The main event sees Russia’s Vitaly Laletin face Poland’s Kamil Jablonski for the vacant East vs. West right-arm super heavyweight title. The belt became available after Levan Saginashvili relinquished it while recovering from injury, ending a period in which the Georgian powerhouse had held the championship since taking it from Devon Larratt in April 2024. Laletin already owns the left-arm super heavyweight crown, so victory would move him closer to becoming an undisputed champion in the division.

Jablonski arrives with momentum from his title-eliminator win over Georgi Tsvetkov at East vs. West 25 in Batumi. His power and top-roll pressure make him a credible challenger, but Laletin’s combination of length, hand control, and back pressure presents a different kind of problem. The winner will not merely collect a belt; they will inherit the responsibility of defending a championship created by the absence of the sport’s most dominant super heavyweight.

The second title fight features Michael Todd against Dave Chaffee for the right-arm heavyweight interim world title. Todd’s inclusion adds star power and a familiar American storyline, while Chaffee brings the raw strength and pressing style needed to challenge for gold. An interim belt keeps the heavyweight division active while the wider title picture remains unsettled, and it gives both athletes a direct route toward an eventual unification match.

The supporting card gives the event further depth. Devon Larratt returns against Ibragim Sagov in a right-arm supermatch, while other announced bouts include Joseph Meranto versus Valen Low, Rickerd Bornman versus Filip Larsson, Rustam Babaev versus Maayan Sterengass, and Barbi Bajcseva versus Marta Volkova. These matchups matter because East vs. West has increasingly used its cards to build contenders rather than rely only on isolated headline attractions.

East vs. West 26 in Jiaxing, China, had already demonstrated the value of that approach. Oleg Cherkasov defeated Artur Makarov 4-3 in a dramatic seven-round 77 kg world title match, while Bogdan Stoica retained his 95 kg championship against Irakli Zirakashvili. Those results reshaped two divisions and showed that title defenses can be as compelling as the promotion’s biggest super heavyweight showdowns.

King of the Table remains the other major stage for one-off supermatches. Its recent cards have featured elite names such as Laletin, Todd, Ivan Matyushenko, Kamil Jablonski, Ibragim Sagov, and Artur Makarov, with results that directly influence the wider professional landscape. Laletin’s 3-0 win over Todd at King of the Table 14, for example, reinforced his status before the current East vs. West title picture opened up.

The contrast between the two promotions is part of their appeal. East vs. West tends to build sustained championship structures, with belts, eliminators, and long-term rivalries. King of the Table delivers concentrated supermatch cards, often pairing stars whose paths might otherwise take longer to cross. Together, they give armwrestling a rare mix of continuity and spectacle.

With Laletin-Jablonski and Todd-Chaffee headlining East vs. West 27, the sport now has two immediate title stories and several potential future challengers. Whether the new champions can defend successfully—and whether Saginashvili returns to reclaim his place—will shape the next major cycle in professional armwrestling.

This article is based on statements made by the participants in that video. Todd’s account and the conversations he describes have not been independently verified, and the court records referred to were not shown in full.

What Todd Has Acknowledged

In the video, Todd confirms that he was convicted in connection with an incident in Arkansas on March 31, 1995, when he was 21 years old. By his account, he and a friend met two girls at a pool hall who said they were 16. He says he had sexual intercourse with one of them and only later learned from police that she was 13.

Todd says he chose to go to trial rather than plead guilty because he maintained that he had not known her real age. He says he was convicted and served just under four years in prison, completed parole, and was registered as a sex offender for 15 years. He describes the episode as a serious mistake and says he regrets it. His position is that he did not knowingly have sexual contact with a 13-year-old.

The Disputed Document

The renewed attention was fuelled by an online document that appeared to draw on court-related information. According to Todd, the document claimed he had known the girl for a long time and had groomed her. He rejects this, saying he had known her for about half an hour, had never lived with her, and that the encounter was a one-off. He and Rebecca say the document contains incorrect information.

They also say that prosecutor Lewis Lloyd, speaking to them and to East vs West representatives, agreed that parts of the document were inaccurate, and suggested it may have confused Todd’s case with a different one. They say the prosecutor was willing to provide a signed affidavit. At the time of the video, that affidavit had not been produced, so these claims remain unconfirmed. Importantly, nothing in the discussion suggests that the conviction itself was overturned or that Todd’s innocence was legally established.

