Kind: captions
Language: en
i get so passionate about it i get so
angry you know because there's this
saying like oh can you beat him in a
hook can you be man
win
that's it just win and don't talk to me
about anything else you believe
the match is finished and i wonder if
that gets in the head of the other
person you see this yeah
quit
the following is a conversation with
devon larret
ben many to be one of the greatest arm
wrestlers in history
this is a lex friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's devin
larrit
you are considered to be one of the
greatest arm wrestlers in history plus
are one of the most charismatic and uh
fun people to watch in arm wrestling but
let me first start with the ridiculous
the controversial opinion
i actually really enjoy over the top the
movie with uh sylvester stallone where
he's a trucker
it's like a father-son movie
it's uh you know like a bunch of sports
have the definitive movies unboxing has
rocky maybe folk style collegiate
wrestling has uh vision quest
um what else is there billiards says
color of money yeah this is
uh the sort of movie for arm wrestling
so what did over the top get right what
did he get wrong about arm wrestling
that was actually based off of a real
story a lot of people don't know that
now the over the top movie
i mean to a certain degree
that's actually real life like that
tournament over the top was real
yeah it was literally named over the top
yes yes there was a trucker division and
the guy actually won a truck for real
his name is john berzing you know who
that is right so the actual over-the-top
tournament the trucker division was won
by john who is john bozenk he he is a
lot of people talk about him
as like a legend and uh one of if not
the greatest arm wrestlers of all time
john brzenk is
every
arm wrestler's
father to a certain degree
all of us um
the entire sport looks up to him
uh he
it's incredible what he's done i mean at
18 he won over the top
at 57
he just competed with me a couple months
ago
still at the world level 18 that's 40
years of being at the top of the sport
it's incredible uh he's hailed as the
greatest of all time in the sport arm
wrestling um yeah and he doesn't he's
beating some monsters oh yeah yeah and
he doesn't
i mean when you talk about like the uh
the evolution of the sport
he's responsible for so much of it like
when you talk about like a lot of times
when you go back like 20 years 30 years
a lot of us looked at arm wrestling
i think it's i mean
as something you could kind of do
and he's the first guy who's like if you
want to get better at arm wrestling you
got arm wrestle
and it seems so simple
but
you know he answered so many questions
that all of us had about techniques in
the sport
uh back you know pre
pre-video internet
um
yeah he's everybody he's been
everybody's target for like 40 years so
in terms of strength there's a power in
terms of skill what did he teach the
sport of arm wrestling so if you look
how did the sport change from 80s 90s to
uh the arts
you were at the top of the world for
many years you know um
i many argue you're still at the very
top of the world but like you were very
dominant both left and right hand in uh
i don't know 2008 to
2013 something like that yeah um so how
does that sport evolve to today so
it's hard for me to comment you know
prior to
you know when i came to the sport was
kind of mid-90s like i've been arm
wrestling my whole life but
uh i wasn't really involved in the sport
to a a major degree until probably you
know mid 90s
but i'll say that
before the mid-90s
it was really hard to get good at arm
wrestling very difficult
um everybody was doing it wrong really
like it was really rare to find people
who were technically good arm wrestlers
it was very underground you know when i
when i got into sport it was a flyer
that came in the mail
you had to know somebody who knew
somebody who knew somebody
and then you go to a club and you can't
do anything with these people
and
and they'll and they knew how to arm
wrestle they did but real masters were
rare and
you know then internet internet helped
everybody
communication
uh the transfer of knowledge became so
much faster
people became technically
you know invested
people started training sharing sharing
ideas
by i'd say
two thousand and
well probably around the turn of the
millennia
i'd say that professional leagues
started to slowly pick up
more organized
bigger productions started attract more
athletes
more people took it seriously
by 2010
i'd say there was another jump
um
more serious leagues a little bit more
money
by 2015
more major media like people were
investing a lot of money like uh
you know millionaires billionaires type
of people were organizing events setting
up leagues
and uh yeah i mean the past five years
it's just blown up uh the techniques i
mean if if i was to go back to when i
started uh you know what what took me 10
or 15 years to learn i mean new guys are
showing up and they've got it down in
like a year yeah yeah
well the thing about it the development
of the sport is it's
like i was telling you off mike
it's a battle
of
one
versus one yeah and then that can turn
into battle of nations which you know
there is
there's canada there's the united states
there's all the eastern
europe
russia georgia all of that that
that's what makes some of the greatest
sports and olympics great like
weightlifting it's a battle of nations
not just the battle of individuals and
it's almost like these two humans
represent the two nations and i see that
very much we'll talk about your matches
coming up but there is
um that battle between north america and
that other part of the world yeah yeah
north america is very prized
you know the north american champion is
always highly sought after because
they're typically the most famous
even still when
you know quite arguably there's always
somebody in eastern europe who's just
monstrous
uh it's typically the north american
athlete who's more recognized
by the way oh yeah we'll have a cup here
with some maple syrup cheers
should probably show
you you just down that whole thing no no
no i'm going to sip it i'm going to sip
it you know but by all means
it's really good right
yeah
that is uh maple syrup yeah
