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's under utilized by so many
athletes
because they think that it's not
sportsmanlike or
something like that but the truth is
i mean
you can be a a weak
person
but with your voice you can
influence and change any number of
things
and the same thing happens in a fight
between two people if you can just be a
never-ending you know
flow of negative encouragement to
someone or you know
you know suggestion
uh anything can happen it's a tool
and when you're fighting a person you're
not just fighting them
you're fighting everyone who's watching
you're fighting
the crowd the referees
and
you know to get in the most ideal
positions situations you need to use
your voice
yeah yeah and there's uh
for people who haven't seen i i
definitely recommend you watch a bunch
of arm wrestling matches because um
there's a crowd really gets into it and
it feels
it feels like there's a really intimate
connection with the crowd i suppose
because the crowd is allowed to be very
close to you yeah and says i love it
i i want the crowd like right up on me
yeah yeah
so sometimes
oh yeah
so who are you when you whenever you
talk to somebody you literally pick
somebody from the crowd yes oh yeah i'll
i'll fuck him like i'll start fucking
off his fans and like
yeah like i'll start talking to their
wives or whatever yeah
yeah uh yeah there's jody um
she's pretty dangerous to to listen to
also but yeah one of his buddies mike
solaris who's you know
really good arm wrestler was was talking
was was cheering for him so i started go
after him yeah yeah
smiling the whole time yeah it's fun
right it's fun
yeah fan is fun to listen to but it's
also what's fun is how much it actually
affects some of the people you're facing
they get frustrated yeah it's great to
see well you have to fight right
like a lot of people think things will
be given to them and and the thing that
you know i've always believed from the
time i was very young like uh
i i was convinced that uh
our inevitable death was gonna come from
aliens right
like some super aggressive
super violent species was gonna come and
smoke us all
you know and i'm like
i'm i'm not like that i'm like but as
soon as one person is
then you're forced to have to accept it
as reality right
so
i like to fight
for
every single thing i like to try and be
more and more aggressive and if someone
matches me
that's when i can use my endurance and
if they don't then i have the tactical
advantage
so that's kind of my my balance point
and then by the way you also yell at the
ref yeah i mean the games there's like
levels to this game but you know
the feeling sometimes when people get
frustrated it's like okay this person's
cheating or like
you're trying to get a good grip
uh
before they go before it goes
and
and i think some of the frustration in
combination with the trash talk is what
this person is cheating right but
everybody is like kind of trying to
achieve get an edge within the rules
yeah
so i try and just ramp it ramp it ramp
it
but uh you know everybody's different
i've learned how to play the game
based off of the tools that i have
physically yeah and for me
this works because you know my genetic
makeup is more i'm more of a persistence
hunter right so like i need to extend
things and
that works well for me
um
you know if i was ex more explosive
i probably wouldn't have the same
strategies
yeah
by the way for people who were just
watching uh you're wearing a no limits
hoodie which is
uh one of your nicknames i uh i don't
wash this thing too much it's my
bacterial shield to uh to the world yeah
yeah
awesome so you mentioned jody she's
often in uh in your corner and
does perhaps more trash talking than
even you
so
i mean
if we could step away she's an
incredible human being is sort of as a
fan it's fun to watch the two of you
both when you are arm wrestling and just
as people you just see so much
i don't know kindness and love radiating
from the two of you whenever you're
trash talking or talking about just uh
random things or just talking about life
it's just a beautiful thing to watch and
thank you for sharing that with the
world but
maybe
can you um she paid me to ask you this
what what are the things you love about
jody your wife jody larry
what are the ways she's affected your
life
yeah
jody and i go way back right we were in
high school together
um
the thing that i admire most in people
is is bravery
uh it's to me it's the most admirable
quality
and
jody always
has inspired me because she's such a
fighter
you know if if she believes that
something's true
um she'll she just she does not back
down she will she will not and you can
not to say that she's can't change her
mind cause
she can but while she is convicted
she will uh she'll not stop fighting
she's pulled me out of the fire
repeatedly
we've we've lived through so many things
i'm very lucky how has she made you a
better arm wrestler
she's fed me
[Laughter]
yeah i could see your uh you have videos
of your house basically coming apart
when she's not there yeah
yeah
yeah without jody i'm on the street uh
living in a tent and uh yeah down by the
eating dog food yeah
yeah
um
bravery yeah what about love how's love
made you stronger now we're gonna make
uh devin uncomfortable
love is difficult to accept
love is one of those things that um
you know a lot of times you don't feel
worthy of it
you know and so it's hard sometimes to
accept someone's love
and someone who really loves you
they'll love you even when you don't
you know
and
here you go you're gonna make me cry
alex
uh
yeah jody and i've been through so much
um
and she's shown me
how you know
she supported me just repeatedly
repeatedly
some of that is loyalty and patience and
perseverance and all those things that's
like when love really
shows itself yeah sticking through yeah
together for years even when you're
to the the shitty times love and faith
are powerful forces in this universe you
know without them
that we can descend into darkness very
quickly you know as a world even between
people you know when love and faith is
destroyed
then
then we fall apart
you know and i've i've been graced
by by the love that jody's given me you
know it's allowed me to continue to
build you know when you have love
between people then you build together
um i love
i love
my family i love canada i love the arm
wrestling community i have a love for
what we're trying to achieve as a human
species you know
and uh
you know
when that when that falls apart we don't
have much
yeah
just with my boy there
yeah
yeah she um
he also mentioned your uh and uh
you once had a job where uh
your
death was a real possibility so you won
the canadian special forces
what did you take away from
that experience
that time
it was such a
such a great life
really really loved it i honestly i
never i never wanted to leave i never
thought i would leave i thought i'd be
there my whole life
um
a real honor
to to get to serve what what did you get
to do what was the things you loved
craftsmanship wise like fun things you
get to do learn and challenge yourself
yeah and and you mentioned sort of honor
yeah in terms of the the the serving
part yeah
yeah my favorite thing
about
serving in the special forces was
