The guy had arms like tree trunks and he displayed them outside a black tank top. Tattooed snakes coiled around meaty biceps and he clutched a beer in one beefy fist.

The scene was a crowded bar in Hartford, Conn. I was about to approach this gigantic stranger and challenge him to arm-wrestle.

I stepped up to the bar beside him, all 160 pounds of me, and tapped the bruiser on the shoulder. He turned to look toward the source of the annoyance and squinted from an eye filled with cigarette smoke.

It was go time.

I should provide a little background. I was in Hartford for a writer conference and a bunch of us had sneaked out early to party. We hit the first club we found and waded into the fray.

My colleagues were with me and I was eager to impress them. Therefore, I employed a tactic that had amused and stunned bar friends in the past.

The man with the python arms was glaring at me and waiting for me to speak. I stood before him, geeky in shirt and tie, and made my approach.

“Excuse me, sir. I have a proposition for you.”

Ten minutes later, we were in another part of the bar, clearing off a table on which to lock arms in a battle of strength. My reporter friends gathered around to watch and others from the bar wandered over. Here was a giant of a man pitting his power against a tie-choked scrawny kid with noodles for arms.

We glowered at each other over the table. Someone counted down and the bout began. Our locked hands warred against each other. I grimaced and strained. He gritted his teeth and tried to press my fist to the table. The battle wore on. Sweat beaded on our brows. The crowd started cheering as our arms inched this way or that, in continuing shifts of advantage. There were grunts. There were groans. And then momentum shifted in my direction.

With slow, theatrical flair, I leaned in and used all my strength to pull his arm toward the table. He exhaled mightily in a last-gasp effort to stave off defeat. He was unsuccessful. His knuckles fell to the table and the match was over. I had won. I had defeated the biggest, meanest dude in the bar. Glory was mine.

Well, sort of.

What I had done was offer the brute several rounds of beer in exchange for his performance in the obviously mismatched display. The big guy found the idea hysterical and agreed at once. But what he wanted wasn’t a bunch of free beers. This bruiser wanted my tie.

Whatever. I hate ties. It was a puny price to pay for a performance that caused a bar full of drinkers to hoot with amusement and gained me admiration from my peers. Sheer entertainment, and I made a new friend. We had a few beers together and then he gave the tie back. Talk about class.

But what was my point here? Oh, yeah. Bar brawlers. The old-school kind, with battle scars from fists, bottles and barstools. Veteran warriors who do battle in pool halls and parking lots. Rugged men who fly through windows and treat their wounds with liquor and cusses.

Not all of them are fiends out to pummel the nearest stranger on a barstool. Some of them have their own code of ethics that govern their behavior. They don’t throw hands with the obviously weak. They don’t continue a beating if the opponent has clearly been knocked out. Some of them still shake bloody hands after the brawl is over.

There is still a league of such fighters, although the great generation of them appears to be fading out. I run into them here and there and ask about the latest black eye or missing tooth. These aging pugilists have a look about them that foretells decades of skirmishes. It’s a street-tough look that should keep them out of scraps, but it doesn’t.

There are a few old-school scrappers in the younger generation, I know. Old-fashioned fighters early in their careers. They still fight with fists, elbows and sometimes knees. They take their licks as a matter of course and dirty retaliation is not an option. No knives, no baseball bats, no guns.

But a segment of this new breed of fighters might as well be called the Generation of the Blade. Just about everyone has a knife and they will use it before a single punch is thrown. There have been more stabbings this summer than I remember in years. Words are exchanged, the posture of fight is assumed, and then the blade comes out.

I’ll tell you what we need. Fewer people with knives, and more who are willing to offer up their ties to keep the peace.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. Visit his blog at www.sunjournal.com.