that's a perfect july day
from canada in a bottle yeah
so you're uh on a totally uh
on a total tangent you are known for
appreciating food in all kinds of ways
but one of the things you're known for
is pancakes
that is uh yeah that's gone to a crazy
place in the sport but yeah like where
did that originate
so
um
where that originated when it went from
like your actual love for pancakes to
the meme
yeah so so i think what happened was uh
um so
i had a match with michael todd
big match uh michael
great champion
um he's another guy who's you know he's
never gonna get off the horse uh you
know he's uh jesus
his elbow is a complete disaster
um
probably one of the most loved and hated
guys in the sport right now
is it because of the king's move
yeah the king's move brings him a lot of
hate um not from me not from a lot of
people but
a lot of observers have a big problem
with the king's move
what's wrong with being a little bit
controversial that's fun
you know i get so passionate about it i
get so angry you know because there's a
saying like oh can you beat him in a
hook can you be man
win yeah win that's all that matters
that's it just win and don't talk to me
about anything else
if you can win with style win will stop
but don't talk to me about anything but
winning other it's that's the priority
so you had this match with mkhitaryan
yeah
so
i was in a terrible place
um i guess it was i get so screwed up
with years it's 2022 now right no it's
20 30. what are you talking about yeah
that's right i think it is actually 20
30. we're way ahead of schedule yeah oh
man that's right so when was this this
was like a decade ago or no no this is
uh like a year and a bit ago so this is
very recent very recent yeah
so
i got really sick
yeah this is the match right okay
awesome match uh
so this is this match is for the legacy
hammer so we invented this thing called
the legacy hammer and michael took it
from me and i think 2018
and then kovid shut everything down and
michael went overseas to try and set up
because at that time
michael was a north american champion
he beat me and
he went to dubai
and he organized this great big match
with lavon
and the whole thing fell apart
organizers leagues we wouldn't let it
happen but
there was still an ability to have a
match of significance happen so
michael's like who do you want and like
let's give devin a rematch and i'm like
yes and i was really sick at the time
uh i had dvt i had pulmonary embolism i
was
mentally in a terrible place
and i got offered the match and i just
totally turned my life around
and
i committed
really hard yeah and uh what happened in
this match by the way
oh i just totally destroyed him
yeah i just beat the piss out of him
yeah
um
michael's a good friend of mine
but uh yeah there's a lot of camaraderie
yeah you guys talked afterwards but we
fight like like brothers you know like
so we let each other really fight hard
against each other
but so i was
i knew i mean strength and mass they go
hand in hand
and
i committed to just getting as big and
as strong as i could and literally i was
eating pancakes every day
bacon pancakes every sloppy bit of
garbage food i could eat i was trying to
eat healthy also but if there was
garbage food i'd eat it what do you mean
bacon and pancakes isn't healthy what
are you talking about exactly ah people
should go watch there's a video where
you make like the
the canadian
meal of uh bacon with some bacon cooking
tips water that was interesting yeah and
then um and then obviously pancakes and
maple syrup all over the whole thing
yeah
yeah you're making me very hungry
i i've caused more diabetes and then uh
you know probably gonna get in trouble
karmically for
making the world obese you should
probably write a like like a book the
pancake diet yeah devin larry yep i
think i will do that one day so you said
uh mass and strength go hand in hand
just at a big level about arm wrestling
what's more important
strength
power endurance skill strategy or mental
toughness like what
how do these components all
come into play in arm wrestling they're
all important
you can use everything and you can
adjust your strategy based off of the
tools that you have
uh i would say if i i could pick ever
just one thing to have more of
uh
i would i would say that it would be
strength
gained
while fighting
while actually i'm wrestling not off the
off day no no so you get stronger from
arm wrestling how do you get stronger
from armrest like in jiu jitsu and
grappling you can get good by
training with people
much uh technically worse than you so
with white belts and blue belts yeah
it's actually beneficial degree because
you get to work stuff out right
but
i wouldn't say it develops like
that intensity and power required to go
against um people at your level
so what how do you balance that do you
is it okay to go against people that are
much weaker than you
or that you really have to go against
people at the same level
i think that a blended
strategy is probably the best
um i i'd say kind of a rule
is whatever you do you get better at
right so
you want to be kind of as precise as
possible
you don't want to get hurt
and it's just about investment
and
the answer is not always the same things
are going to change
i am currently a big believer in what i
call tower building right so
you have to do a lot of volume
to build a great tower
you you need to have a ton
a ton of volume so so when you look at
how to best build volume
you want to do
workouts that aren't particularly
challenging to make you feel good
and do them so that when you add them
all together
you you get the biggest number
so
many
easy workouts a day
that are specific as possible in my
opinion is the best way to lay the
foundation for an extreme peak and
precision right like
there's no more precise way to get
strong at arm wrestling than arm wrestle
so
how often can you arm wrestle what's
your training regimen
you're talk you've talked about this
as
the climb right
what is the training process
to get great at arm wrestling well
again it's going to depend on what level
you're at
um the answer
at the beginning
might not be the same for me
a guy who's been doing it almost 30
years
i have to harvest i have to harvest