The 2014 Allegations

The video also touches on separate allegations made in 2014 by Todd’s former wife, which included serious claims against both Todd and Rebecca. The couple say those allegations surfaced during a divorce, that they assembled records such as credit-card receipts to challenge the timeline, and that the other party and her lawyer did not appear at a hearing, after which, they say, the case was dismissed. Again, these details come from Todd, Rebecca and promotion representative Baxter, and the underlying court documents were not part of the material available.

A Family Feeling the Strain

Todd says the controversy has taken a toll at home. He describes his daughter as upset and says his grandson’s family questioned his account and restricted contact. Rebecca backs his version of events and says he has been open about his past with people close to him. Todd says he intends to provide documents to support his position, rather than ask the public to simply take his word for it.

East vs West Steps In

The professional consequence was immediate. Todd and the league’s representatives agreed that he would step out of the Budapest event for now. East vs West said it had contacted Oleg Petranco to replace him in the scheduled match against Dave Chaffee. Baxter and the other representatives said they needed time to obtain documents and speak to people connected to the separate allegations before reassessing.

What Happens Next

The promotion has outlined several steps before any final decision:

• A written affidavit from the original prosecutor addressing the disputed information
• A statement from the lawyer involved in the earlier proceedings
• The transcript of Todd’s original trial
• Further firsthand information on the 2014 allegations

For a figure who has spent decades building a reputation as one of the sport’s most talkative and recognisable competitors, the episode is a significant moment. Todd’s technical legacy, built around the controversial King’s Move, and his rivalry with Devon Larratt have long made him a central character in modern armwrestling. Whether he returns to the table will now depend on what the documents show and how the promotion, and the sport’s fans, respond.

For now, the facts are limited to what has been said publicly. Todd acknowledges the conviction, disputes additional claims, and the promotion says it is gathering evidence. Readers should treat the disputed elements as unproven until the promised documents are made available.

Hutchings holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and works designing and testing industrial diesel fuel systems, a background that explains a great deal about how he approaches the table. Where many competitors rely on instinct and years of repetition from a young age, he came to arm wrestling with an analytical mind and a habit of breaking problems down into forces, angles and leverage. He applied that thinking to biomechanics and progressive overload, and the results arrived quickly. Within roughly five years of starting, he was already testing himself against the great John Brzenk, widely regarded as the greatest arm wrestler in history. For a man who began at 34, that kind of rise is almost unheard of.

Competing in the middleweight and light heavyweight ranges, usually somewhere around 95 to 105 kilograms, Hutchings is best known as an elite right-arm specialist, and his style is a textbook example of pure side pressure. While much of the modern sport has drifted toward hand control and defensive pronation built around the top-roll, Hutchings goes the other way. He drives his shoulder and torso sideways across the table, locking his frame into an angle that opponents struggle to disrupt. The goal is not to win the hand battle at all. When rivals try to crack his wrist back, he often simply lets it happen, pulling through a loose, floppy wrist and sending force directly through the elbow and the rotation of the humerus into the pad.

The approach has become so recognisable that fans have given it a name. The “Toddzilla Wave” describes his signature setup: frame tucked tightly against his torso, followed by relentless lateral drive that grinds an opponent’s arm down under shear pressure until it finally gives way. It is not flashy in the way a lightning-fast pin is, but it is brutally effective. In engineering terms, he has reduced the arm to a simple lever system and removed everything that does not contribute to moving the pad.

That blueprint carried him to the top of the World Armwrestling League’s middleweight division, where he spent years in memorable battles with names such as Jerry Cadorette, Devon Larratt and Rob Vigeant. Those matches helped define an era of North American arm wrestling, and Hutchings was a central figure in all of them.

His second act has been arguably even more impressive. In the modern supermatch era shaped by Engin Terzi’s East vs West promotion, Hutchings has gone on winning runs against top Eastern European contenders, including Irakli Zirakashvili, and has been billed among the leading names in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions. His career victories include wins over respected international names such as Rustam Babayev, Marcio Barbosa and Kydyrgali Ongarbaev, and he has gone on to be considered one of the oldest world champions the sport has produced. Even in 2023, regional promoters were describing him as a top-ranked American in the 215-pound class and one of the best pullers in the world, an astonishing claim for an athlete then well into his fifties.

