Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling
Guests: Devon Larratt
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
Contents15 chapters
§01Transcript · 00:00–09:06§02Transcript · 09:08–18:08§03Transcript · 18:12–27:44§04Transcript · 27:45–37:00§05Transcript · 37:03–46:40§06Transcript · 46:45–55:05§07Transcript · 55:07–1:04:17§08Transcript · 1:04:20–1:14:31§09Transcript · 1:14:34–1:23:51§10Transcript · 1:23:53–1:32:25§11Transcript · 1:32:27–1:41:34§12Transcript · 1:41:38–1:50:02§13Transcript · 1:50:06–1:58:48§14Transcript · 1:58:52–2:08:09§15Transcript · 2:08:11–2:10:22§01Transcript · 00:00–09:06
"I get so passionate about it, I get so angry."
You know?
Because there's this saying like,
"Oh, can you beat him at a hook?
"Can you beat him?"
Man, win, 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 Larratt.
Considered by many to be one of the greatest
arm wrestlers in history.
This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
To support it, please check out our sponsors
in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Devon Larratt.
You are considered to be one of the greatest
arm wrestlers in history.
Plus, are one of the most charismatic
and 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 Sylvester Stallone,
where he's a trucker.
It's like a father-son movie.
It's, you know, like a bunch of sports
have the definitive movie.
Boxing has Rocky, maybe folk style.
Collegiate wrestling has Vision Quest.
What else is there?
Billiards has "Color of Money."
This is the sort of movie for arm wrestling.
So what did "Over the Top" get right?
What did it get wrong about arm wrestling?
- That was actually based off of a real story.
A lot of people don't know that.
Yeah, the "Over the Top" movie,
I mean, to a certain degree,
that's actually real life.
Like that tournament, "Over the Top," was real.
- 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's John Brzenk.
You know who that is, right?
So the actual "Over the Top" tournament,
the trucker division was won by John.
- Who is John Brzenk?
He is, a lot of people talk about him
as like a legend and 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.
The entire sport looks up to him.
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.
He's hailed as the greatest of all time
in the sport of arm wrestling, yeah.
- And he doesn't, he's beaten some monsters.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
- And he doesn't.
- I mean, when you talk about like 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,
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 to arm wrestle.
And it seems so simple, but he answered so many questions
that all of us had about techniques in the sport,
back pre-video internet.
Yeah, he's been everybody's target for like 40 years.
- So in terms of strength, in terms of 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 the aughts?
You were at the top of the world for many years.
Many argue you're still at the very top of the world,
but like you were very dominant, both left and right hand
in, I don't know, 2008 to 2013, something like that.
So how did that sport evolve to today?
- So it's hard for me to comment prior to,
when I came to the sport was kind of mid 90s.
Like I've been arm wrestling my whole life,
but I wasn't really involved in the sport
to a major degree until probably mid 90s.
But I'll say that before the mid 90s,
it was really hard to get good at arm wrestling,
very difficult.
Everybody was doing it wrong, really.
Like it was really rare to find people
who were technically good arm wrestlers.
It was very underground.
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 they knew how to arm wrestle, they did,
but real masters were rare.
And then internet, internet helped everybody.
Communication, the transfer of knowledge
became so much faster.
People became technically invested.
People started train, sharing ideas.
By I'd say 2000,
well, probably around the turn of the millennia,
I'd say that professional leagues started to slowly pick up
more organized, bigger productions
started to attract more athletes.
More people took it seriously.
By 2010, I'd say there was another jump,
more serious leagues, a little bit more money.
By 2015, more major media,
like people were investing a lot of money,
like millionaires, billionaires type of people
were organizing events, setting up leagues.
And yeah, I mean, the past five years,
it's just blown up.
The techniques, I mean, if I was to go back
to when I started, 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 mic,
it's a battle of one versus one.
And then that can turn into battle of nations,
which there is, there's Canada, there's the United States,
there's all the Eastern Europe, Russia, Georgia,
all of that.
That's what makes some of the greatest sports
in 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 that battle between North America
and that other part of the world.
- Yeah, yeah, North America is very prized.
The North American champion is always highly sought after
because they're typically the most famous.
Even still when, quite arguably,
there's always somebody in Eastern Europe
who's just monstrous.
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, Lex. - Cheers.
Which should probably show,
you just downed that whole thing.
- No, no, no, I'm gonna sip it, I'm gonna sip it.
But by all means.
- It's really good, right? - That is delicious.
- Yeah, that is-- - Canadian maple syrup.
- Yeah, that's a perfect July day
from Canada in a bottle, yeah.
- So you're 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, yeah, that's gone to a crazy place in the sport,
but yeah. - Where did that originate?
- So where that originated--
- When it went from your actual love for pancakes
to the meme. - Yeah.
Yeah, so I think what happened was,
so I had a match with Michael Todd, big match.
Michael, great champion.
He's another guy who's,
he's never gonna get off the horse.
His elbow is a complete disaster.
Probably one of the most loved and hated guys
in the sport right now.
- Is it because of the King's move?
- Yeah. - One of the--
- Yeah, the King's move brings him a lot of hate.
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.
- I get so passionate about it.
I get so angry, you know?
'Cause there's this saying like,
"Oh, can you beat him at a hook?
§02Transcript · 09:08–18:08
"Can you beat him?"
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 with style.
But don't talk to me about anything but winning.
That's the priority.
- So you had this match with Michael Todd.
- Yeah, so I was in a terrible place.
I guess it was, I get so screwed up with the years.
It's 2022 now, right?
- No, it's 2030.
What are you talking about?
- That's right.
I think it is actually 2030.
We're way ahead of schedule.
Oh, man.
- That's right.
So when was this?
This was like a decade ago or no?
- No, this is like a year and a bit ago.
- Oh, this is very recent.
- Very recent, yeah.
So I got really sick.
- Is that the match?
- Yeah, this is the match, right?
Awesome match.
So this match is for the Legacy Hammer.
So we invented this thing called the Legacy Hammer
and Michael took it from me in, I think, 2018.
And then COVID shut everything down
and Michael went overseas to try and set up,
'cause 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 Levan.
And the whole thing fell apart.
Organizers, leagues, 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 I'm like, "Let's give Devin a rematch."
And I'm like, "Yeah, yes!"
And I was really sick at the time.
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.
What happened in this match, by the way?
- Oh, I just totally destroyed him.
(laughing)
Yeah, I just beat the piss out of him.
Yeah.
Michael's a good friend of mine, but--
- Yeah, there's a lot of camaraderie
you guys talked afterwards, it's great.
- But we fight like brothers, you know?
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.
- People should go watch, there's a video
where you make the Canadian meal of bacon
with some bacon cooking tips, water,
that was interesting.
- Yeah.