energy from clubs
uh i call it cosmic punch
sorry to interrupt you were here in
austin texas you are in austin texas but
you were at the what was it called the
the water tank yeah he had an awesome
crowd it was great i get to watch i got
to interact with a lot of those guys
um
yes just amazing community amazing human
beings i got to talk to dimitri in
russian in
in english he's uh he's an engineer his
wife is an engineer so he's a brilliant
dude but also
uh one of the toughest i guess guys you
faced there yeah but you faced i don't
know how many people must have been
hundreds of yeah so the bar was full
yeah and that that for me is a perfect
training scenario yeah so if i go in and
just kind of be i'm like a lightning rod
and i just absorb
everything that i can get from people
you know all their effort uh
that's perfect that's perfect but i'm
lucky because i'm in a place
that i can handle it
you know if i was losing
or failing this would not be optimal
but because i'm i'm strong enough i've
been doing it long enough that i can
kind of absorb it without damaging me
this is perfect this is perfect i
typically when i'm training up for a
very serious match
i'll try and do that
uh three or four times a week
and then the days in between
i will just do blood flow
rehab blood flow rehab i will never hit
a pr a record i'll never do it anymore i
don't do it i used to a lot of things
change that's why i say like there's a
lot of ways to do it
this is currently a system that's
working very well for me
so when you say pr
you're not aggressively chasing a peak
you're just building and building a
building yeah my only peak that i care
about
is for this cycle the 25th of june
that's my only pr let's talk about the
25th
oh yeah let's talk about lavon
sigunishvilli
the georgian hulk
yeah uh question number one is it
possible to beat him he is widely
acknowledged as
the most powerful person
in arm wrestling today
is he beatable
and it's so how everybody's beatable
everybody's beatable lavon is incredible
he's uh he is
what
this
modern peak of arm wrestling represents
so for people who are just listening we
we also have an overlay of a video
of lavonne going against vitali will let
in
another top three person in the world
perhaps yeah in arm wrestling
and the
lavon is the guy on the right just big
i love it and the the aggression
uh i mean actually sort of underneath it
all is it seems to be a teddy bear but
when he turns it on yeah it's uh
it's raw power he's the full package
lavonne is uh he represents the pinnacle
um there's dennis in the background
he's like i want to be back in there
yeah
lavon has a lot of bases covered uh he's
i mean he's curling 300 pounds with one
arm i mean the strength
that he shows for arm wrestling
is
is is so far ahead of the field it's
very very strong
um
[Music]
but
it's absolutely possible it's absolutely
possible the one thing that i'm
confident about well i'd say there's two
things
the two things i'm confident about
is that i have more experience than he
does
and
experience counts for a lot
the other thing is
my ability to
breathe and recover
so
if ever
there's an opportunity for the tide to
turn
that's i think where he'll never get it
back so i think if i can somehow find a
hole in his game
then uh yeah
so you you want to hold off the initial
like assault of power
and that and then
wear them out
and to find the hole and then
so it's how much of that is mental how
much of it is just the physical ability
to do
for your muscles to have the endurance
to hold off
i like to
make the sport bigger
and a lot of things that
most arm wrestlers
believe the sport is
i always try and push those boundaries
so
there is definitely a mental aspect to
it
when you're faced with something that
you've never seen before
that's when
things like experience
comes in he can become surprised
where
what's a surprise for him is routine for
me
so my adjustments will be more precise
more accurate
that's how i get in
that's how i get in yeah i play i play a
dirty game
you know so some of it uh how important
is confidence in the whole
in the progression of the match
is there
ups and downs of confidence like holy
shit i actually have a chance to win
this
holy shit i'm winning this you're done
there's some of my favorite moments i
don't know if those are fake or not in
terms of your expressions if faking
until you make it but whenever you shake
your head or whatever it you make it
apparent that
you believe
the match is finished
and i wonder if that gets in the head of
the other person
when you start to actually uh so i'm
sure you're doing things in like precise
detailed things with your hands to also
indicate that you believe they're
finished but you're facially just see
this yeah
quit
oh that's right because it's 15 yet
so that's ultimate the battle is about
it's like it's you're done it's
you might as well give up
commitment is so important in anything
that you do right like um
i always
kind of try and bring things to
a level of commitment that's uncommon i
i think that that's a lot of reasons why
i do well
is because i just get so committed in
the whole process
and by the time that i actually show up
to fight
i sometimes just wish that they would
kill me you know i wish that they would
because that's what that's how far i
want to go like people talk about like
how committed are you to the match like
if you're committed to the match and you
lose you should be hurt like that's i'm
often unhappy
when i lose a match
and i don't have an injury i'm like damn
like what the fuck like i should have
like i feel i feel like i didn't commit
you know
um i don't know if you know dan gable is
the wrestler he oh yeah he was dawn uh
he has on the podcast yeah yeah uh
he he talked about his whole career he
dreamed of
working so hard that he gets
he can't get off the mat
right by himself
and he was always dis he's disappointed
ultimately at the end of his career
because he was always able to get off
the mat on his own accord so he wants to
yeah leave it all
on the mat just from exhaustion
so that that's what commitment looks
like yeah what what is this process what
is this climb for
probably the toughest match of your
career
i would say the most epic match in in