for sure the people that i worked with
that's probably the first thing i could
say uh you know i never i always felt
like
totally comfortable
and and putting my life in the other
guy's hands
i was so happy to be in a place where i
felt i could follow um
like
it didn't matter like i knew that the
people ahead of me were were incredible
i knew the people beside me were
incredible
so just having that faith in your team
is very special and to know that they're
for there for a reason that has nothing
to do with money you know there and
that's what kind of brings everybody
together is you're there to for a higher
purpose
uh and in terms of being an adrenaline
junkie
there's nothing like it i mean there's
nothing like you know going out at night
and fighting uh and when i say fighting
like
my whole life i wanted to fight
uh and to me
there's a lot of and look at i've said
this in the past and i think it's been a
personal failure of mine
because i've said things like
it's the highest level that you can i
don't believe that to be true anymore
but at the time
uh i thought it was the best way i could
express
um
my drives that i had you know to be a
fighter
um so oh so your sense in the past and
maybe in part now is that
so fighting is when humans get a chance
to express themselves deeply like like
that that mix of um the bravery
the integrity
the
yeah whatever that is that makes us
human that human scary can really shine
and i don't believe that anymore i
believe that you can do that in any
field in any discipline you know if you
go hard enough it all kind of starts to
feel the same
but at the time
uh that you know expression to me was
really really awesome i i loved i loved
close quarter battle that was my
favorite thing that's really the whole
reason i was there
uh can you describe close quarter battle
close quarter battle is
is team fighting so
and it can look a lot of different ways
but basically it's
ground troops
doing some kind of a mission
and it's the orchestrated movement that
is the skill the orchestrated movement
and the the drills
done quickly and accurately it's it's
it's very difficult with communication
with communication yeah absolutely so
you're it's basically cooperating
together absolutely yeah there's some
strategies there's some adapting to the
changing environment and the more the
team works together the less
communication there is yeah
yeah uh and that's an amazing thing to
do to be part of a machine well machine
a team
of people who can
fight together like that
it's i think it's
it's uh we're really designed to do it
like as good as we can fight as
individuals the thing that makes us
really good is our ability to fight as a
team yeah
yeah we're that's one of the things that
makes us really human is that collective
intelligence yeah social aspect and
uh fighting is the highest of stakes so
like that social interaction under the
highest stakes is uh
really does bring
out something that's deeply human
um
i mean
war in general brings out something
deeply human it's just
it's
i mean obvious to say that it's tragic
that it results in so much
loss of life and well-being
uh let me if it's okay
for a brief moment to take us back to um
arm wrestling we we we did this like
offline we talked about you gave me some
advice and about arm wrestling but maybe
do a high level overview of um
like the different styles and strategies
that we've talked about we talked about
the importance of strength and power
but is there like offensive defensive
styles is there we mentioned kings move
uh what what what would you classify
your style as it's nice for people that
don't
know maybe even zoom back out so arm
wrestling is a sport yeah
where
two
people
have to uh when we talk about strictly
the sport put their elbow on a
particular pad means they have to keep
that elbow on that pad
and they uh
win when the back of one of their hands
crosses some kind of or basically
touches the table that's it
and uh
when you actually lock up
you do so depending on the organization
without straps meaning there's just you
agree it's like mutual agreement that
you're going to uh
uh clasp your hands in in a way that's
fair and there's a referee that helps
ensure that it's fair but of course
there's these little games going on
and then when you actually go all out
with this battle
if there's no straps you can slip out
and so often you'll put the straps which
means you're uh it's like marriage yep
you're committed
yeah uh
for like somebody will have to lose
essentially uh there's no pulling out
so this okay so that's sort of the
battle within that
what are the different styles that you
can speak to that people that don't know
arm wrestling
could uh could could yeah we can start
to kind of just dance around the subject
a bit
i'd say
there's a lot of different types
there's specialists
and
there's kind of blenders and people who
are very versatile
a lot of guys win world championships on
one singular move they get just
extremely crisp at
say a hook or a top roll
and their style is very kind of focused
and you'll see it with
a lot of athletes like
kind of a talk about guy who's very
active a guy called jerry catarat okay
as soon as you think jerry caderet he's
got a very unique style he's got a flop
wrist press okay so
most of his technique is built around
this one system flop wrist means you're
yes
what it sounds like yeah your wrist is
flopped so yeah but you're like you're
losing pushing so he is pushing from a
losing position no he will be offensive
so he will be in a press so offensively
so he'll give his hand away so that he
can get his shoulder behind it properly
so he doesn't
wow right so you can press press means
put like push push yeah uh
without having that hook position right
which is what most people are always
looking for
and jerry's looking for it as well and
then so example there's another one
there's another specialist matt mask
yeah he's a top roller
right uh he basically that's his that's
his great moves it's top roll and his
other weapons aren't nearly as powerful
this
incredible top roll and then you have a
lot of athletes that are more blended
okay they have a lot of good options
um i think that i probably fall more
into that category
you have people who are more speed guys
okay so they
try and do very little uh i'd call it
attrition
right so
a lot of people are very willing to
trade energy
because they have faith that their their
gas tank or their pool eventually will
tire the other person out so anytime
there's a trade they'll trade
whereas you know a guy like travis
baijin
you know he was very very well known as
being extremely explosive right but if
the match stops
typically he's going to lose
all right so
based off of your genetics
your hand
you know there's a lot of ways to skin
it
so
i think you said something like
you're a
22nd guy
that's right i'm the 22nd guy so what
are we what are the seconds we're
talking about so a lot of the power
people they want to win in the first
maybe five seconds like even shorter
just that first push that first press
that absolutely and that's right
right to the pad yeah and so you're
trying to hold off that attack yeah if i
beat you in a second we're not in the
same world
yeah