- And then obviously pancakes and maple syrup
all over the whole thing.
- Yeah.
You're making me very hungry, Lex.
I've caused more diabetes than, you know,
probably gonna get in trouble karmically
for making the world obese.
- You should probably write like a book,
"The Pancake Diet" with Devin Laird.
- Yeah, I think I will do that one day.
- So you said 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 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.
I would say if I could pick ever just one thing
to have more of, I would say that it would be strength
gained while fighting.
- While actually arm wrestling, so not off the top.
- No, no, no.
So you get stronger from arm wrestling.
- How do you get stronger from arm wrestling?
Like in jiu-jitsu and grappling, you can get good
by training with people much technically worse than you.
So with white belts and blue belts.
- Yeah.
- It's actually beneficial.
- Agree.
- 'Cause you get to work stuff out.
- Right.
- But I wouldn't say it develops like that intensity
and power required to go against people at your level.
So how do you balance that?
Is it okay to go against people that are much weaker
than you or do you really have to go against people
at the same level?
- I think that a blended strategy is probably the best.
I'd say kind of a rule is whatever you do,
you get better at, right?
So you wanna be kind of as precise as possible.
You don't wanna get hurt.
And it's just about investment.
And the answer is not always the same.
Things are gonna 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 need to have a ton, a ton of volume.
So when you look at how to best build volume,
you want to do workouts that aren't particularly challenging
that make you feel good and do them so that
when you add them all together, you get the biggest number.
So many easy workouts a day that are as 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've talked about this as the climb.
What is the training process to get great at arm wrestling?
- Well, again, it's gonna depend on what level you're at.
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.
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 water tank. - The water tank, yeah.
- And you had an awesome crowd.
- It was great.
- I get to watch, I got to interact with a lot of those guys.
Just amazing community, amazing human beings.
I got to talk to Dmitry in Russian and in English.
He's an engineer, his wife is an engineer,
so he's a brilliant dude, but also one of the toughest,
I guess, guys you faced there.
But you faced, I don't know how many people.
It must have been hundreds of matches.
- So the bar was full.
Yeah, and that for me is a perfect training scenario.
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, all their effort,
that's perfect, that's perfect.
But I'm lucky because I'm in a place that I can handle it.
If I was losing or failing, this would not be optimal.
But because 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 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, and that's why I say
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 and 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 of June.
- Oh yeah.
- Let's talk about Levon Siganishvili, the Georgian Hulk.
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 if so, how?
- Everybody's beatable, everybody's beatable.
Levon is incredible.
He is what this modern peak of arm wrestling represents.
- So for people who are just listening,
we also have an overlay of a video of Levon going
§03Transcript · 18:12–27:44
against Vitaly Leletin, another top three person
in the world, perhaps, in arm wrestling.
And Levon is the guy on the right, just big.
- I love it.
- And the aggression, I mean, actually,
sort of underneath it all, he seems to be a teddy bear,
but when he turns it on, it's raw power.
- He's the full package.
Levon is, he represents the pinnacle.
There's Dennis in the background.
He's like, I wanna be back in there.
Levon has a lot of bases covered.
I mean, he's curling 300 pounds with one arm.
I mean, the strength that he shows for arm wrestling
is so far ahead of the field, is very, very strong.
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 yeah.
- So you want to hold off the initial assault of power
and then wear him out to find the hole and then,
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.
Yeah, that's how I get in, that's how I get in.
Yeah, I play a dirty game.
- So some of it, how important is confidence
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 it's fake
until you make it, but whenever you shake your head
or whatever, 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, so I'm sure you're doing
things, 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, 'cause it's facing the other--
(laughing)
So that's ultimately what the battle is about.
It's like, you're done, you might as well give up.
- Commitment is so important in anything that you do, right?
Like, I always kind of try and bring things
to a level of commitment that's uncommon.
I think that that's a lot of reasons why I do well,
is 'cause 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.
I wish that they would, because that's how far I wanna go.
People talk about how committed are you to the match.
If you're committed to the match and you lose,
you should be hurt.
That's, I'm often unhappy when I lose a match
and I don't have an injury.
I'm like, damn, what the fuck, I shoulda,
I feel like I didn't commit.
- I don't know if you know Dan Gable is the wrestler.
- Oh yeah, he was on--
- He was on the podcast? - Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
He talked about his whole career.
He dreamed of working so hard that he gets,
he can't get off the mat by himself.
And 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's what commitment looks like.
- Yeah.
- What is this process, what is this climb
for probably the toughest match of your career?
I would say the most epic match in arm wrestling history.
I mean, it's really building up.
You are, you said North America, that's,
I mean, I think by accounts of many,
you're one of the greatest arm wrestlers ever.
He is one of the scariest arm wrestlers ever.
And so this match, 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, 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 where I need to get to,
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 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're mixing up stuff where you're doing weights also?
- This morning, I try to really focus on
what's administratively easy.
That's a big part of me, 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,
feeling good, doing proper movements.
But yeah, just a band workout in the hotel room.
- What does a band workout look like?
So are you doing the arm wrestling movement?
Are you doing more curls? - Oh, see that?
See what you did there?
- What's that?
- Yeah, it's--
- Bet you wanna bring him in.
- Yeah, up, up.
Oh, the up thing?
- Up, 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.
Pinning happens once it's close to you.
Yeah, pinning is, people always think about pinning.
Don't think about pinning.
- How much of the body is a part of this too?
Like the core, the torso?
'Cause it feels like there's that
almost like Mike Tyson punch power, right?
Does it come from the hips too and the legs?
Is it the whole body? - It's definitely
the whole body.
It's definitely the whole body.
Like everything is working.
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 you can base off your hips.
But I'll tell you, no arm wrestler
cares about doing squats.
No arm wrestler's doing planks.
Okay, it's all about the forearm
and the actions of the hand.
That's always the limiting factor.
You look at a guy like Oleg Zok.
Okay, do you know this guy?
Oleg Zok, marvelous.
He's a total hell boy.
He's my inspiration to what I call pumpkin training.
But. - What's pumpkin training?
- 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 good friend Matt Mask, when he arm wrestled me,
he actually blew his internal abductor 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, Oleg, he is a real life hell boy.
He's like 170 pounds there.
Look at his arm, look at his arm.
- It's crazy.
- Yeah, yeah, he's totally crazy.
- That's you doing left right there.
So by the way, Levan, you're going right.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
So can you say more about the mental side?
Are you visualizing what it takes to beat him?
Are you trying to get in his head?
All of these things.
§04Transcript · 27:45–37:00
So do you think it's possible to get in his head?
- There's definitely strategies that you can do
depending on who it is you're facing.
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 Levan.
I just build them up,
build them up into this thing that scares me.