arm wrestling
history i mean it's really building up
you are
the you said north america that's a
i mean i think
uh
by a councilman you're one of the
greatest arm wrestlers ever he is one of
the scariest wrestlers ever
and so this match uh by the way where is
it happening it'll be in dubai in dubai
yeah june so what does the climb look
like
the climb for me um
what i have to change in my life always
people talk about being a professional
i've always loved the sport i've
loved it like crazy
but to me
the path is about
simplicity
and removal of distractions
i do better and better
the more i get rid of everything
nothing else
so that my life is
just
the goal just the target and everything
else is off the table and that's that's
where i need to get to
um where there's nothing there's nothing
between me and him and every single day
you're putting in the volume every day
all day now you said you worked out so
you yesterday you did hundreds of arm
wrestling matches and then today you
said in the morning you still worked out
so what was that workout so you you're
mixing up stuff where you're doing
weights also uh this morning you know
i try to really focus on what's
administratively easy uh that's a big
part of me is everything i do
so i just travel with bands
yeah i got bands with me
and it's rehabilitative in nature so i'm
really focusing on blood flow
uh feeling good doing proper movements
but yeah just uh band workout in the
hotel what does a band workout look like
so are you doing the arm wrestling
movement are you oh do that see what you
did there what's that
yeah it's you that you want to bring
them in
up
oh the up thing up up up into your
center right you think what can you
control out here
no you bring everything close
you want every just that's it don't
worry about pinning painting happens
once it's close to you yeah yeah the
pinning is
people always think about pinning you
don't think about pinning how much of
the body is a part of this too like the
uh the core the torso because it feels
like there's that almost like uh mike
tyson punch power right yep does it come
from the hips too and the
the legs
it just gives you the body the whole
body it's definitely the whole body like
everything is working
uh you're connected to the table at
times as far as your base sometimes your
base is your feet
but a lot of times you can base off the
table so so you can base off your hips
but i'll tell you no arm wrestler cares
about doing squats
no arm wrestlers doing planks yeah okay
it's all about the forearm and the
actions of the hand yeah that's always
the limiting factor
you look at a guy like oleg zok
okay do you know this guy oleg zak
marvelous he's a he's that total hellboy
he's my inspiration to what i call
pumpkin training
but um what's pumpkin training uh
probably we'll get into that but i only
train my right arm that's it yeah with
homework
but
back to full body
it is full body my my good friend matt
mask
when he arm wrestled me he actually blew
his internal abductor in his in his leg
so yeah people walk away from tournament
their calves can be sore sometimes
you know it happens but
no oh there he is right there yeah oh
like he's he is a real life hell boy
he's like he's like 170 pounds there
look at his arm look at his hair it's
crazy yeah
yeah he's totally crazy
that's you doing left right there so
that's by the way lavon you're going
right yeah
yeah
so can you say more about the the mental
side are you visualizing what it takes
to beat him are you trying to get in his
head um all of these things
so do you think it's possible to get in
a set
um
there's definitely strategies that you
can do depending on who it is you're
facing
uh it's very good to know who it is
you're fighting and choose the correct
strategy mentally
but
i
always follow a process
when it comes to my mental preparation
when i'm far away from an event
i just always
build up my opponent
build them i build them i respect them
to a point where i almost start to fear
them and start to believe that they'll
beat me
and this is a very vital part of my
preparation and that's where i am right
now with lavon i don't
i just build them up build them up into
this thing that scares me
and it forces me to be responsible you
know
because i don't want to lose you know i
want to win
so the greater my opponent the greater i
can build their worth in my mind
the more motivation it gives me
then there comes a point
when uh when it changes
and
then i start to degrade them
and uh yeah that's when it normally
starts to get fun
and uh
normally by the time i face them
uh i just try and completely dominate
from every interaction from start to
finish
yeah
when uh in the actual
moment of the match like in in the
moments leading up to it what's the
feeling
is it uh
fear is it confidence
anxiety
what what's going through your mind
i love to fight
i love it uh lo i always have i um
there's
there's every day
where you have you know the distractions
of life
and then there's really living in the
moment
right it's whatever you love to do and
that's when you can you know really be
free
uh i i'm free when i'm fighting right so
you put me in that good fight and i just
love it i don't think about the past i
don't think about the future i just
think about killing that dude in front
of me and i enjoy that
and just being intensely in the moment
just that's it just right there just
fighting as hard as i can do you study
the opponent like do you have you for
this particular match
do you study videos of lavon i've seen
everything
i've read everything
i get opinions from other people
i watch
very closely yeah what do you make of
his evolution so so he's
he's grown in size
but also you've talked about his um
you know evolution technically as well
well then studying him
since we're in the uh build your
opponent to be
terrifying stage uh what uh what makes
him great
he's very impressive the the greatest
thing about him
is is his strength that's the thing that
sets him apart from everyone uh his
strength
specialized strength
exact strength for arm wrestling
i believe it's unmatched can we just uh
linger on that
word strength
what does strength mean what does it
feel like are we talking about
um bicep