when i'm with my peer group
i will typically win 20 seconds and
beyond
that's a typical win for me when i'm
with a peer
whereas other guys when they're with
their peers they'll win in a second
right that's how they do it that's
that's the way they're built that's the
way they they train
um
yeah most guys at a higher level it all
starts to kind of it starts to get more
and more difficult to be a specialist at
the high level now
some people just have little holes in
their games
it's rare to get someone who can really
do all the moves it's very rare
what uh where would you put lavon
uh i would not say he's a specialist i'd
say his top role is his strongest move
top roll is his strongest move yeah
uh and the interesting thing about the
specialist versus the blender
there's a counter
right every move has a move that
theoretically should be the right choice
so if you're a single move guy uh
there's gonna be a guy out there who'll
get you
yeah it'll be very difficult for you to
beat that guy um
but
like when you come to like a tournament
typically specialists do much better in
tournament scenarios
because their singular move can get them
through a tournament very quickly and
efficiently
whereas you get a blender in a
tournament
they typically will have longer and more
difficult matches and you out right yeah
yeah but in in super match format
typically blenders
do better
so we uh offline also talked about arm
sumo or uh freedom arm wrestling i don't
know how you want to call it i love
freedom
exactly north american way uh
so what so this is this is this idea and
i watched a few videos and it looks fun
it's basically removing the restriction
of having to keep your elbow on the pad
and just being able to arm wrestle over
the whole table i i think you've
mentioned that the criticism that gets
is it might be injury prone or something
like that yeah so can you describe this
arm sumo freedom arm wrestling idea
right when you come to freedom arm
wrestling basically
it removes the limitation of a standard
arm wrestling table yeah right so
basically every single thing is a
freedom arm wrestling table some are
better than others all right so looking
for that nice table where we can kind of
stand apart from each other and we're
anatomically you know in a fairly safe
position
and the rules and freedom the way you
win is like the knuckles
must either touch the tabletop
or you hold it off the edge
for for a three count
right so this is the main way to win yes
you can foul like if you lift the
eyeball up still a foul
but you have the entire playing surface
so your elbow is no longer limited to
your seven by seven or seven by nine pad
so you can move it all over the table
you can move your body around the table
a bit too and if it's a big table your
body could largely be on the table yeah
so it basically it's like adjusting your
ring size so arm wrestling you're
fighting in a phone booth yeah right so
you get you're fighting in a field
you're fighting you know just bigger so
it just it just makes the sport bigger
yeah this is japan but even on a small
table there
even in a slightly larger phone booth
you can get a a lot more
fun and variety very interesting i love
it i think it makes the sport bigger i
actually believe that it's the future of
the sport i really do
because it makes it more accessible like
you don't need the equipment you do it
at a bar yep all that kind of stuff yeah
yeah less less equipment requirements
uh kids most kids start freedom like
most kids are wrestling school desks
yeah yeah and like if you see a guy on
the street and like whatever like you
can wrestle anywhere you don't need to
bring your table around with you
if uh
we talked about the elite level if
somebody was
interested in
starting in arm wrestling yeah or like
going from
just like you know i you go to the gym
you kind of lift
you've arm wrestled a few times trying
to get better at it trying to learn how
would you advise like getting better to
where you can beat your closest buddies
yeah that first step
first step
i'd say find people
find people find good people
uh volume get we'll get with the club
get with people who know what they're
doing who can mentor you
and that's really cool i i got to me i
realized there's a club in austin yeah
i'm sure there's in a lot of places
they're everywhere we we got this
app called armbat
yeah
which is a app that helps you find other
people there yeah very easy but i mean
they're all over social networks i mean
it's kind of widespread now
but yeah find people
find people and it's just much easier to
learn with another person and you'll get
stronger that way but i mean do this do
the lifts
if you go to the gym just start doing
the lifts uh and right away those will
technically prepare you what are what
are the lists can we describe yeah so
i'd say if you want to just keep it very
very simple let's just talk about three
there's more there's much more than
three but like when you talk about
energy allocation
these three lifts in my opinion
should be like
ninety percent of your investment
is it's very big these three lifts
uh
and
the exact percentages can you can argue
about it but we'll we'll start off with
the cupping of the wrist
just this this is a simple thing
and do it with a cable
uh you know you can get a thicker
diameter so it kind of you know is is
more out on your fingers where an
armrest is going to attack you right
because any good armrest is going to
attack your fingers so like open hands
no
no well i mean for health yes you could
but like if you want to be really
specific you train exactly the way you
would at a table in the position that
you actually start the match yeah and
then you're just doing uh this kind of
yes to your center your people people
one of the one of the big misconceptions
in arm wrestling is that you're aiming
for that pin pad right
no
the chest up bring it close to you
make it come close to you right you see
like whenever i do my exercises the the
vector is always pulling straight
towards me yeah
yeah so just uh you know cupping
close to you the most dangerous thing
that a person can do to me on an arm
wrestling match is just pull me away
from my body
that that's a terrible thing for me
yeah so so that cupping
yeah that's a massive part of the sport
uh so
now when you think what does the cup do
to the other person
if i cup
they get turned over
right
so this has to get really strong
this pronation so
so to fight the
to fight that rolling exactly yeah so
that's that's through the thumb
yeah
oh so you put uh got it you put on the
thumb and you put this motion
yeah
got it yeah
those two things those two things
together this cupping and rolling
this is what's going to make the
person's hand bend back
and once the person's hand is bent back
they're just their whole game gets cut
to pieces
they have very little good options it's
all like nasty stuff
wow yeah so those two things that's a
that's a huge part of of your of your
investment uh
rise
always be climbing yeah exactly
yeah those three simple things
that's what i would tell anybody to
spend most their time on if you want to
become an art wrestler so and to use
bands would be good for this bands are
great because they're easy to transport