And it forces me to be responsible,
'cause I don't wanna lose, I wanna 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 it changes.
And then I start to degrade them.
And yeah, that's when it normally starts to get fun.
And normally by the time I face them,
I just try and completely dominate
from every interaction from start to finish.
Yeah.
- When in the actual moment of the match,
like in the moments leading up to it,
what's the feeling?
Is it fear?
Is it confidence, anxiety?
What's going through your mind?
- I love to fight.
I love it.
I always have.
There's every day where you have 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 really be free.
I'm free when I'm fighting, right?
So you put me in a good fight, and I just love it.
And 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.
- That's it.
Just right there, just fighting as hard as I can.
- Do you study the opponent?
Have you for this particular match,
do you study videos of LeVon?
- 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 he's grown in size,
but also you've talked about his evolution
technically as well.
In studying him, since we're in the build your opponent
to beat terrifying stage, what makes him great?
- He's very impressive.
The greatest thing about him is his strength.
That's the thing that sets him apart from everyone.
His strength, specialized strength,
exact strength for arm wrestling.
I believe it's unmatched.
- Can we just linger on that word strength?
What does strength mean?
What does it feel like?
Are we talking about bicep, like shoulder?
Are we talking about whatever controls, the wrist?
Is it the, how does strength manifest?
You know, when I touch your hand, when we grab arms,
I feel like, fuck, that's strong.
- There's control, right?
- What is that feeling?
Where does that come from 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.
And we use these technical chains to fight each other.
The chains 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.
It can be used, it's a technical attack.
It's also an attack that can be built with training.
Just the ability to just drive upwards.
There's a chain where you cup, right?
Cup your wrist in.
Cup your wrist in, and the anchor in the chain
brings you right to your heart, right to your center.
This chain, and this can be done at any time.
There's a pronation chain,
and that's to turn your thumb over.
Turn your thumb over,
and you attack the person's cupping chain.
- And there's a huge number of muscles
involved in each of those chains.
- 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 how much you curl, essentially.
- Yeah.
- But you mean the chain.
It all has to do with the--
- Right, and that's, I mean, people talk, is it a bicep?
I mean, yes, there's bicep for sure involved,
but I'll always be inaccurate
if I try and tell you 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 LeVon is very special
in terms of his genetics.
Like, not everybody can be LeVon, you know?
- Yeah.
- There's not many LeVons out there.
But what I've encountered in the bias that I always see,
like when people talk about people like LeVon,
they discount the other side so very quickly.
And the thing is, LeVon rarely has to show 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 Kvikvinia,
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 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 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 won.
And I think sometimes he just plays with people, you know.
Like, there's a famous match that he had with,
oh, they call him the Bruce Lee of arm wrestling,
a guy called Ongarbaev, Kyrgyzstan Ongarbaev.
They had a match in the top eight, great match.
Kyrgyzstan is like 220 pound guy from Kazakhstan,
brilliant technician, but power-wise,
you know, not in the same world.
And Kyrgyzstan did well, even though he lost six nothing.
He still did well.
But in my opinion, Levon didn't care.
Levon was like grabbing him low and just like, whatever.
I will show him things that he's not seen before, I will.
He hasn't competed often in this rule set,
which will be a challenge for him.
But yeah, what can I say?
Like, Levon, he's Everest.
- Yeah. - Yeah?
- Yeah, you are seen by, basically,
everybody is the big, big underdog.
But you're also, even in the Eastern,
even, I mean, I talk to Russians a lot.
You know that moment in "Rocky"
when they start cheering for Rocky?
- Yeah, yeah. (laughing)
- You're kind of the, they love you, they want you to win.
And just, you know, it's not even,
just the battle itself is inspiring.
And it's like the culmination of your career,
because 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 is like this big moment.
- Yeah. - The big climb.
- I will be the pointy end of the spear for North America.
(laughing)
Yeah.
- Beautiful, well, let's,
thanks for bringing that match up.
Let's talk about just
the match against Dennis, your left-hand match.
- Yeah. - He's also terrifying,
and seen as one of the strongest,
probably the one of, if not the strongest,
left-hand arm wrestler.
- Yeah.
- There's a lot to be said there.
§05Transcript · 37:03–46:40
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 versus the right hand?
Can you tell the story?
- Okay, Dennis Zaplankov.
There's so much about this match.
I love Dennis.
- Russian guy.
- Yeah, Russian guy.
Russian, I used to call him Dennis Chernobyl.
(laughing)
What a monster.
He kind of 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.
We couldn't get it organized.
This is back in 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 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 to 225s for a few years.
WAL failed temporarily.
So the 225 pound division was scrapped.
And I said, okay, I'm gonna go for the big crown once again.
And I started to go after super heavyweights.
The 2018 season was right hand.
I started to enter negotiations to have the match with him.
We'd been chasing the match for 10 years.
They wanted to do it left hand.
I wanted to do it right hand.
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 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.
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 Zaplankov 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.
- Left or right?
- Right hand, no.
I'm curious about the right.
But left hand.
- So is the world.
- Well, it might still happen.
It might.
But Dennis completely destroyed me.
And I learned a lot from it.
I think before the Dennis match,
I think I was, I don't know.
I don't know exactly what words to use.
Maybe I felt like my thinking was a little bit elitist.
And I really learned a lot.
I was really humbled that day
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
was extremely inspiring to me.
I used to do a job where it was serious enough
that the price could be death, right?
And I arm wrestled throughout that entire period.
And I always kind of looked at the cost
of doing an activity being death, limited to soldiering.
And 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.
Doesn't matter what you're doing.
If you're crazy enough about anything,
it's probably gonna take your life from you 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,
"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 I was no longer employed.
I was now in the world of professional arm wrestling.
And I realized that what was I doing?
Like how serious was I?
So Dennis is an incredible guy.
- Is there moments in that match,
there's this humility there too from him.
That was a fascinating sort of,
it seemed like you realized 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 Dennis match.
I mean, I remember seeing video of somebody
and then meeting them in person, it's different.
I remember in the weigh-ins, sorry, not the weigh-ins,
in the standoff that we did before the match,
I'm looking at him, I'm close, I'm looking at his arms.
And his bicep, it looked like an ass.
Like it was like a fricking glute muscle.
Like his entire structure was so sinewy
and just so strong.
I was like, wow, physically so impressive.
And I remember when I arm wrestled him
at a certain time, he allowed me to kind of set my position.
You can't really tell 'cause it happens very quickly,
but he let me set my position,
which means I kind of got my locks in
where you can kind of really do a great hold.
And he just ripped through me.
- So you were able to get this great position.
So it was-- - Tore right through me.
Yeah, and the first time I ever thought
that I had torn something,
I thought like after the match,
I'm like, "Jeez, did he rip my chest right in half?"
- What, did it?