like shoulder we're talking about like
whatever control right the wrist yeah is
it the
where what how does strength manifest
you know like when i touch your hand
when we grab arms
i feel like
fuck that's true that there's control
what is that feeling where does that
come from we're in arm wrestling when
you're at the top of the world where
does that come from so
it's chains there's chains of strength
and in arm wrestling this is like
technical strength okay and we use these
technical chains to fight each other
the
the change that i'll talk about is so
you'll talk remember how we talked about
the post this upwards drive this ability
to close this angle
this is a chain
um it can be used it's it's a technical
attack it's also an attack that can be
built with with training just the
ability to just drive upwards
uh there's a chain where you cup right
cup your wrist and cup your wrist in and
the anchor and the chain
brings you right to your heart right to
your center right this chain and this
can be done at any time
there's a pronation chain and that's
that's to turn your thumb over right
turn your thumb over and you attack the
person's cupping chain
and there's a huge number of muscles
involved in each chain and that's why i
say it's a chain right but they're
movements
and these movements
you can develop in the gym or through
practice so you don't mean so it's easy
to sort of interpret strength to mean
the the how much you curl essentially
yeah but you mean the chain it's all
right and that's like i mean people talk
as a bicep i mean yes there's bicep for
sure involved but i i'll always be
inaccurate if i try and tell you like
what muscles are the so i prefer to
explain it in a movement
and then everything that's involved to
do that movement
right
yeah and levon's movements for arm
wrestling
are incredibly impressive
what do you attribute to how much of
that is genetics how much of it is some
training thing he's doing
i think that
lavon is very special in terms of
his genetics like not everybody can be
levon
you know yeah there's there's not many
lavons out there
um
but
what i've encountered in the bias that i
always see like when people talk about
people like lavonne
they discount the other side so very
quickly
and the thing is lavon rarely has to
show it on the other side because he's
so far ahead you talk about the
technical application of the sport
he so rarely needs to show it
but he's clearly incredible if you watch
his progression he came up
having very difficult technical
struggles to overcome georgia is a great
country for arm wrestling like there's
this guy gennady click vina who no one
would ever say is not technical
and
you know
it took him years to defeat him
to a point where now it's not it's not
even a discussion
yeah you talk about the progression they
had a lot of battles together over the
years yeah it's fascinating to see the
tides turn oh yeah and once they've
turned it's like
completely completely different level
yeah i mean he's got he's got strength
he's got technique
some people
will argue that his technique is flawed
at times they've shown matches where he
hasn't shown the best technique but he's
still one
and i think sometimes he just plays with
people
you know like uh there's a famous match
that he had with uh
they call him the bruce lee of arm
wrestling a guy called anger bayev uh
kurta gali angerbaiev he's they had a
match in the top eight
great match curtis ali is like 220 pound
guy from kazakhstan uh
brilliant technician but power wise you
know not in the same world
and curtigali
did well even though he lost six nothing
he still did well
but in my opinion
lavon didn't care lavon was like
grabbing him low and just like whatever
like
i will show him things that he's not
seen before i will
um
he hasn't competed often in this rule
set which will be a challenge for him
but uh
yeah what can i say like lavon he's he's
everest
yeah yeah
yeah you are seen by
basically everybody is the big big
underdog but you also even even in the
eastern even uh i mean i talk to
russians a lot
they're you uh you know that moment in
rocky when they start cheering for rocky
yeah yeah
you're kind of the they they love you
they want you to win and just you know
it's not even um
just the battle itself is inspiring and
it's it's it's like the culmination in
your career because
it's you know you're at the top for a
long time but it's like it's almost
like it should be over for you but no
you're returning it's it is like this
big
moment yeah the big climb
i will be
the pointy end of the spear for north
america
yeah uh beautiful well let's uh thanks
for bringing that match up let's talk
about
just um
the the the match against uh dennis your
left-hand match yeah he's also
terrifying and seen as one of the
strongest probably the
uh one of if not the strongest left hand
arm wrestler yeah
there's a lot to be said there
maybe you could talk about this match at
a high level why did you take on this
match why did you do the left hand yeah
versus the right hand what can you tell
the story
okay
dennis the plank off
there's so much about this match i love
dennis russian guy yeah russian guy
russian i used to call him dennis
chernobyl
uh
what a monster he kind of uh
led i'd say this new era
of arm wrestling
where
the super heavyweight strength level has
just gone through the roof
i wanted the match for such a long time
we tried to get the match uh we couldn't
get it organized this is back in like
you know 2008 to 2012 couldn't get the
match couldn't get the match i've always
been more of a one-on-one puller he was
doing the uh the tournament format i was
ranked number one in the world and
towards the end it kind of was very
undecided i ended up getting surgery i
ended up abandoning the super
heavyweight division i went down at 225s
for a few years
wal failed
temporarily
um so the 225 pound division was
scrapped and i said okay
i'm gonna go for the for the big crown
once again
and i started uh to go after super
heavyweights
the
season
was
right hand
uh
i started to enter negotiations to have
the match with him i
we've been chasing the match for 10
years
they want to do it left hand i want to
do a right hand
i just wanted to i just wanted to do the
