’t stay long but he left quite an impression as he walked back across the Mill House porch, down the stairs and back into the night.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.