What makes this longevity so interesting is that it appears to come from technique rather than youthful explosiveness. Side pressure, when applied correctly, relies on structure, positioning and tendon strength, qualities that age more gracefully than raw speed. Hutchings has effectively built a style that suits a veteran body, and he has refined it year after year with the patience of someone who spends his working life testing mechanical systems for failure points.

His story also offers a counterweight to the sport’s current obsession with hand-first strategies. In a world where top-rollers and hookers dominate the conversation, Hutchings shows that lateral horsepower, delivered with precision, can still dismantle world-class hand control. He is proof that there is more than one way to win at the table, and that the sport’s most successful minds are often the ones willing to challenge its conventions.

For anyone who believes it is too late to start something new, Todd Hutchings is a compelling answer. He took up arm wrestling at an age when most athletes are thinking about retirement, treated it like an engineering problem, and went on to build a legacy that spans leagues, continents and generations. Toddzilla may not be the loudest personality in the sport, but his career is one of its most instructive.

Standing 6 feet 3 inches and competing in the super heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, typically somewhere between 105 and 115 kilograms, Todd built the first half of his career as an explosive inside puller, someone who thrived on aggressive shoulder pressure and quick, decisive finishes. That approach changed dramatically after a series of fractures to his right arm left him physically unable to bring his elbow close to his body the way the sport’s conventional inside game demands. Rather than retire or fade into irrelevance, Todd adapted, and in doing so created what has become arguably the most controversial technique in modern arm wrestling: the King’s Move.

The King’s Move works by dropping the shoulder and hip low beneath table level while fully extending the arm and locking the pronator, allowing Todd to lean on bone structure and tendon integrity rather than raw bicep strength alone. Years of accumulated microtrauma from hard pulling left him with a genuine inability to fully straighten his elbow, turning what began as an adaptation into something closer to a structural lock, a defensive position that becomes extraordinarily difficult for opponents to break down without risking a foul themselves. The technique proved so disruptive to conventional arm-wrestling strategy that it sparked years of rules debates across major federations, ultimately forcing leagues like the World Armwrestling League (WAL) and East vs West to rewrite their regulations around how low a competitor’s shoulder could legally drop relative to the pad. Few athletes can say they changed the sport’s rulebook simply by being too difficult to beat using a single technique, but Todd managed exactly that.

That technique carried him to the very top of North American arm wrestling during the WAL era, where he captured both the Super Heavyweight and Heavyweight hammer titles, cementing his place as one of the league’s defining champions. His rivalry with Canadian legend Devon Larratt became one of the most closely followed storylines of that period, with their clashes, including a hard-fought victory for Todd at WAL 406 that claimed the right-hand heavyweight title, standing among the most-watched matches of the sport’s modern television era. Their rivalry later continued at King of the Table, keeping the Todd-Larratt dynamic alive well into a new chapter of professional arm wrestling.

Beyond his battles with Larratt, Todd’s career reads as a tour through nearly every major international powerhouse the sport has produced. Over more than two decades, he has shared the table with Russian phenom Denis Cyplenkov, Ukrainian standout Andriy Pushkar, fellow American heavyweight Jerry Cadorette, Italy’s Ermes Gasparini, Georgian puller Genadi Kvikvinia, Norway’s Lars Rørbakken, and Frank Lamparelli, among others. Facing that breadth of international styles across such a long career is itself a mark of longevity few competitors in any combat sport can match.

What makes Todd’s story particularly compelling in recent years is how he responded after enduring rough patches against Europe’s elite super-heavyweight powerhouses. Rather than accepting decline as inevitable, he underwent a significant physical transformation, trimming down into lower weight divisions around the 105 to 115 kilogram range at promotions like East vs West. That shift allowed his speed, transitions, and signature King’s Move to regain much of their original effectiveness, giving him a genuine second wind against competitors many years his junior. For a veteran well into his late forties, reinventing his diet and training approach to remain competitive at the sport’s highest level speaks to a level of discipline that extends well beyond raw talent.