the only problem i have with bands is
like if you like to measure you know if
you like to be precise bands just aren't
that precise right so to have growth
yeah yeah just i mean it's just like you
know you know exactly what you need the
prescription is kind of a band is kind
of like and a lot of people myself
included i like to uh i like to know
exactly my outputs so so weights
so it would be like cables yep
cables are nice bands are great too i i
mix the two bands are
uh when i kind of don't need to
they're more like easy for me i when i
train bands
bands are dangerous because the
acceleration is so high on them like
when you screw up with band training the
acceleration is way faster than gravity
right so if you do something bad it can
can make it go really much worse yeah
it's funny that you didn't mention
bicep curls or uh well it's a chain
it's a chain and so you're i mean the
idea if you focus on these three the
other stuff catches up like it's all
involved this whole this whole thing is
involved so
if you have an axe
right
the blade of the axe
that's that's these things right
like you need the the pointy end of all
your attacks to be awesome
right if you have a super sharp axe yeah
you could have a shitty hand
yeah
right yeah so focus on that the point
the yeah tip of the axe yeah the tip of
the axe is so important right like if i
have an awesome bicep and i can't quite
use it what's it good for right yeah i
think a lot of the motions with the
wrist that you mentioned are uh just
thinking about jiu jitsu especially in
the ghee yeah um
there's a lot of i mean there's so much
importance to this and people don't
often work
it um explicitly yeah so many of the
chokes require yeah ability to it's
almost like exactly like arm wrestling
very close because you're weak here
uh what's that called flop wrist yeah
and you're strong with the cup oh yeah
and so you just getting the muscle
whatever that's involved the muscle the
turning the pressure because that's
where also the choke comes that little
the thing that makes you win in arm
wrestling is also the thing that
finishes the person when you have
them grabbed the strength is very
similar yeah it's fascinating actually
of course like you said if you want to
be very good you should be doing
the very specific exact motion yeah so
if i was going to do jiu jitsu i'd be
like working out with the ghee yeah the
problem is
you know uh it's difficult to construct
the um the exact
so you have to actually go with people
and then they don't like being choked up
right so like it's hard to i'm actually
a big we have these kinds of debates all
the time is um
you know i'm a big
believer in drilling i love doing
something thousands of times like john
donahue or somebody
i mentioned to you about the jiu jitsu
folks here
they're less believers in drilling they
they see the value of
almost like the mind of of going live
and exploring ideas that's that play you
don't need to do the thing a thousand
times you just need to always be
thinking about the little details that
make you uh
make you better and then in action
practicing like developing the strength
the power the explosive the agility in
action so actually rolling i don't
you know i i agree with this but i just
believe in volume more yeah so you can
accomplish it through volume you can you
can play a lot
yes exactly well that's the if you
really want to get it good is you're
talking about i mean that's why
uh a lot of these folks are training
three times a day they're doing you know
they're putting in the hours eight hours
nine hours just just oh that's tough oh
my god well so there are a lot of them
are not doing going hard it's just being
on the mat someone is just sitting there
talking through ideas watching others or
teaching explaining stuff it's just
it's like it's not just physical it's
it's a mental too because you're keeping
in your mind and some of the greatest
that's what they talk about the
the wrestlers i've talked
with the fighters
at the top of their career they
basically
uh george saint pierre's like this
another fellow canadian is uh
he like has stick figures in his head
they can't help yeah they're like in
there because if you train enough hours
you're
it's just going to be in your head and
they're all going to be playing around
in your head yeah and some little detail
over time it's almost like computing or
something like that and that ends up
uh having a result even though you're
not physically doing anything it's it's
it's always in there
i do have to return to diet real quick i
know we talk about pancakes let me
quite seriously um
you are one of the
i mean strongest athletes in the world
for your sport so you have to get big
you have to get powerful you have to get
strong
what is the right diet for you for that
like
what do you eat
how often do you
eat um
yeah from the the highest detail to the
smallest or the things that make you
happy and feel good yeah
i've experimented with every diet i've
done it all i've been a vegan uh i've
done raw i've eaten only meat
i've eaten balanced
eaten like a bodybuilder
you know
you name it i've probably tried it
i don't believe that it's as important
in the sport of arm wrestling as it is
perhaps in other sports
uh i believe that
i mean just to be very basic i mean if
you're eating enough food you're
probably gonna be okay um
so it's just calories it's a lot i mean
it really i mean not to over complicate
it but i mean that's that's where the
conversation starts are you eating
enough food
and it can come in any number of ways
and
i i i don't think it's as important
as a lot of other people do
i'm certainly irresponsible in a lot but
the thing is is
back to like volume right like you need
to like if if you want to be a super
heavyweight yeah
it's very different than if you want to
be a weight category guy yeah if you
want to be a weight category guy i'd say
that you need to be more responsible
make better choices if you want to be a
super heavyweight
everything just so we're watching a
delicious looking omelette so eggs bacon
syrup so you don't care carbs or protein
so in all the things you try so i mostly
eat
meet now yeah and i landed on that
there's several
things you know obviously i'm not
but i do a lot of sport yeah and i was
very surprised how my particular very
specific body can perform
uh better with only me
why better the sports i do the mind
matters and so for some reason my mind
is just clear yeah and i i don't think
because it feels unhealthy it just makes
me feel really good i don't think i
would recommend it to anybody else
so
it's
it's interesting that that journey
of just exploring can take you to figure
out something about your own self
one of the most interesting things that
i heard about nutrition
was i heard there was actually doritos
yeah
yeah yeah yeah i'm an idiot
uh
now
i do i'd say over the last couple years
i've really gone into the into carbs a
lot and high glycemic carbs and you know
just to i feel like it's one of the best
things you can do if you're working out
really hard just cheers add carbs yeah
exactly
um
but
oh where was i
so good so you've had
distracted syrup i forget everything
this is distracting no the so you've
added the high glycemic carbs into the