- No, I think-- - It was 100% chest?
- Yeah, no, I didn't actually,
nothing went purple or anything,
but yeah, the strength gap was very significant with Dennis.
- So could he, what would it take to beat him on that day?
- It would take me just being a little bit stronger,
- More focused. - and more healthy, yeah.
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're probably looking at three or four years
before you're starting to hit technical proficiency
the way you should be.
And yeah, just a bit stronger.
- How do you interpret the calmness on his face?
What is that about?
Is he actually that calm? - It's very Russian, isn't it?
- It's a Russian thing? - 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 really wanna go to Moscow, I've been saying it forever.
- You've never been? - Not yet, not yet.
I wanna go, I wanna just go and live there
for like a month and just train.
Moscow's 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.
- Have you considered doing something of that sort,
it's like Rocky IV again?
- Oh yeah.
- Like, 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?
- 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 are you eating,
how are you getting the food, all the socializing,
plus you're more and more a celebrity,
so there's social interaction,
which I don't know how draining that could be on you
outside of the arm wrestling table.
So you have to manage all of that
'cause 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 wanna really prepare for a big match,
yeah, home is where I get strong.
- So that loss against Dennis
was one of the few losses in your career.
How did that feel in the moments after,
§06Transcript · 46:45–55:05
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.
- Still haunt you?
- I don't think so.
I actually was really happy to lose to Dennis
because 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 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,
left-handed.
- So knowing that's possible is almost like
inspiration to you that I can be at that level too.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Seeing what Dennis did,
just trying to absorb a little bit of his knowledge,
planted seeds in me.
Yeah, I mean, when I look at my career,
it's a bit like the stock market,
but for sure I'm trending upwards.
And since really kind of wrapping my mind around
some of the Russian philosophies,
they really changed my training systems.
There was 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.
- Ah, right?
Man, it's so, like, it takes a while to break the ice
with a lot of these guys.
- Well, once you do, I mean,
that's as deep as Bonsi can form there.
- Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I think that I was raised under,
I believe it's a flawed, I mean, it's not flawed
because it has its value as well,
but it's best if you understand both philosophies.
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 tough,
but, and then you talk to the Russians
and they're like, yeah, never fail.
You never fail.
Never go to failure.
Always feel good.
Always feel good.
It should always feel good.
Don't, and those two philosophies
express themselves very differently.
And if you wanna get strong, yeah, don't fail.
Don't fail.
- So that's how you, they also are believers of volume.
- Yeah, there's a lot of strategies,
but, you know, volume is a massive principle.
And volume is very hard to achieve
when you're believing in no pain, no gain, right?
They don't really go together.
No pain, no gain, more injuries.
- So the, is there parallels?
'Cause in wrestling, some of the greatest wrestlers
of all time are Russian, and they were big,
Dan Gable talks about it, they were big on play,
like lighter wrestling, 'cause 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,
I mean, in wrestling, also, technique might
have greater value than it does in arm wrestling.
Obviously, technique, extremely important in arm wrestling,
but power is, like, can defeat technique, it seems like.
In wrestling, you can get away,
there's a lot of ways you can really 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.
But 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, right?
So 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, Sergey, can you pull up that video?
It's on Devin's channel, the water tank one.
- Oh, it's like 180p.
It's like the wifi in there was so bad.
- Yeah.
- It's great, I love it.
It's maybe, I don't know if it was fisheye,
but it had a fisheye feel.
- Yeah.
- Crowded, I mean, so much camaraderie.
It was amazing.
But maybe just a brief mention of Dmitry,
the Russian guy.
In that play, what are some memorable things here?
Like 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
'cause the energy's always high.
Like the first time you go to a club,
everybody's trying to kill you.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, so they're gonna--
- There's excitement and there's this,
and so you feed off of that.
- Yeah, you do.
You can, if you're able to be strong enough
to absorb it without injury, it's awesome.
It's awesome.
- 'Cause they're giving you everything they can.
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, right.
So 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
is 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
'cause 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 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,
I pull that in a little bit, right?
So, okay, so I know Dimitri's the number one guy in Texas.
Lots of respect to the guy.
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 wanna 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 gonna get hurt.
Yeah.
- You always wanna be in a strong position here.
What about, how does endurance come into play here?
And here's video of you strapping up with Dimitri.
- Yeah.
- How do you, I mean, you went for like,
I don't know, two hours?
- Yeah, it was long.
So this first run of the video,
I think was a little over an hour.
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 one of the best ways to get strong,
especially far away from a tournament
or any kind of an event.
I wouldn't wanna do this, you know,
even a month or even six weeks
or even maybe even eight weeks before a big event.
I'd wanna 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 to my muscles
is kind of like, it's not really pushing more good stuff in,
it's, I'm starting to break down.
And you don't want that, you don't want that.
- Quick pause, bathroom break?
- I'm good, I'm good.
- Okay, I kind of need one.
- I'll maybe get a sweater, it's a bit.
- Is it cold?
Does that matter, does that care for chemical?
§07Transcript · 55:07–1:04:17
- No, no, no, no.
- I can make it warmer.
- No, no, no, I'll just put a sweater on,
it's fine, that doesn't matter.
- And I still love the idea of you going to Russia.
- Yeah.
- And training there.
- Yeah.
- I'm also making a trip out to Russia.
- Oh yeah, when?
- For different, well, it's hard with the current conflict.
- Oh yeah.
- The tension's there,
but I'm hoping before your match, actually, so May.
- Okay.
- For a couple of interviews with a couple of folks,
some of which people know.
Maybe I could ask you about,
to comment on some matches that stand out to you
in your career.
- Sure.
- Is there something, is there a particular,
I have a bunch that I really enjoy,
but is there something that stands out to you as memorable?
We talked about sort of a defining loss, perhaps, to Dennis.
Then you faced Michael Tyler, who mentioned John Brzenk.
You faced Matt.
Is there something that stands out to you
that technically or psychologically
you've learned a lot from?
- 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.
Very weird phenomena.
So I think it was 2005,
was my first combat tour overseas.
So it was a active tour,
among other things, 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, a guy called Ron Bath.
He's kind of, if there was no John Brzenk,
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 sport 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 three-one, I think, three-one,
but every match was really close.
And he won the first one,
and I had to kind of dig my way out of the trenches
and 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 was--
- It seems like there's frustration on you.
What is that?
What was going through your mind here with these?
Was it, first of all, going in,
did you think you could beat him?
What was the level of confidence?
- I always think I can win.
Like I always do.
But a lot of respect to the guy.
But yeah, I mean, I always think I can do it.
- So what lessons did you take away from it?
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 satisfied,
because it was one of those matches
that kind of takes everything from you, 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?
'Cause 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 the top, through my feet, and then it was gone.