Todd has also become one of arm wrestling’s most recognizable personalities away from the table. Drawing on a powerlifting background and a willingness to engage directly with fans and rivals on social media, he has leaned into psychological gamesmanship and showmanship as much as technique, helping expand the sport’s visibility to audiences who might never have otherwise tuned in. That combination of controversy, technical innovation, and personality has made him a figure impossible to ignore in any serious conversation about the sport’s modern history.

From forcing international federations to rewrite foul guidelines to reinventing himself physically deep into his career, Michael Todd’s legacy in arm wrestling extends far beyond medal counts. He remains proof that adaptability, even when born out of injury and necessity, can become a competitor’s greatest weapon, and that a single, well-executed idea can leave a permanent mark on how an entire sport is played.

Physically, Laletin is built almost unfairly for the sport. Standing somewhere between 204 and 205 centimeters, roughly six feet eight inches tall, he carries a frame that creates a jarring height and angle disparity against almost every opponent he faces. His weight has climbed to the 140 to 143 kilogram range as he has added bulk over the past few years specifically to compete with the 160 kg-plus super heavyweights who now populate the sport’s top tier. What truly sets him apart, though, are his levers: a forearm length exceeding 50 centimeters paired with a forearm girth and bicep measurement both sitting around 48 centimeters, a combination that gives him extraordinary vertical elevation at the setup along with genuine functional pulling power rather than purely aesthetic muscle. His hand span of roughly 24 centimeters and a wrist circumference close to 23 centimeters complete a physical profile that seems engineered specifically to dominate the grip battle before a match even truly begins.

That physical foundation feeds directly into a technical style that has become his calling card. Rather than fighting for a tight, conventional hook, Laletin uses his unusually long humerus and forearm to establish commanding height almost effortlessly. From there, he climbs his fingers over an opponent’s knuckles, pronates violently through sustained back pressure, and tears the opponent’s wrist open before finishing the job by driving sideways into the pad. Opponents frequently describe the sensation of facing Laletin as an immediate loss of control the moment the referee calls “Ready, Go,” as his finger containment wraps around the outer edge of their hand like a vise, peeling back their cup and leverage almost instantly. While his right arm is firmly elite by any standard, it’s his left arm that has reached a different tier entirely, with many considering it one of the most dominant left-arm weapons in the modern era of the sport.

That left-arm supremacy was on full display when Laletin captured the East vs West left-arm super heavyweight title by defeating Kazakhstan’s Artyom Morozov, a result that firmly established him at the top of one of the sport’s most competitive divisions. Since then, no storyline has captured the arm-wrestling world’s attention quite like his evolving rivalry with Canadian legend Devon Larratt. The two first clashed on the left arm, where Laletin came away with a clean, commanding win that reinforced his reputation as close to untouchable on that side. Their long-awaited right-arm rematch, however, told a different story, with Larratt producing one of the standout performances of his career to turn the tables and hand Laletin a rare right-hand defeat. Together, the two results have turned Laletin-Larratt into one of the most compelling ongoing rivalries in the sport, a genuine measuring stick for where the two titans currently stand against one another on each arm.

Beyond Larratt, Laletin’s résumé reads like a tour through the sport’s toughest styles. His matches against Dave Chaffee have showcased his ability to counter raw American side pressure with speed and timing, while his clashes with Ermes Gasparini have pitted his elevation-based leverage against one of Europe’s most technically gifted transition specialists. He has also proven capable of dismantling unorthodox approaches, handling both Kamil Jablonski’s aggressive pressing style and Michael Todd’s famously stubborn defensive King’s Move. Perhaps most memorable of all were his rounds against Georgian powerhouse Levan Saginashvili during the sport’s Top 8 era, where Laletin became one of the very few competitors ever to stop Saginashvili’s feared opening hit cold in the center of the table, a feat that alone speaks to the rare caliber of strength and technique he brings to every outing.

What makes Laletin’s story resonate so strongly with fans isn’t just the medals or the highlight-reel pins, but the persona behind them. He has built his following not through trash talk or theatrics, but through quiet, calculated dominance and an almost monk-like focus that stands in stark contrast to arm wrestling’s louder personalities. In a sport often driven by charisma and confrontation, Laletin has proven that a soft-spoken trucker from Siberia can command just as much respect simply by being nearly impossible to beat.