match i wanted to do the match with
dennis i wanted to meet dennis so people
should know that you were
the right hand has always been your
strongest it has been i mean i had
surgery in 2016. i hate to make excuses
i hate to do it
um
dennis was better than me that day even
on my best day if you had gone back my
entire career
at no single day do i beat dennis to
plank off in 2018 i would like to think
that i could maybe do it now but at that
point there would be no version that
could have beat him i left all right uh
right hand no
i i'm curious about the right
uh but left hand so is the world
well it might still happen it might
but uh
dennis
completely destroyed me
um
and
i learned a lot from it
i i think before
the dennis match
i think i was i don't know i i don't
know exactly what your word to use
maybe i felt like
my thinking was a little bit elitist
uh and i really learned a lot i was
really humbled that day
um
[Music]
by how far and how professional and how
prepared dennis was
and how seriously he took the sport
there's a mental
a slightly terrifying
calmness to him
which only comes with extreme
preparation i think yeah his level of
dedication
uh was extremely inspiring to me
you know
i
used to do a job
where
it was serious enough that the the price
could be death right
and
i arm wrestled throughout that entire
period
and i always kind of
looked at uh
you know the cost
of doing an activity being death
limited to soldiering
and
i i kind of changed my mind a lot after
that match i realized that
anything that you're in love with
once you get far enough down the road
and professional enough at it it's gonna
kill you
like doesn't matter what you're doing if
you're crazy enough about anything it's
probably gonna take your life for me in
some way
and that doesn't mean you rush towards
death it's just your level of investment
and level of risk can have some
catastrophic effects
bukowski charles bukowski i think has
the quote uh
do what you love and let it kill you
right like that right
and
i understood
that dennis's level of professionalism
far exceeded mine
in
what we were doing at the time
and i realized that you know
i i was no longer employed
i was now in the world of professional
arm wrestling
and i realized that uh you know what was
i doing
like how serious was i
so dennis is an incredible guy
is there moments in that match there's
there's humility there too from him
that was a fascinating
uh sort of
it seemed like you realize that you just
hit a wall and you were not ready enough
for it it was incredible
there was so many things that i remember
about the dentist match i mean i
remember
you know
seeing video of somebody and then
meeting them in person it's different
i remember in the weigh-ins sorry not
the weigh-ins and the the standoff that
we did you know before the match i'm
looking at him like i'm close i'm
looking at his arms
and
his bicep
it looked like an ass
like it was like a freaking glute muscle
yeah like his
entire structure was so sinewy and
just so strong
i was like wow he's so physically so
impressive
and
i remember when i arm wrestled him
a certain at a certain time
he allowed me to kind of set my position
you can very you can't really tell
because it happens very quickly
but he let me set my position which
means i kind of got my locks in where
where you can kind of really do a great
hold
and he just ripped through me
just so you you were able to get this
great position so it was tore right
through me
yeah and uh
the first time i ever thought that uh
you know he that i had torn something i
thought like after the match i'm like
did he rip my chest right in half like
um
what
yes no i didn't i didn't actually
nothing went purple or anything but um
yeah the strength gap was very
significant with dennis uh so could he
what would it take to beat him on that
day
um
it would it would take me just being
a little bit stronger
um
and and more healthy yeah
uh my left was not as healthy as it
should be
like i didn't have a full rounded
technical arsenal
it takes a time after surgery it really
does like i mean
you can be good but
after a surgery like what i had you know
you're probably looking at three or four
years before you're starting to hit
technical proficiency the way you should
be
and uh yeah just a bit stronger
how do you interpret the calmness on his
face well what is that about
the z actually it's very russian it's a
russian it's a russian thing i think i
don't know i see a lot of russians like
that you know they're so like stoic and
i'm such a fan of russia i i really want
to go to moscow i've been saying it
forever you've never been not yet not
yet i i want to go i want to just go and
live there for like a month and just
train the moscow has got such a crazy
arm wrestling scene they've got from
what i understand they just have so many
clubs there's so many strong athletes
just go and just
lightning rod
yeah are you considered doing something
of that sort it's like rocky iv again oh
yeah like oh and lead up to june i would
certainly consider it i've got
only one trip planned at the moment
administration is very important
what do you mean by administration so
like managing your time and management
yeah the management has to be very
efficient
you know when i'm a tourist when i'm a
visitor a little bit of that goes down
you know when i'm at my home and things
are familiar
i've got a really great grasp on my time
you know everything's in place
everything's perfect you know
if i could magically transport moscow
into my hometown and just go out and
visit them
yeah so it's very difficult when you're
traveling you have to keep all the you
have to
figure out what you're eating where how
are you getting the food all the
socializing plus you're
more and more celebrity so there's
social interaction which i don't know um
how draining that could be on you
outside of the arm wrestling table
so all you have to manage all of that
because
ultimately you have to focus on
the fight ahead
yeah
yeah a lot of my strength comes from
just being in a familiar place
doing my routine
i love to travel i love to get out there
and meet people and
new experiences
but when i just want to really prepare
for a big match yeah home is uh