That was it.
Weirdest thing I've ever felt in my entire life.
Yeah, but it was as a result of what happened in the match
and leading up to it, I had some kind of a release.
- How did you interpret it psychologically?
Was it like some kind of,
I mean, not to be spiritual or whatever,
but some kind of superpower that was
like a lingering feeling like, holy shit,
- I can't explain it.
And I haven't really tried hard enough to try to.
- 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 yeah, and then after that,
like two or three years later,
that's when I won the world championships.
Yeah, I mean, all the matches are,
you get something from people,
you study them, you take something from them.
People have an invisible crown and he had one.
And I think I took it from him.
- 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 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 in the moment.
It's beautiful to watch 'cause it really gets,
it gets to some people.
So where does that come from?
- It's a powerful weapon, right?
- Yeah.
- Your voice is a powerful, powerful weapon.
And it's underutilized 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 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 flow
of negative encouragement to someone,
or suggestion, 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 to get in the most ideal positions, situations,
you need to use your voice.
Yeah.
- There's a, for people who haven't seen,
I definitely recommend you watch
a bunch of arm wrestling matches
'cause there's a crowd really gets into it.
And 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, I love it.
I want the crowd right up on me.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So sometimes, oh yeah.
So who are you, whenever you talk to somebody,
do you literally pick somebody from the crowd?
- Oh yeah, oh yeah.
I'll start fucking off his fans.
I'll start talking to their wives or whatever.
Yeah, there's Jody.
She's pretty dangerous to listen to also.
But yeah, one of his buddies, Mike Solaris,
who's a really good arm wrestler, was cheering for him.
So I started to go after him.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Smiling the whole time.
- Yeah, it's fun, right?
It's fun.
- It's a fan, it's 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 the thing that I've always believed
from the time I was very young,
I was convinced that our inevitable death
was gonna come from aliens, right?
Like some super aggressive, super violent species
was gonna come and smoke us all.
And I'm like, 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.
§08Transcript · 1:04:20–1:14:31
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 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 the feeling sometimes when people get frustrated
is like, okay, this person's cheating.
Or like you're trying to get a good grip
before it goes.
And I think some of the frustration
in combination with the trash talk
is, well, this person is cheating.
- Right. - But everybody is like
kind of trying to cheat, get an edge within the rules.
- Yeah.
So I try and just ramp it, ramp it, ramp it.
But everybody's different.
I've learned how to play the game
based off of the tools that I have physically.
And for me, this works because my genetic makeup
is more of a persistence hunter, right?
So like I need to extend things.
And that works well for me.
If I was more explosive,
I probably wouldn't have the same strategies, yeah.
- By the way, for people who are watching,
you're wearing a No Limits hoodie,
which is one of your nicknames.
- I don't wash this thing too much.
It's my bacterial shield to the world, yeah.
- Awesome, so you mentioned Jodi.
She's often 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.
As sort of as a fan, it's fun to watch the two of you,
both when you're 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 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, she paid me to ask you this,
but what are the things you love about Jodi,
your wife, Jodi Lark?
What are the ways she's affected your life?
- Yeah, Jodi and I go way back, right?
We were in high school together.
The thing that I admire most in people is bravery.
To me, it's the most admirable quality.
And Jodi always has inspired me 'cause she's such a fighter.
If she believes that something's true,
she does not back down.
She will not.
And not to say that she can't change her mind
'cause she can, but while she is convicted,
she'll not stop fighting.
She's pulled me out of the fire repeatedly.
We've lived through so many things.
Very lucky.
- How has she made you a better arm wrestler?
- She's fed me.
- Yeah, I could see your videos of your house
basically coming apart when she's not there.
- Yeah, without Jodi, I'm on the street living in a tent
and yeah, eating dog food.
- Bravery.
What about love?
How has love made you stronger?
Now we're gonna make Devin uncomfortable.
- Love is difficult to accept.
Love is one of those things that a lot of times,
you don't feel worthy of it.
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.
And here you go, you're gonna make me cry, Lex.
Yeah, Jodi and I have been through so much.
And she's shown me how, she's 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.
- It's like sticking through together for years,
even when you're through the shitty times.
- Love and faith are powerful forces in this universe.
Without them, we can descend into darkness very quickly.
As a world, even between people,
when love and faith is destroyed, then we fall apart.
And I've been graced by the love that Jodi's given me.
It's allowed me to continue to build.
When you have love between people, then you build together.
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.
When that falls apart, we don't have much.
- Yeah, just with my boy there, yeah.
- Yeah.
You also mentioned you were,
you once had a job where your death was a real possibility.
So you were in the Canadian Special Forces.
What did you take away from that experience,
that time in your life?
- Yeah, it was such a great life.
Really, really loved it.
Honestly, I never wanted to leave.
I never thought I would leave.
I thought I'd be there my whole life.
Real honor to get to serve.
- 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?
And you mentioned sort of honor
in terms of the serving part.
- 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.
I never, I always felt totally comfortable
in putting my life in the other guy's hands.
I was so happy to be in a place where I felt I could follow.
Didn't matter.
I knew that the people ahead of me were incredible.
I knew the people beside me were incredible.
So just having that faith in your team, it's very special.
And to know that they're there for a reason
that has nothing to do with money.
You know, and that's what kind of brings everybody together,
is you're there for a higher purpose.
And in terms of being an adrenaline junkie,
there's nothing like it.
I mean, there's nothing like going out at night and fighting.
And when I say fighting,
like my whole life I wanted to fight.
And to me, there's a lot of,
and look it, 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 do.
And I don't believe that to be true anymore.
But at the time, I thought it was the best way
I could express my drives that I had, you know,
to be a fighter.
- So your sense in the past, and maybe in part now,
is that fighting is when humans get a chance
to express themselves deeply.
Like that mix of the bravery, the integrity,
whatever that is that makes us human,
that human spirit 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, that expression to me
was really, really awesome.
I loved close quarter battle.
That was my favorite thing.
That's really the whole reason I was there.
- Can you describe close quarter battle?
- Close quarter battle 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 drills
done quickly and accurately, it's very difficult.
- With communication?
- With communication.
- Yeah, so it's basically cooperating together,
communicating, there's some strategy,
there's some adapting to the changing environment.
- And the more the team works together,
the less communication there is.
Yeah, yeah.
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.
I think it's, 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, that's one of the things that makes us really human
is that collective intelligence and the social aspect.
And fighting is the highest of stakes.
So that social interaction under the highest of stakes
is, really does bring out something that's deeply human.
I mean, war in general brings out something deeply human.
- It does.
- It's, I mean, obvious to say that it's tragic
that it results in so much loss of life and well-being.
Let me, if it's okay for a brief moment
to take us back to arm wrestling.