As the super heavyweight division continues to produce bigger, stronger, and more athletic competitors, Vitaly Laletin remains one of the clearest reminders that elite leverage and technical precision can still outduel raw size. With his rivalry against Devon Larratt still very much unresolved and his left arm remaining one of the most respected weapons in the sport, Laletin’s story continues to be one of the most compelling in modern professional arm wrestling.

Standing at 5 feet 8 inches and competing primarily in the 70 kg and 75 kg weight classes, Ustinov’s physical profile reads almost like a blueprint for the ideal lightweight puller. Both his biceps and forearms measure an identical 41 centimeters, a rare 1:1 ratio that few competitors in the sport possess. That balance isn’t just an interesting statistic — it translates directly into exceptional structural integrity at the table, giving him the kind of hand control and pronation strength that allows smaller-framed athletes to dominate positioning against opponents who might otherwise rely on size alone.

Ustinov’s championship pedigree speaks for itself. Frequently cited as an 11-time World Champion across various youth and senior weight categories, he has spent years accumulating results that place him firmly among the sport’s elite lightweight competitors. His most recent standout achievement came at the 2024 World Armwrestling Championship, where he captured gold in the 75 kg youth men’s right-hand division, further extending a championship résumé that already spanned nearly a decade of top-level competition. Earlier in his career, he also picked up a bronze medal in the 70 kg category at the 2023 World Armwrestling Championship, a tournament fittingly held on home soil in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Beyond championship tournaments, Ustinov has become a fixture on the sport’s biggest promotional stages, regularly appearing in the prestigious East vs West series. One of his most talked-about outings came at East vs West 15, where he faced Armenia’s Azat Srapyan in a tightly contested featherweight title supermatch. Ustinov ultimately came out on top in a hard-fought contest that went the distance, a result that showcased not just his technical skill but his composure and endurance in a high-pressure, best-of-seven format against a determined opponent.

What makes Ustinov such an interesting case study within the sport is how directly his success ties back to the broader Kazakh arm-wrestling tradition. Kazakhstan has consistently produced technically flawless pullers over the past decade, and Ustinov represents very much the modern evolution of that lineage — an athlete whose game is built on fundamentals honed through specialized training environments rather than pure gym-built strength. It’s a style of competition that rewards patience, precision, and an intimate understanding of leverage over simply overpowering an opponent through mass.

That philosophy is perhaps best illustrated by Ustinov’s willingness to train alongside, and compete against, athletes considerably heavier than himself. He has spent time at renowned training environments such as the Arm Fight Factory in Georgia, where lightweight pullers are regularly pitted against significantly larger competitors as part of their development. Holding his own in that kind of environment requires a very specific skill set — using rising technique, back pressure, and precise angle control to neutralize size advantages rather than trying to match them directly. It’s a fascinating technical dimension of the sport that often goes unnoticed by casual fans, yet it’s exactly the kind of skill set that has allowed Ustinov to consistently punch above his weight class, quite literally, throughout his career.

At the heart of it all lies the anatomy that makes his game possible. In arm wrestling, matches are rarely decided by whoever is simply stronger overall — they’re decided at the hand and wrist, where control, pronation, and structural stability matter far more than total muscle mass. Ustinov’s matching 41 cm forearm and bicep measurements aren’t just a curious physical quirk; they represent a build almost perfectly adapted to absorbing an opponent’s initial force and redirecting it, a skill that becomes especially valuable in the tightly contested 70-75 kg weight classes where technical margins are razor thin.

As arm wrestling continues to grow in global visibility, competitors like Danil Ustinov offer a compelling counter-narrative to the sport’s obsession with size. His journey through the Kazakh system, his growing supermatch résumé, and his rare physical proportions all combine to make him one of the more fascinating lightweight athletes competing today — proof that in this sport, precision and structure can be just as lethal as raw power, if not more so.

From Strongman Roots to Table Domination

Born on March 10, 1982, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Cyplenkov didn’t start out as a puller. His athletic foundation was built in kettlebell lifting, powerlifting, and strongman competition — disciplines that shaped a physique that would later look almost engineered for arm wrestling. Standing around 186 cm (6’1″) and competing at a peak weight between 135 and 145 kg, Cyplenkov carried forearms measuring nearly 19 to 21 inches in circumference, along with a wrist span of roughly 9.5 inches and a hand girth close to 10.6 inches.