mix so that you those help but that's
for mass building right so
there was a study that i heard about by
somebody who's trying to identify heart
attacks they did this great big study
and at the end of it i mean didn't
matter what the people ate
the the most important thing was how
they felt about the food that they were
eating
yeah
so
if you believe in the food if you
believe that it's going to do good
things for you and if you allocate it
the right way it's it's going to have a
positive impact
and i try and do that no matter what it
is like i have my foods that i think do
certain things
and so
you know for me i know that
actually i mean i learned about corn fed
pumps when i was overseas
uh i realized that if i i never used to
eat crap really didn't i ate super clean
all the time
and
when i was faced with imminent death
more
i would be like okay i'm going out
tonight let's have let's have a couple
ice cream bars
you know like whatever
and
what i realized is
if i eat like an entire bag of chips or
like you know a bunch of chocolate bars
and then i go and have a workout
my workout will be incredible
it'll be incredible
um
there's something about
easily processed carbohydrate
that will continue to quickly
get into your blood
as fast as you can burn it
and
there's something about that that uh
well it gives you incredible blood blood
flow yeah
and also your mind plugging in enjoying
that right
and then believing it works and that's
how it makes it work better exactly i
mean i i feel that way i think this is
really not
this has been frustrating to me about
the health culture in the united states
in the studies
that are done you know you look at like
the importance of sleep the importance
of ex diet
all those kinds of things i i wish
incorporated into that would be
your mental relationship with all of
these things so for example people that
tell me well your sleep schedule is
insane
yes
perhaps
but also it's insane because i'm doing
what i love and i don't see it as a
problem right and i
i think that's really important to
understand if if you if you're
if you sleeping crazy hours uh
is not affecting your stress and it's
actually making you happy or you're
drawing some kind of source of
happiness and pleasure and satisfaction
like being awake when others aren't it's
like the
mike tyson thing or something like
training when you you've convinced
yourself everybody's sleeping and
therefore you're somehow training much
better right that's powerful even if you
look statistically
six hours maybe worse than eight hours
or four hours maybe worse than six hours
so the mind is a powerful thing super
powerful
but if you want to be a super
heavyweight eat
you gotta eat like stupid amounts
all the time yeah you have to test your
digestive system what's your favorite
meal by the way just if you have to you
know ah
meal i am
uh i do oh geez i like so much food
that's tough but i'd say the food that i
rely on a lot when i'm uh getting ready
to compete is sushi just because it
normally comes in an all-you-can-eat
format
you know uh
so you know i love to go and just binge
all you can eat just all you can eat
buffets sushi is just super convenient
yeah
if i was a sushi all-you-can-eat buffet
place i'll be terrified when i saw you
uh
have you had barbecue at texas i yeah i
love it i love it yeah
so you uh just a small tangent on this
you you uh face the mountain
uh you have for uh uh bjorn well first
of all you arm wrestle them yeah it's
interesting to ask um so this is the
mountain from the game of thrones
uh a strong man one of the strongest
people in the world for tom the
strongest person in the world what was
it like i know sort of you guys maybe
weren't going 1 000
but what's it like well he probably
wasn't going a thousand percent
yeah but like what it's interesting to
think
what does that strength feel like so
it's a it's a specialized strength in
another sport yeah what did it feel like
what how strong
was he what are some kind of
deep insights he drawn from that battle
i feel like if we were to go back
a thousand years
and if you give him armor
and a two-handed sword
he will just
rip across the landscape
and no one will stop him so this is the
boxing match you tune into but there's
also a video of them arm wrestling
yeah what a titan though what a titan uh
you know a guy like that
tall yeah strong fit disciplined
i mean he is uh he's quite a warrior 119
pounds oh yeah yeah he's
he's incredibly impressive uh i really
like happ thor and i like eddie hall too
and i was just so i'm just so caught up
with the drama
okay so
so eddie hall and half thor burnsen yes
two of the strongest legendary strong
strongmen that we have
uh
at you know and they were the coolest
they were the top when strongman was
really super cool
uh
i don't know all the details
but they legit hit each other
like legit so i think it kind of stems i
don't know like like i say i'm not right
there with them but
uh
eddie won
the the world's strongest man event or
something one year and like and the
thing it was one of those victories
where
hapthor you know was not accepting of
his defeat
okay and there was a little bit of back
and forth basically from what i
understand they were gonna fight like
the knight of the world's strongest man
and they got kind of got pulled apart
and this uh this heat between them got
translated into a potential boxing match
so it's very real
it's a very real fight so you have the
two strongest dudes on the planet
are going to fight each other
so so i've been like you know because
arm wrestling is strong man it's it's
kind of similar communities uh
who who do you got
if you if you're giving me financial
advice oh jesus i am so bad i always
call it wrong they're very different uh
i i see uh
hap thor's being you know more eddie
hall is slimming down is that what yeah
wow i see hapthor is a bit more
regimented
um but i see eddie hall as like way more
barbaric and like a little i think he's
a little bit more athletic
but app thor's bigger and uh and you
know they've chosen slightly different
paths to prepare for the match but but
what happened was like they were about
to fight
and eddie hall blew his bicep
so me i was getting ready for lavonne in
december we were supposed to arm us in
december but
he's got his movie
and so i was like okay i can kind of get
away from the sport just a little bit
broaden my base
that happened and i was like
oh an opportunity you stepped in an
opportunity to fight i'm like i'll do it
so how much training you uh you you
trained a little bit so can you tell
about your own decision to do that what
was the training like what was it yes
like oh it was so much fun it was so
much fun
uh so basically
i made a funny video and i sent it to
the organizers of core sports that i
would do it i'm like i'll do it i'm sure
they got a thousand people who wanted to
do it uh but i'm like i'm like listen
i'm like i i'm an old man like i'm
gimped up like everywhere outside the
arm wrestling lanes
uh i said but but i will 100 like if you
let me fight him i'll i'll give it my
all
and uh
and whatever they didn't get back to me
they're like whatever okay so then so
then they call me on a friday like five
weeks before the event
and they're like hey devin were you