We did this like offline, we talked about,
you gave me some advice about arm wrestling.
§09Transcript · 1:14:34–1:23:51
But maybe do a high-level overview
of 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 King's move.
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 where two people have to,
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 win when the back of one of their hands
crosses some kind of, or basically touches the table.
And 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
clasp your hands 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.
So often you'll put the straps,
which means you're, it's like marriage.
- Yeah. - You're committed.
- Yeah.
- For like somebody will have to lose essentially.
There's no pulling out.
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 understand?
- 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 guy, but guy who's very active,
a guy called Jerry Catarat.
Okay, as soon as you think Jerry Catarat,
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.
- So your wrist is flopped, so it looks like you're 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 like push. - Push.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- 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?
Basically, that's his great move, is a top roll.
And his other weapons aren't nearly as powerful.
Just incredible top roll.
And then you have a lot of athletes that are more blended.
Okay, they have a lot of good options.
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, I'd call it attrition.
Right, so a lot of people are very willing to trade energy.
- Mm-hmm. - Right, 'cause they have faith
that their gas tank or their pool
eventually will tire the other person out.
So anytime there's a trade, they'll trade.
Whereas a guy like Travis Bajan,
he was very, very well known
as being extremely explosive, right?
But if the match stops, typically he's gonna lose.
All right, so based off of your genetics, your hand,
there's a lot of ways to skin it.
So I think you said something like you're a 20-second guy.
- That's right, I'm a 20-second guy.
- So what are the seconds we're talking about?
So a lot of the power people,
they wanna win in the first maybe five seconds.
- Even shorter.
- Just that first push, that first press.
- Absolutely. - And that's it.
- 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 the way they're built, that's the way they train.
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.
- Where would you put Levon?
- I would not say he's a specialist.
I'd say his top roll is the strongest move.
- Top roll.
- Top roll is the strongest move, yeah.
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,
there's gonna be a guy out there who will get you.
Yeah, it'll be very difficult for you to beat that guy.
But when you come to 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.
- It buys you out.
- Right, yeah.
But in supermatch format, typically blenders do better.
- So we offline also talked about arm sumo
or freedom arm wrestling.
I don't know how you wanna call it.
- Oh, I love freedom.
(laughing)
- Exactly, North American way.
So this is this idea, and I watched a few videos,
and it looks fun, is 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 think you've mentioned that the criticism that gets
is it might be injury prone or something like that.
So can you describe this arm sumo,
freedom arm wrestling idea?
- When you come to freedom arm wrestling,
basically it removes the limitation
of a standard arm wrestling table.
So basically every single thing
is a freedom arm wrestling table.
Some are better than others.
So looking for that nice table where we can kind
of stand apart from each other and we're anatomically
in a fairly safe position.
And the rules in freedom, the way you win is like
the knuckles must either touch the tabletop
or you hold it off the edge for a three count.
So this is the main way to win.
Yes, you can foul, like if you lift your elbow up,
it's 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.
So you're fighting in a field,
you're fighting just bigger.
So it just makes the sport bigger.
Yeah, this is Japan.
- But even on a small table,
even in a slightly larger phone booth,
you can get a lot more fun and variety.
- Way more, 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 can do it at a bar, all that kind of stuff.
- Yeah, less equipment requirements.
Most kids start freedom.
Like most kids arm wrestle on school desks.
Yeah, and like if you see a guy on the street,
you're like, whatever, like you can arm wrestle anywhere.
You don't need to bring your table around with you.
- If we talked about the elite level,
if somebody was interested in starting in arm wrestling
or like going from just like, you know,
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.
§10Transcript · 1:23:53–1:32:25
- First step, I'd say find people.
Find people, find good people.
- Volume.
- Well, get with a club,
get with people who know what they're doing,
who can mentor you.
- And that's really cool.
I realized there's a club in Austin.
- Yeah. - I'm sure there's
in a lot of places. - Oh, they're everywhere.
We got this app called Armbet.
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 the lifts.
I mean, if you go to the gym, just start doing the lifts.
And right away, those will technically prepare you.
- What are the lifts?
Can we describe?
- Yeah, so I'd say if you wanna just keep it
very, very simple, let's just talk about three.
There's much more than three.
But when you talk about energy allocation,
these three lifts, in my opinion,
should be like 90% of your investment.
It's very big, these three lifts.
And the exact percentages, you can argue about it,
but we'll start off with the cupping of the wrist.
Just this, it's a simple thing.
And do it with a cable.
You can get a thicker diameter,
so it kind of is more out on your fingers
where an armrest is gonna attack you.
Because any good armrest is gonna attack your fingers.
- So like open hand?
- No, no.
Well, I mean, for health, yes, you could.
But if you wanna be really specific,
you train exactly the way you would at a table,
in the position that you actually start the match.
- And then you're just doing this kind of--
- Yes, to your center.
One of the big misconceptions in arm wrestling
is that you're aiming for that pin pad.
- No, the chest up here.
- Bring it close to you.
Make it come close to you.
You see, whenever I do my exercises,
the vector is always pulling straight towards me.
So just 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's a terrible thing for me.
Yeah, so that cupping,
that's a massive part of the sport.
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.
- To fight that rolling.
- Exactly, yeah.
So that's through the thumb.
- Yeah, oh, so you put, got it.
You put on the thumb and you put this motion.
- Yeah.
- Got it.
- Yeah, and those two things,
those two things together, this cupping and rolling,
this is what's gonna make the person's hand bend back.
And once a person's hand is bent back,
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 huge part
of your investment.
Rise, always be climbing.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, those three simple things,
that's what I would tell anybody to spend
most of their time on if you wanna 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,
and if you like to be precise,
bands just aren't that precise.
- Right, to have growth.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- 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 know exactly my outputs.
So weights.
- So it would be like cables?
- Yep, cables are nice.
Bands are great too.
I mix the two.
Bands are when I kind of don't need to,
they're more like easy for me.
When I train bands, bands are dangerous
'cause 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 make it go really much worse.
- Yeah, it's funny that you didn't mention bicep curls or--
- Well, it's a chain.
It's a chain.
- Right, I mean, the idea, if you focus on these three,
the other stuff catches up.
Like it's all involved.
This whole thing is involved.
- So if you have an ax, right, the blade of the ax,
that's these things, right?
Like you need the pointy end of all your attacks
to be awesome, right?
- If you have a super sharp ax,
you could have a shitty hand.
- Exactly, yeah, right?
- Yeah, so focus on that.
- The pointy, the tip of the ax.
- Yeah, the tip of the ax 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 just thinking about jujitsu, especially in the gi.
There's a lot of, I mean, there's so much importance to this
and people don't often work it explicitly.
So many of the chokes require ability to,
it's almost like exactly like arm wrestling.
- Very close.