where i get strong so that loss against
dennis was one of the few losses in your
career
uh how did that feel
in the moments after in the days after
in the months after in the years after
how has it changed you
as an arm wrestler as a human being
well
it's tough to lose uh
still haunt you
um
[Music]
i don't think so i actually was really
happy to lose to dennis
because you know sometimes when you lose
a match there's a lot of matches that
i've lost where they upset me because i
know i made a mistake
i didn't make a mistake with dennis he
was just he was just way better there's
nothing i could have done that day
i'm really at peace with it
dennis
to me was just a big inspiration i think
that me arm wrestling dennis left-handed
that day just let me touch probably one
of the strongest human beings on the arm
wrestling table that's ever lived you
know left-handed
so so knowing that's possible
is almost like
yeah inspiration to you that i can be at
that level too yeah
yeah yeah seeing what dennis did
uh you know just trying to absorb a
little bit of his knowledge uh
planted seeds in me
yeah i mean when i look at my career
it's it's a bit like the stock market
but
for sure i'm trending upwards
and
since
really kind of wrapping my mind around
uh some of the russian philosophies
they really changed my training systems
uh there were some base philosophies
that they talked to me about over there
that
massively impacted my training is it
possible to convert some of those
philosophies into words can you describe
some of the ideas they taught you
so never smile
right
man there's so like it takes a while to
break the ice with a lot of these guys
uh well once you do i mean that's this
deepest bonds you can form there yeah
yeah for sure
i think that i was raised under
i believe it's a flawed it's i mean it's
not flawed because it has its value as
well
but it's best if you understand both
philosophies
uh i think a north american thing
that's just so ingrained in our fitness
society
is no pain no gain you know and just
pushing and like sweating and going
harder and like fighting through like
and grit and toughness and
but
and then you talk to the russians and
they're like yeah never fail you never
fail never never go to failure uh always
feel good
always feel good it should always feel
good don't
um
and those two philosophies express
themselves very differently um
and if you want to get strong
yeah don't fail
don't fail
so
that's how you they also are believers
of volume
yeah uh there's a lot of strategies but
yeah volume is a massive principle and
volume is very hard to achieve when
you're believing in no pain no gain
right right they don't really go
together no pain no gain more injuries
so the is there parallels because in in
wrestling some of the greatest wrestlers
of all time are russian and they they
were big um dan gable talks about it
they were big on
play right like lighter wrestling right
probably ultimately actually
it boils down to that's how you achieve
higher volume right like over the
stretch of years
the way to reduce injury
um i mean in wrestling also technique
might um
have greater value than it does in arm
wrestling obviously technique is
extremely important in arm wrestling but
power is
like can defeat technique
it seems like yeah in wrestling you can
get away
there's a lot of ways you can really uh
uh do sneak attacks sort of use leverage
all those kinds of things so there's
even more incentive to do play and all
that kind of stuff yeah but uh
do you do you see the parallels between
the two worlds oh yeah wrestling and arm
wrestling 100
you saw what i did the other night
right so i'm playing on the table for
hours yeah right so that's that's that's
that's my number one
training thing that i do is i go on the
table
for hours and i play
yeah
yeah when you did uh sergey can you pull
up that video it's on devin's channel
the uh the water tank one oh it's like
180p it's like the the wi-fi in there
was so bad yeah it's great i love it but
it's uh maybe the
i don't know if it was fisheye but it
had a fisheye feels yeah crowded i mean
so much camaraderie it was it was
amazing but maybe uh
just a brief mention of uh dimitri the
uh the russian
the russian guy what uh
uh
what in that play what are some
memorable things here like you when you
go against a bunch of different people a
bunch of strangers what are all the
differences and how do you grow from
them how do you learn from them well
everybody's a bit different so
i love to go to new clubs because the
energy is always high like the first
time you go to a club everybody's trying
to kill you yeah yeah so there's
excitement yeah this is and so you feed
off of that yeah you do you can you can
if you're able to be strong enough to
absorb it without injury it's awesome
it's awesome um because they're giving
you everything they can yeah
yeah
right so it's it's very specific right
like i'm gonna get way stronger at arm
wrestling and what i try and do
when i go to these places as i make an
assumption
i make an assumption that i'm the best
guy there
and so i'll arm wrestle in a way that
kind of protects them because the more i
can protect them
and kind of keep them kind of in a good
position
they can actually give me more
right so i kind of i kind of give them
little pieces that i think will put them
in a place that they can really give me
more
and so yeah that's what i'm doing and
then when i see somebody like dimitri
yeah i pull that in a little bit right
so okay so i know dimitri's the number
one guy in texas
uh you know lots of respect to the guy i
i won't give him all the pieces until i
really kind of gauge where he's at
because i certainly in training don't
want to fail
i don't want that i don't want to
when you fail in arm wrestling it's just
imagine it's just bad technique
and you're trying and bad technique
you're going to get hurt
yeah so you always want to be in a
strong position here what about in how
do how does endurance come into play
here and here's video yeah strapping up
with that's right
yeah how do you i mean you went for like
i don't know two hours a year yeah
so the first this first run of the video
i think was a little over an hour and
then i took a break and i probably did