serious
and i'm like oh shit
and i'm like yes i was serious yeah i'll
do it and they're like okay
um
they're like it's down to you and like
two other people uh we'll get back to
you in a day or two but you would do it
i'm like okay so they got back to me on
sunday
like so right away i'm like skipping
rope and i'm like and i'm so i only arm
wrestle legs that's all i do so what was
your you did some yeah
striking training yeah so i went to um
this guy that he was he was awesome zach
ben bushida there uh that was it from
from tristar do you know for us the
hobby
uh and that's and yes people in the
comments i will interview him on this
podcast people
he's brilliant
right he's an incredible guy so right
away like i had no idea about the fight
community across canada really
and i got like
by the fifth message that said you must
train with ferraz uh i was like okay
called him up he was incredible right
away he's like yeah you can come and
we'll just work with you
so
i got i got the call i called him on
like monday
at two o'clock
by like seven o'clock i had my things
packed and i went to montreal
and i spent four weeks
in in the fighter dorms just humbling
yourself yeah every day just getting
punched in the face
you know uh
over and over uh
going for runs with all like they're all
like olympians and pro fighters living
in the dorms super cool dudes they were
so good to me yeah there's a good video
of you and uh for us uh just talking
yeah i don't i don't remember which
stage this was but this is early but
you're already beginning to get humbled
oh man i knew i mean i knew what i was
getting into like i knew it was i knew
it was gonna be a losing battle but i
felt like the opportunity to fight thor
like how cool is that like i had i i had
to say i had to do it
um
i love the process and i learned a lot
from doing it
like the dorms i want to do something
like that with arm wrestling i think
we're big enough now that we can have
these kind of uh you know dorms frat
houses whatever you want to call it
what's the dorm like so you're basically
staying there yeah food is there yeah so
you can you can you mentioned uh what
was the word use administration yeah
exactly that's it so it removes all of
that makes it so simple you can just
focus you know the gym is here
you live here yeah
you know that your life becomes simple
yeah
so there's a guy named jimmy pedro here
in america he's a famous uh coach
there's a place up in boston he has kind
of a dorm like that too yeah and it that
becomes essential
when the community is small but you're
trying to do epic things right like
winning olympic gold so you have to
really put the people together
in these kind of minimalist conditions
when they just focus on the training
focus focus focus yes um
yeah it wasn't enough time i mean i
trained for about yes three or four
weeks
uh but i loved the journey and
what are some of the fun things you
enjoy so you did mostly striking did you
uh yeah i guess it was yeah it was
boxing it was straight up box boxing
yeah
what what are some things that were
transferable what are some cool things
you learned from that
so from the world of armor have you
taken anything back like some
training regimens ideas about training
even just
even movements
because for us is a
unique mind as well for training
yeah i i don't know i mean i've gone
very far down the path of arm wrestling
uh boxing and arm wrestling are very
different they're they're very different
sports uh
the the physicality required is very
different uh you know the mentality i
mean it's fighting so it's another form
of fighting which is cool the the big
things that i took back from it
the things that i loved about it was i
had to run again
you know
so really work on endurance yeah
yeah i was going for runs with guys in
the dorms and they'd
they would just destroy me just like it
was
so bad
uh
did you uh
like how did you feel in the actual
boxing in terms of endurance
were you able to no
it's just torture it was it was terrible
and and the thing is is it was so crazy
for me because
i really was good once upon a time yeah
i really was like physically like i had
incredible full-body endurance you know
um but you know being so specialized i
realized how much i had slipped
and
yeah it was it was fun to try and regain
i think it's affected my body
composition i think since that training
i've become much more lean
uh i think was a very healthy thing for
me to do like health-wise like i always
think that you know when you're far away
from competition it's really good to
kind of spread out really good so i
think that in that way also for your
mind yeah yeah just like mm-hmm
yeah
yeah it's just something about clearing
your
i i think you've talked about this it's
like uh
you're basically taking steps back
before you take steps forward is i
forget how you call yeah the wave yeah
yeah under
you know you have to go under you gotta
you know if you want to go above the
line you have to spend some time beneath
it
and yeah i was definitely beneath the
line for a long time yeah uh but
mountain i mean
like the interesting thing was as
incredible as he is
uh you know
like what a monster and i think if you
hadn't had
him
training in boxing you know for a long
time and like from his youth i think he
you know the guy could be world champion
but
you know to be so specialized and then
to switch you're at a disadvantage yeah
and and also like i know
from just fighting guys in the gym
in tristar
some of those guys were way scarier
for real like as scary as thor is
like there's guys in that tristar gym
that don't look like anything
that would murder me
much worse
yeah but also you know that's the
difference between being in the gym and
under the lights too i mean uh gsb is an
example of george st pierre as an
example somebody that maybe doesn't look
yeah terrifying is that a tristar yep
he's he trains a tristar but he's quite
he's super nice
super uh
humble but is terrifying when he's
fighting right it's dominating people
you mentioned
death yeah and your canadian
special forces
and in general thinking about mortality
yeah do you think about your death do
you
do you contemplate the the end that this
thing that this ride ends
all the time yeah from uh i've thought
about death from a young age are you
afraid of it
yeah i hate it yeah i don't want to die
yeah definitely definitely don't want to
die
but there's times when i can rid myself
of it yeah but for sure i mean i i'm not
uh
i'm not happy that
you know death is inevitable
and i'm not happy that potentially it's
inevitable for all of us
um
but uh it does
you know i like to to fight against it
does it yeah that's true if you if you
could be immortal would you
that's my only wish
oh see but here's the thing that's but
the point is to have that wish
it's uh it's like the all-you-can-eat
buffet at uh sushi
it's that sushi's more delicious if you
have
a limit do you have a song well
i don't know
i mean i don't think i get sick of stuff
i'm very simple
yeah i don't think i would get tired of
it i really don't um i mean if someone
would pose it to you do you want to live
forever you would choose no
yeah i would just no choose no well my
answer is probably yes
uh like