- Because you're weak here, what's that called, flop wrist,
and you're strong with the cup, yeah.
And so just getting the muscle, whatever that's involved,
the muscle, the turning, the pressure,
'cause 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 wanna be very good,
you should be doing the very specific exact motion.
- Yeah, so if I was gonna do jujitsu,
I'd be like working out with the gi.
- Yeah, the problem is, you know,
it's difficult to construct the exact,
so you have to actually go with people
and then they don't like being choked on, right?
So like it's hard to, I'm actually a big,
we have these kinds of debates all the time,
is I'm a big believer in drilling.
I love doing something thousands of times.
Like John Donahue, somebody I mentioned to you
about the jujitsu folks here,
they're less believers in drilling.
They see the value of almost like the mind
of going live and exploring ideas, it'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 better.
And then in action practicing, like developing the strength,
the power, the explosive of the agility in action.
So actually rolling.
I don't, you know, I agree with this,
but I just believe in volume more.
- Yeah, so you can accomplish it through volume.
You can play a lot.
- Yes, exactly.
Well, that's the, if you really wanna get good,
is you're talking about, I mean,
that's why 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--
- Whoa, that's tough, oh my God.
- Well, so there are a lot of them are not going hard.
It's just being on the mat.
Some of it 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 mental too, 'cause you're keeping in your mind.
And some of the greatest, this is what they talk about,
the wrestlers I've talked with, the fighters,
at the top of their career, they basically,
George St. Pierre is like this, another fellow Canadian,
is like, has stick figures in his head that he can't help.
They're like in there, 'cause if you train enough hours,
it's just gonna be in your head
and they're all going to be playing around in your head.
And some little detail over time,
§11Transcript · 1:32:27–1:41:34
it's almost like computing or something like that.
And that ends up having a result,
even though you're not physically doing anything.
It's always in there.
I do have to return to diet real quick.
I know we're talking about pancakes.
Let me, quite seriously, 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?
Yeah, from 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.
I've done raw.
I've eaten only meat.
I've eaten balanced.
I've eaten like a bodybuilder.
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.
I believe that, I mean, just to be very basic,
I mean, if you're eating enough food,
you're probably gonna be okay.
- So it's just calories?
- It's a lot, I mean, really, I mean,
not to overcomplicate it,
but I mean, that's where the conversation starts.
Are you eating enough food?
And it can come in any number of ways.
And 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, back to like volume, right?
Like you need to, like if you wanna be a super heavyweight,
it's very different
than if you wanna be a weight category guy.
If you wanna be a weight category guy,
I'd say that you need to be more responsible,
make better choices.
If you wanna be a super heavyweight, everything.
- Just so we're watching a delicious looking omelet.
So eggs, bacon, syrup, so you don't care carbs.
So in all the things you've tried,
so I mostly eat meat now.
And I landed on that.
There's several things, obviously I'm not,
but I do a lot of sport.
And I was very surprised how my particular,
very specific body can perform better with only meat.
Why better?
The sports I do, the mind matters.
And so for some reason, my mind is just clear.
And I don't think, 'cause it feels unhealthy.
It just makes me feel really good.
I don't think I would recommend it to anybody else.
So 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--
- You actually put Doritos on, I forgot about that.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm an idiot.
Now I'd say over the last couple years,
I've really gone into carbs a lot,
and high glycemic carbs.
Just to, I feel like it's one of the best things you can do
if you're working out really hard.
Just add carbs. - Cheers.
- Exactly.
But, oh, where was I?
- So you've added-- (laughs)
- Distracted. - The syrup is--
- I forget everything. - So delicious,
it's distracting.
No, so you've added the high glycemic carbs into the mix.
So that, 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 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 gonna do good things for you,
and if you allocate it the right way,
it's gonna have a positive impact.
And I try and do that, no matter what it is.
I have my foods that I think do certain things,
and so, for me, I know that, actually, I mean,
I learned about corn-fed pumps when I was overseas.
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 a couple ice cream bars.
You know, like, whatever.
And what I realized is if I eat an entire bag of chips,
or a bunch of chocolate bars,
and then I go and have a workout,
my workout will be incredible.
It'll be incredible.
There's something about easily processed carbohydrates
that will continue to quickly get into your blood
as fast as you can burn it.
And there's something about that that,
well, it gives you incredible 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 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 X diet, all those kinds of things.
I wish incorporated into that would be
your mental relationship with all 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 think that's really important to understand.
If you're, if you sleeping crazy hours
is not affecting your stress
and is 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'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 may be worse than eight hours
or four hours may be worse than six hours.
So the mind is a powerful thing.
- Super powerful.
But if you wanna 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 had to, you know, it's your last meal.
- I am, I do, oh geez, I like so much food, it's tough.
But I'd say the food that I rely on a lot
when I'm getting ready to compete is sushi.
Just because it normally comes in an all you can eat format.
(laughing)
You know, so, you know, I love to go and just binge
all you can eat, all you can eat buffets.
Sushi is just super convenient.
- Yeah.
- If I was a sushi all you can eat buffet place,
I'd be terrified when I saw you.
Have you had barbecue at Texas?
- Yeah, I love it, I love it, yeah.
- So you, just a small tangent on this,
you faced the mountain, how for,
be honest, well first of all, you arm wrestled them.
It's interesting to ask, so this is the mountain
from the Game of Thrones, strong man,
one of the strongest people in the world,
for a time, the strongest person in the world.
What was it like, I know sort of,
you guys maybe weren't going 1000%, but what's it like?
- Well he probably wasn't going 1000%.
(laughing)
- Yeah, but like what, it's interesting to think,
what does that strength feel like?
So 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
you've drawn from that battle?
- I feel like if we were to go back 1000 years,
and if you give him armor and a two-handed sword,
he will just rip across the landscape.
(laughing)
And no one will stop him.
- So this is the boxing match you came to,
but there's also a video of them arm wrestling.
- Yeah, what a titan though, what a titan.
You know, a guy like that, tall,
strong, fit, disciplined.
I mean, he is quite a warrior.
- 419 pounds.
- Yeah, yeah, he's incredibly impressive.
I really like Hap Thor, and I like Eddie Hall too.
And I was just so, I'm just so caught up with the drama.
§12Transcript · 1:41:38–1:50:02
Okay, so Eddie Hall and Hap Thor Bjornsson,
two of the strongest, legendary strongmen that we have.
And they were the coolest,
they were the top when strongman was really super cool.
I don't know all the details,
but they legit hit each other.
(laughing)
Like legit.
So I think it kind of stems, I don't know,
like I say, I'm not right there with them,
but Eddie won the World's Strongest Man event
or something one year.
And the thing is, it was one of those victories
where Hap Thor 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 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 gonna fight each other.