These weren’t just impressive numbers for highlight reels. On the table, that hand size gave him a genuine mechanical edge — he could often engulf an opponent’s grip entirely before the match even began, neutralizing their preferred hand position and forcing them to fight on his terms from the opening whistle.

Building a Legacy in the Sport’s Toughest Arenas

Cyplenkov made his name in the sport’s most punishing open-weight tournaments, particularly the Nemiroff World Cup (Zloty Tur) and the A1 Russian Open — competitions widely regarded as the ultimate proving grounds during the late 2000s and 2010s. He claimed titles with both arms at these events, a rare feat that speaks to how complete his skillset became once he paired his natural strength with proper technique.

His left arm, in particular, earned a reputation as one of the most dangerous weapons the sport has ever seen. Wins over accomplished pullers like Andrey Pushkar, often by lopsided scorelines, cemented that reputation years before his most famous night on the table.

That night came in November 2018, at PAL Armfight #50, when Cyplenkov faced Canadian star Devon Larratt in a heavily anticipated left-hand supermatch. The result was a clean 6-0 sweep, a performance that pushed Cyplenkov’s name into mainstream sports conversation well beyond the arm wrestling community. He also holds a notable strict curl mark — reportedly 113 kg against a flat wall — a lift that hints at the tendon and bicep strength that translated so effectively into table dominance.

Tragedy, Health Struggles, and a Hard-Fought Return

Cyplenkov’s momentum was interrupted by genuine hardship. A right-hand supermatch against Andrey Pushkar never materialized after Pushkar’s untimely death in a car accident. Not long after, in 2019, Cyplenkov himself faced a serious health scare — a ruptured blood vessel near the kidney, reportedly linked to high blood pressure and the physical toll of intense training. The complications that followed forced him out of competition entirely.

His comeback, when it finally arrived, was worth the wait. In February 2023, at King of the Table 6, Cyplenkov returned to face arm wrestling icon John Brzenk and delivered a commanding 6-0 right-hand victory. Later that year, at East vs. West 10 in November 2023, he stepped up against a right-hand Devon Larratt now considered to be in career-best form. Cyplenkov came up short, losing the encounter, but the match itself proved something important: even after everything his body had endured, he could still hang with the very best the sport had to offer.

What Makes Cyplenkov’s Style Different

Cyplenkov was never simply a strongman who happened to arm wrestle. His approach on the table reflected calculated use of his physical tools:

• The Iron Hook — once he trapped an opponent in a deep hook, his side pressure and wrist thickness made escaping nearly impossible.
• Top Roll Containment — his oversized hands let him smother an opponent’s grip on the knuckles, stripping away their pronation advantage.
• Defensive Holding Power — even from a disadvantaged starting position, his tendon strength let him lock into place and simply outlast an opponent’s early burst.

Whether remembered for his freakish measurements, his rivalry with Devon Larratt, or his resilience through personal tragedy and illness, Denis Cyplenkov remains one of the defining figures in modern arm wrestling history — a reminder that raw strength, paired with real technique, can leave a mark on a sport for generations.

That is why the contrast between the outside toproll and the inside surge has become one of the most fascinating tactical themes in modern arm wrestling. A toproll aims to attack the opponent’s fingers, apply pronation and pull backward to open the wrist. The inside game, generally built around a hook, seeks to cup the hand, bring the opponent closer and turn the contest into a short-range battle.

The central link between both styles is wrist flexion. A puller who can maintain a strong, cupped wrist can preserve his structure and prevent the opponent from gaining easy access to the fingers. Once the wrist begins to flatten, however, the hand loses part of its leverage and the opponent can redirect the match.

In a toproll, wrist control is used to create distance. The attacking puller tries to rise through the hand, pronate over the opponent’s fingers and drag the grip toward the outside. This action does not necessarily require a direct battle against the opponent’s strongest arm position. Instead, it attempts to lengthen the opponent’s lever, weaken the fingers and force the wrist backward.

The best toprollers are not simply pulling sideways. They combine back pressure, rising and pronation while keeping enough wrist integrity to avoid being drawn inside. If the wrist collapses too early, the move loses its technical advantage and the attacker may be caught in an awkward position between the outside and inside lanes.

The hook represents the opposite tactical idea. Rather than creating space, the hook closes it. The puller cups the wrist, supinates the hand and brings the opponent into a compressed battle where elbow flexion, forearm strength and side pressure become increasingly important. In this position, wrist flexion helps shorten the effective lever and makes it more difficult for the opponent to rotate freely.