no i would uh it's more like the snooze
button
do you want to do do you want to go to
sleep
but it's very difficult in the moment to
go to sleep but if if
i'm uh allowed to live forever
i'm going to
uh delay
all the crazy
like um all the ambitious goals all the
all the things because ah there's always
time that's fine but there is tomorrow
then but there is tomorrow but see i
think that takes away from the richness
of like
the richness of the lived experience of
just each moment i think the richness of
each moment comes from saying like i
could die tonight
like that that it tastes delicious
because you're going to die i'm a i'm
afraid if you're not i'm afraid all that
goes away all that magic goes away if
you can live forever
i don't know
but i'll tell you every time i have a
near-death experience or think i'm gonna
die i definitely live better afterwards
yeah
like uh it's always been that way but
yeah no um that's why the stoics you
know they really preach
contemplating your mortality often it
kind of
reminds you it could this whole thing
could just end any moment and it makes
you really appreciate
yeah i don't know
i don't know
certainly improving the quality of life
is important
but um
part of me thinks that immortality
is is not as fun as um
would like to imagine
do you think that maybe
you're uh
in what you're building potentially is
immortal well that's what i definitely
think about with robots
if they were to have a human-like
experience
and be able to interact with humans in a
deep meaningful way
i think they too have to be mortal in
some fundamental way that means mortal
like their ride has to end as well
because
they won't be able to interact with
humans deeply unless that's the case
um like to have
to have fear
to have
love
the ability to suffer
the ability to miss somebody
i think
scarcity is important you have to be
able to
truly lose somebody
you have to be to to fear things you
have to truly have
the risk of destroying yourself
and to have a sense of what it means to
be a self
you have to be able to lose it
so if you're immortal
you're just going to be i feel like
you're going to be like a toaster an
intelligent toaster that just serves
such a negative perspective on it and
then mortality yeah just think well now
you just you can get all those things
done that you want to do i hope you're
right i hope you're right yeah i i mean
potentially you could invest even harder
because you're like wow i'm actually
gonna be able to get all this stuff done
i i think about this a lot i hope you're
right but i
i fear that the drive to create i can
even do more all of that dissipates
disappears
if you have all the time in the world i
just know how lazy i am
and if i have all the time in the world
i'm just gonna sit there
and just like watch
the stupidest youtube videos for the
rest of all eternity
ah now eternity's a long time eat
doritos
cheetos and just get
fatter and fatter i can get in shape
later there's always time
that's like a long period of
contemplation yeah
so for the first thousand years it'll be
the dorito period of the lex life and
then yeah
if you could you could be like jabba the
hutt for a thousand years you mentioned
aliens very important topic do you
actually think about
about this has been an increased
interest
and there's been increased ufo sightings
and encounters all that kind of stuff
the u.s government at least releasing
data
release releasing videos of
uh pilots
uh pilot observations and from airplanes
of ufos do you think about this kind of
stuff because you met you mentioned in
the following context you mentioned like
our simas will get our shit together
when the aliens eventually come
yeah um
what do you make of all the sightings is
that something you think about
i thought about it a lot when i was
younger um and i've just i made my
conclusions and
yeah i i don't think that there's a
possibility that there aren't aliens i
would think it would be impossible for
them not to be aliens uh they're you
know
um you know i feel like this is pretty
good real estate so
you know yeah you'd probably want it but
we already might be
well i don't even think might i mean
it's probably quite likely that we are
to some degree aliens i mean all life is
probably to some degree alien i like the
real estate so the resources but we're
also kind of interesting
yeah whatever this ant colony
of living organisms that we've created
it's kind of interesting to study
i i tend to believe that the alien
civilizations that are
going to reach us or have reached us
are far more intelligent
just orders of magnitude more
intelligent than us and so it's going to
be very difficult both ways actually for
us to understand them and for them
to dumb themselves down enough to
understand us yeah probably so
they might even just
miss our existence all together just
because it because
i tend to believe i don't know what you
think that we're not that special
in terms of all the life forms in the
universe there's a lot of cool stuff out
there and has to be
has to be but to us we're special yeah
well that's all that matters right yeah
even the human species is the most
special to us humans that could be much
more special species here on earth they
were just totally oblivious to like
trees
on a scale of thousands of years maybe
they're like they're on to something
lex you know um
i think that
so much of what makes a person special
is what they pass on your kids but but i
think that you are quite special
because
you're part of this thing that's
potentially giving birth to the next
thing
the robots the robots i should say the
funny thing is while talking to devon
during this podcast i i would a doorbell
ring had to go downstairs and there was
a big
box
menacing box with a new legged robot
so um
the hilarity of you saying that is
because that that that robot
is actually going to likely be the main
robot that i show to the to the world
in the coming months because that has
the
that's the highest compute level in that
robot so i've been playing a lot with
legged robots the um
four legs so like a like a dog
um
i like all of robots
but there's something about when a robot
has legs it's able to communicate
it's able to connect with humans in some
kind of deep way in the way a dog can
just show affection something about like
step step step step
and then and then the robot realizes
you're here and then it steps and then
notices you and the way the dog does and
raises its head
um it makes me feel
noticed and hurt in the same way i do
when a dog notices me that excitement
that stupid excitement of like yes
uh fellow living organism and
what excites me about legged robots is
that
holy shit is possible to engineer this
it's possible to create that feeling and
i wonder where that can go there's a lot
of negative possible trajectories
but i have a sense that there's positive
ones too you you have more love they'll
take us with them
yeah i think so because i i so
there's this fear of robots
that they become super intelligent and
run away from us humans and basically
become so intelligent and then they
almost
just not giving a damn will destroy us
but i think in order for for robots to
become intelligence they have to
integrate themselves with society
so