another 45 minutes or so but
i mean do you
how can are you okay
with the endurance aspect of this yeah
that's probably like when you talk to
the arm wrestling world that's probably
what i'm best known for is my endurance
so this helps build that
it does but that's not why i'm doing it
i'm doing it to get strong
in my opinion this is this is one of the
best ways to get strong especially far
away from the from a tournament uh or or
any kind of an event
i wouldn't want to do this
you know even a month or even six weeks
or even maybe even eight weeks before a
big event i'd want to already be kind of
shrinking my volume
but
far away from an event yeah as much
volume as your body can handle and
you'll feel it you'll feel it like i
felt it at times like you know after the
hour mark i'm like okay i can feel my
blood sugar kind of diminishing i can
feel like the blood that's going through
my muscles is kind of like
it's not really pushing more good stuff
in it's start i'm starting to break down
and you don't want that
you don't want that
quick pause bathroom break i'm good okay
i kind of need one yeah i'll maybe get a
sweater it's a bit is it cold do you
does that matter does that care for
content
i couldn't make it warmer no no
that doesn't matter
and i still love the idea of you going
to russia yeah and uh training there
yeah i'm also making a trip out to
russia oh yeah i went for differently
well it's hard with the current conflict
uh yeah the tension's there but i'm
hoping uh before your match actually so
may
for a couple of interviews with a couple
of folks
some of which people know
maybe i could ask you about uh
to comment on some matches that stand
out to you in in your
in your career sure
is there something uh is there a
particular i have a bunch that i really
enjoy but is there something that stands
out to you as
as uh as memorable we talked about
sort of uh
defining laws perhaps the dentist
[Music]
then um you you faced michael tyler who
mentioned john
brzenk you've you've faced matt
um is there something that stands out to
you that uh technically or
psychologically you've
learned a lot from
i've i feel like i try and learn
something from every match but there is
a very special match to me
that to this day i can't explain
uh
very weird phenomena so
i think it was 2005
uh it was my first
combat tour overseas
so
it was a
active tour
uh you know among among other things i i
got shot during that tour like we got
blown a long tour rough tour
and i trained the whole time through
knowing that at the end of this i was
gonna have a big match
so there's a champion guy called ron
bath
uh he's kind of if there was no john
berzink there would be ron bath
okay so
extremely decorated
unbelievable arm wrestler from the
united states
and this is kind of when i was just kind
of coming up in the sports still i was
fairly well established i was definitely
the best guy in canada and i had been
for a few years
but i hadn't really expanded
internationally too much
so
i had a one-on-one match with ron bath
and
that's the one
yeah
extremely hard-fought battle
was 3-1 i think 3-1 but every match was
really close and he won the first one
and i had to kind of like dig my way out
of the trenches and uh ended up coming
back and winning but
it was a match
that was probably it was probably one of
my closest matches ever
and
it seems like there's frustration on you
what is that what was going through your
mind here
with these uh was it first of all going
in did you think you could beat them
what was the level of call i always
think i can win like i always do
um but you know a lot of respect to the
guy um
but yeah i mean i always think i can do
it
uh so how did what what lessons did you
take away from it uh why why is it so
meaningful to you
well it's what happened afterwards
so
i had some kind of a release afterwards
and that was the strange thing to me so
match
ended
and i felt like
so relaxed afterwards so calm so
so you know satisfied
because it was one of those matches uh
that kind of takes everything from you
yeah but you win it
and
i was relaxing in the chair
and
i've never had this sensation
before i've never had it afterwards
but it's like the center of my backbone
just exploded
and it was like
so weird right because i'm not really
spiritual that much or religious even
but it's like a fire just ripped through
me
and it only lasted an instant
just exploded through my whole body
out
at the top through my feet
and then i was gone that was it
uh weirdest thing i've ever felt my
entire life um
yeah but it was it was as a result of uh
what happened in the match
and leading up to it i had some kind of
a release
um so what it does is almost
how did you interpret it psychologically
was it like uh
some kind of i mean not to be spiritual
or whatever but some kind of superpower
that was uh
like
like a lingering feeling like holy shit
i
them you know i can't i can't explain it
and i haven't really tried hard enough
to try to
uh but something changed something
happened there yeah
something happened to me i was sore for
about three or four months afterwards
it's like it smoked out my entire body
yeah that whole summer i was kind of
sore
and uh yeah and then after that like two
or three years later that's when i won
the world championships
um
yeah i mean all the matches are you know
you get something from people like you
know you study them
you you take something from them
people have an invisible crown
and uh he had one
and i think i took it from him
[Laughter]
maybe that was the feeling of wearing
the crown yeah maybe
what about all the trash talk how much
of that did you learn does that come
naturally to you you're you're one of
the most charismatic fun i mean there's
always like respect behind it i would
say to me
and i'm a fan of a lot of sports you're
one of the greatest trash talkers in all
of sports that i've ever seen because
you're able to talk shit
but there's so much love and respect
behind it it's just masterful but you
also get into people's heads yeah in the
moment it's beautiful to watch because
they it really gets
it gets to some people so where does
that come from this powerful weapon
right yeah it's through your voice is a
powerful powerful weapon
and it'