This is where East-versus-West matchups become especially intriguing. Pullers from different training cultures may arrive with contrasting preferences in grip height, hand containment and transition timing. A Western-style defensive specialist may willingly absorb the first hit before searching for a counter, while an Eastern European puller may attempt to win the hand immediately through aggressive rising, pronation or inside pressure.

Hand size adds another layer to the tactical equation. Larger hands can cover more of the opponent’s fingers and create stronger containment, while long fingers may help a toproller attack the grip from above. However, size alone does not decide the exchange. Wrist flexion, thumb security, finger endurance and the ability to change direction under pressure can neutralise physical advantages.

The most dangerous competitors are therefore hybrid pullers. They can begin with an outside attack, sense the opponent’s wrist weakening and then transition into an inside surge. Others may use a defensive hook to absorb the initial toproll before climbing back over the hand. These transitions often decide supermatches because the opponent is forced to react while already operating from a compromised wrist position.

As East vs West and King of the Table continue to showcase elite international talent, technical battles at the hand will remain central to the sport’s evolution. The next wave of supermatches may not be decided by who has the biggest arm, but by who can flex, rotate and reposition the wrist at the exact moment the opponent begins to lose control.

His journey into competitive arm wrestling wasn’t long or gradual. Spotted in a gym around the age of 19 or 20, Saginashvili made an almost immediate impact once he began competing seriously, claiming gold at the 2013 World Police and Fire Games before sweeping through both the World Armwrestling Championships and European Championships across both arms. It was an entrance that signaled exactly what was coming — a competitor who wasn’t just talented, but built differently from anyone else in the sport.

What followed was one of the most dominant stretches of dominance modern arm wrestling has ever witnessed. As Saginashvili transitioned into elite professional supermatches, he became virtually impossible to beat, running through a string of world-class pullers with clean 6-0 sweeps that left little room for debate about who the strongest man in the sport truly was. Dmitry Trubin fell 6-0 in 2018. Tim Bresnan and Vitaly Laletin were both swept 6-0 during the 2019 Top 8 events. Dave Chaffee suffered the same fate at Vendetta’s Top 8 in 2021. And in one of the most anticipated supermatches of the era, Devon Larratt himself was dismantled 6-0 at King of the Table 4 in 2022 — a result that only reinforced Saginashvili’s reputation as the sport’s most feared right-hand competitor.

If there was ever a moment that showed Saginashvili was human, it came at King of the Table 6 in 2023 against Ermes Gasparini. For the first time in years, an opponent forced Levan to exert genuine maximum effort, actually managing to stop his signature hit rather than being swept aside instantly. Saginashvili still won the match 4-2, but the final two rounds were conceded after cardiovascular fatigue and breathing difficulties forced him to step back — a rare glimpse of vulnerability from a man who had built his entire reputation on looking unstoppable.

That vulnerability turned into a genuine test of resilience when a serious wrist tendon tear sidelined him not long after. Recovery from an injury like that, especially for an athlete whose entire game depends on wrist and hand dominance, would end many careers or at least diminish them significantly. Saginashvili instead returned in April 2024 at East vs West 12 and delivered a statement performance, dismantling Devon Larratt 4-0 to claim the East vs West Super Heavyweight Championship — proof that the injury had done little to dull the physical gifts that made him great in the first place.

Part of what makes Saginashvili so difficult to beat comes down to fundamentals most opponents simply cannot match. Arm wrestling is ultimately decided at the hand and wrist, and Levan’s cupping and pronation strength are so overwhelming that opponents often find their wrist bent back and their leverage neutralized before the match has even truly begun. His specialized strength numbers back this up in staggering fashion — reports of strict bicep and wrist curls surpassing 140 kilograms sit well outside what most elite pullers, let alone recreational lifters, could ever attempt. Combined with a frame that carries minimal wasted movement, his backpressure and side pressure allow him to draw opponents directly into his own structure without ever surrendering position, effectively ending contests through sheer frame dominance alone.

Saginashvili’s presence has also extended well beyond the competition table. His rise to global recognition brought him into mainstream entertainment, most notably through a supporting role in Netflix’s action thriller Extraction 2 alongside Chris Hemsworth, where his real-world size and physicality translated seamlessly onto the screen as one of the film’s most physically dominant henchmen.