they they by the very nature of of how
they become intelligent have to bring us
along
so
it's not that there will be this
separate thing they have to
like we'll have robots in the home
they'll be interacting with us you have
human kids and you have a bunch of
robots you have robot friends you have
human friends and they the robots make
your human-to-human relationships much
more meaningful and richer they bring
more love to the world but they it's
integrated it's not like they'll
be developing smarter and smarter
um
as like um
sentient beings by themselves i think
that's very difficult to do you have to
be doing that together with humans and
so we'll come for the ride there's
technical things
like we might merge like cyborgs
more and more well we already saw our
cyborgs right with the phones and so on
but more and more so with elon and
neuralink
deeper integration of
robots and ai into
like
increasing the bandwidth at which they
can communicate right so if we do
implants in the brain
i think
again a lot of people are really nervous
about this
as am i but i think there's a lot of
trajectories that are positive there
and that to me is excited and also i
just don't think it's possible to stop
this development so we should uh steer
it yeah
yeah
oh good did you i mean you must have
watched the movie terminator right yeah
of course i love turbinator yeah
much worse than my favorite movie of all
time
yeah
yeah i mean that's that's the big fear
right
yeah what's the conclusion with
terminator isn't ultimately humanity
wins
i think they're at like terminator 8 now
yeah you know i don't know
uh
yeah the
so there and it's interesting actually i
was going to bring this up as you were
talking about it but
uh
but china and the united states actually
don't know where canada is on this but
they both have agreed
that they're not going to put limits on
autonomous weapon
uh system development so not going to
they're not going to so because china
said we're not going to now us
officially announced that
we're not we can't well you can't it's
like it's
you never could right as soon as it
exists and it's better
people will use it well but you um
there's been a global ban on bio weapons
so you were able to come to an agreement
there that we're not going to use
biological weapons in war
so it was it's a lot of people are
really upset that in the case of
ai driven weapons
the world said nope that's okay
and so now you have this
potential for
greater and greater automation in drones
for example in picking uh bombing
locations
and
so the area at which they attack and so
you get
some of that stuff that you mentioned
that
that drew you
to the military
is that teamwork between humans that
decision making so their strategy but
built into that team
is a
deep humanity
like
yeah even when there's an enemy there's
lines
that you are aware of of what is ethical
what is not what is just and what is not
and it's so easy for a machine
uh to uh
to miss all of that plow through it and
do
deeply inhumane acts commit atrocities
that that's something that
worries a lot of people yeah
because uh yeah an ai based war is just
is it it's terrifying especially with
cyber security which is becoming more
and more of an issue which is hacking
yeah
sort of uh
people that look a lot like me
being the warriors of the future yeah
which is meaning people behind a
a keyboard versus uh right
versus the traditional warriors
probably inevitable
yeah
and terrifying it is it is but i think
if you believe that it's possible it's
certainly going to happen like at some
point it's just when
right when does it happen anyway so that
i mean to me i'm optimally
ultimately optimistic about the future
and to me i'm excited about the world
with ai i'm even excited about uh
the metaverse and all these kinds of
things
living more and more in the digital
space in the virtual reality
i think
so it's a part of me that grew up in the
non-internet world non-computer world
you know it says all kids these days
with their video games you know there's
part of me that's like that
um but
i think what's it
when technology at his best can bring
out the best
of humanity
and so i think virtual reality
all of these things over time will
figure out how to
how to fix it to bring out the humanity
social networks the the first generation
social networks now facebook twitter and
so on they have so many problems they're
bringing out the worst in people
but i think we're learning from that and
i think the next generation of social
networks will be better and better and
better
and
so i'm optimistic but of course you know
one reason we may have not seen aliens
yet obviously like in a way that's
obvious
is because once you get clever and smart
and have all this cool technology you
destroy yourself and we sure as humans
are pretty close to that
yeah yeah there might be that limit that
is hard to get right i'm hoping we get
all our aggression between nations out
through arm wrestling
competition right
wouldn't that be great if that was if it
was that simple
yeah do you know if there's another
over-the-top type movie to be made oh
yeah yeah there's always stuff in the
works um there's actually a there's a
there's a tournament called over the top
in australia that's a couple months away
i think they're doing all the over top
scene but uh there are arm wrestling
movies that are being made right now
actually i'm there's a documentary
that's filming me for this whole avon
thing but
yeah we're probably due for another big
one
yeah but you're also just with your
youtube channel you're doing a lot for
the sport that's really cool to see just
being genuine but just being
like
uh looking not like you're looking today
but just like yeah yeah the beard yeah
yeah yeah normally it's like sleepy
you know and just putting yourself out
there completely as you are that's a
beautiful thing the best thing about the
sport is it brings people together
that's it yeah the community the folks i
got to interact with just so awesome so
excited so full of kindness i'm
definitely going to find the club here
and uh
and start working on my
uh on my arm wrestling game uh devon
this is such a huge honor that you would
uh
spend your valuable time you'd come down
to austin
you would um
hang out with me and uh do this kind of
super cool stocky lex yeah as i
mentioned uh in case people you know
people i'm sure will tell me
so i hang out with joe rogan all the
time he's a friend i told him that he
should talk to devin he's going through
some stuff currently
you know uh but i'm sure i hope the
conversation between you devin and joe
happens eventually
he's uh that would be epic as well
because he's a
um yeah he's fighting he loves fighting
he loves wrestling he loves strength
and i think all of those are um
like so perfectly encapsulated in the
sport of arm wrestling so thank you so
much for talking today thanks so much
lex
thanks for listening to this
conversation with devon larritt to
support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description
and now let me leave you with some words
from miyamoto musashi
the only reason a warrior is alive is to
fight
and the only reason a warrior fights
is to win
thank you for listening and hope to see
you
next time
you