Whether the conversation turns to his rivalry with Devon Larratt, the physical toll of maintaining a super-heavyweight frame at the highest level, or his crossover into mainstream entertainment, one thing remains consistent: Levan Saginashvili continues to stand as a benchmark for what raw human strength can look like in modern arm wrestling, and every new challenger who steps up to face him understands exactly what they’re walking into.

Standing roughly 6 feet 5 inches tall and competing at a walking weight that has ranged between 240 and 280 pounds over the years, Larratt’s imposing frame was matched early on by an equally imposing will. His introduction to the sport wasn’t glamorous — it began with matches against his own grandmother, a farmworker who was convinced she was the best female puller in Alberta, and continued through rough, informal contests against oil rig workers across western Canada. Those early years, far removed from any spotlight, quietly built the foundation for everything that followed.

At 21, Larratt chose a path that few professional athletes ever take, enlisting in the Canadian Armed Forces and eventually earning a place in Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), the country’s elite counter-terrorism unit. Over a 16-year military career spanning 1999 to 2016, he rose to the rank of Master Corporal and was deployed to Afghanistan seven times. He didn’t return from those deployments unscathed — he sustained shrapnel wounds to his hand and was shot in action — yet remarkably, he continued competing in arm wrestling throughout his time in uniform, training and pulling against fellow servicemen whenever the opportunity arose. It’s a detail that adds a layer of depth to his story that few competitive athletes can claim: a world champion forged, quite literally, on the battlefield.

His breakthrough on the international stage came in 2008, at Arm Wars “Deep Water,” when he faced John Brzenk, the man widely regarded as the greatest arm wrestler of all time. Larratt didn’t just compete with Brzenk — he dismantled him, winning 6-0 and becoming the first puller in roughly 25 years to defeat him in a supermatch. That single result reshaped the landscape of the sport overnight and vaulted Larratt to the world’s number one ranking, a position he would go on to defend and expand in the years that followed.

Between 2010 and 2012, Larratt did something almost unheard of in armwrestling: he held the number one world ranking on both arms simultaneously, defeating elite heavyweights like Travis Bagent, Tim Bresnan, and Andriy Pushkar along the way. When the World Armwrestling League (WAL) rose to prominence between 2014 and 2019, Larratt became its defining face, collecting right- and left-hand heavyweight and super-heavyweight titles and holding the prestigious WAL Legacy Hammer, a symbol of supremacy in the sport.

His rivalry with Michael Todd, built around Todd’s signature “Kings Move,” became one of the sport’s most talked-about storylines, while his history with Denis Cyplenkov added real drama to his legacy — a left-handed loss in 2018 that he answered emphatically in late 2023 with a dominant right-handed sweep. His supermatches against Georgian powerhouse Levan Saginashvili, staged at marquee events like King of the Table and East vs West, are still regarded among the sport’s most electric moments, and his victories over top-tier Europeans Ermes Gasparini and Vitaliy Laletin further cemented his status as a competitor who never stopped evolving.

Technically, Larratt’s game has always been built on more than brute strength. His mastery of the open toproll and the “Kings Move” defensive style allows him to absorb an opponent’s explosive opening hit and gradually drain their energy, while his emphasis on high hand position, extreme pronation, and precise hand-cupping control lets him manipulate opponents into biomechanically compromised positions. Add to that his reputation for sharp table IQ, calculated trash talk, and psychological gamesmanship before the referee’s call, and you get a competitor who wins matches long before the actual pull begins.

Beyond the table, Larratt’s influence on the sport’s visibility has been enormous. Through his YouTube presence and crossover collaborations with mainstream names like Shaquille O’Neal and Hafthor Björnsson, he has introduced arm wrestling to audiences who might never have otherwise paid attention to the sport. He has also played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the rise of promotions like East vs West and King of the Table, helping establish sustainable professional contracts that have changed the economics of arm wrestling for competitors around the world.

Alongside his wife, Jodi Larratt, herself a competitive arm wrestler, Devon continues to be a towering presence in the sport, both literally and figuratively — a soldier turned sporting icon whose story continues to inspire new generations of pullers well beyond Canada’s borders.