So I've been like, 'cause arm wrestling and strongman,
it's kind of similar communities.
- Who do you got?
If you were giving me financial advice--
- Oh, Jesus.
I am so bad.
I always call it wrong.
They're very different.
I see Hap Thor as being--
- More Eddie Hall slimming down?
Is that what you mean as well?
- I see Hap Thor as a bit more regimented,
but I see Eddie Hall as like way more barbaric.
And like, I think he's a little bit more athletic,
but Hap Thor is bigger.
And, you know, they've chosen slightly different
paths to prepare for the match.
But what happened was like, they were about to fight
and Eddie Hall blew his bicep.
So me, I was getting ready for LaVon in December.
We were supposed to arm wrestle 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.
- How much training?
You trained a little bit.
So can you tell about your own decision to do that?
What was the training like?
What was the experience like?
- Yeah, oh, it was so much fun.
It was so much fun.
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.
But I'm like, listen, I'm an old man.
Like I'm gimped up like everywhere
outside the arm wrestling lanes.
I said, but I will 100%, like if you let me fight him,
I'll give it my all.
And whatever, they didn't get back to me.
They're like, yeah, whatever, okay.
So then they call me on a Friday,
like five weeks before the event.
And they're like, hey, Davin, were you serious?
And I'm like, oh shit.
(laughing)
And I'm like, yes, I was serious.
Yeah, I'll do it.
And they're like, okay.
They're like, it's down to you and like two other people.
We'll get back to you in a day or two.
But you would do it.
And I'm like, okay.
So they got back to me on Sunday.
So right away I'm like skipping rope
and I'm like, I only arm wrestle legs.
That's all I do.
- So what was your, you did some striking training.
- Yeah, so I went to this guy that,
he was awesome, Zach Ben Bushida there.
That was it, from TriStar.
Do you know Firas Tahabi?
- And yes, people in the comments,
I will interview him on this podcast.
- 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 Firas.
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 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 the fighter dorms.
- Just humbling yourself.
- Yeah, every day, just getting punched in the face,
over and over, 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 Firas just talking.
Yeah, I don't remember which stage this was,
but basically-- - This is early.
- But you were already beginning to get humbled.
- Oh man, I knew, I mean, I knew what I was getting into.
Like 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 to say, I had to do it.
I love the process and I learned a lot from doing it.
Like the dorms, I wanna do something like that
with arm wrestling.
I think we're big enough now that we can have these kind of
dorms, frat houses, whatever you wanna call it.
- What's the dorm like?
So you're basically staying there, food is there.
So you mentioned, what was the word you used,
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.
That your life becomes simple.
- So there's a guy named Jimmy Pedro here in America.
He's a famous coach, there's a place up in Boston.
He has kind of a dorm like that too.
That becomes essential when the community is small
but you're trying to do epic things
like win an 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.
- Yeah, it wasn't enough time.
I mean, I trained for about three or four weeks.
But I love the journey.
- What are some of the fun things you enjoyed?
So you did mostly striking.
Did you, yeah, I guess it was--
- Yeah, it was boxing.
- It was straight up boxing.
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 movements?
'Cause for us it's a unique mind as well for training.
- Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I've gone very far down the path of arm wrestling.
Boxing and arm wrestling are very different.
They're very different sports.
The physicality required is very different.
The mentality, I mean, it's fighting.
So it's another form of fighting, which is cool.
The big things that I took back from it,
the things that I loved about it was I had to run again.
- So really work on endurance.
- Yeah, yeah, I was going for runs with guys in the dorms
and they would just destroy me.
Just like, it was so bad.
- Did you, like how did you feel in the actual boxing
in terms of endurance?
Were you able to--
- No, no.
- It's just torture.
- It was terrible.
And the thing is, is it was so crazy for me
because I really was good once upon a time.
I really was, like physically,
like I had incredible full body endurance,
but being so specialized, I realized how much I had slipped.
And yeah, 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.
I think it was a very healthy thing for me to do,
like health-wise.
I always think that 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 too.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Just like, yeah.
Yeah, so something about clearing your,
I think you've talked about this,
it's like you're basically taking steps back
§13Transcript · 1:50:06–1:58:48
before you take steps forward.
It's, I forget how you call it.
- Yeah, the wave.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, under, you have to go under.
You got to.
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.
(laughing)
But Mountain, I mean, the interesting thing was
as incredible as he is,
what a monster.
And I think if you had had him training in boxing
for a long time and from his youth,
I think the guy could be world champion.
But to be so specialized and then to switch,
you're at a disadvantage.
And also, 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,
there's guys in that TriStar gym
that don't look like anything,
that would murder me, much worse.
Much worse.
- Yeah, but also, that's the difference
between being in the gym and under the lights too.
I mean, GSB is an example,
George St. Pierre is an example,
somebody that maybe doesn't look terrifying.
- He's at a TriStar.
- Yep, he trains at TriStar,
but he's super nice, super humble,
but is terrifying when he's fighting.
- Right.
- Is 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 contemplate the end,
that this thing, that this ride ends?
- All the time, yeah.
From, I've thought about death from a young age.
- Are you afraid of it?
- Yeah, I hate it.
Yeah, I don't wanna die.
Yeah, definitely don't wanna die,
but there's times when I can rid myself of it, yeah.
But for sure, I mean, I'm not happy
that death is inevitable,
and I'm not happy that potentially
it's inevitable for all of us.
But it does, I like to fight against it.
- Does it?
- Yeah, death is--
- If you could be immortal, would you choose to?
- That's my only wish.
- Oh, see, but here's the thing.
But the point is to have that wish.
It's like the all-you-can-eat buffet at sushi.
It's that sushi's more delicious if you have a limit.
- Do you have a, oh, well.
- I don't know.
(laughing)
- 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.
I mean, if someone would pose it to you,
do you wanna live forever, you would choose no?
- Yeah, I would choose no.
- Choose no.
- Well, my answer's probably yes.
Like, no, I would, it's more like the snooze button.
- Do you wanna?
- Well, you could go to sleep.
- But it's very difficult in the moment to go to sleep.
But if I'm allowed to live forever,
I'm going to delay all the crazy,
like all the ambitious goals, all the,
because 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, it tastes delicious because you're going to die.
I'm afraid if you're not, I'm afraid all of that goes away.
All of that magic goes away if you can live forever.
I don't know.
(laughing)
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, it's always been that way, but yeah, no.
- That's why the Stoics, you know,
they really preach contemplating your mortality often.
It kind of reminds you,
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 part of me thinks that immortality
is not as fun as we would like to imagine.
- Do you think that maybe you're,
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.
Like, 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 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.
- On immortality?
- Yeah, just think, well, now you can get
all those things done that you want to do.
- I hope you're right, I hope you're right.
- Yeah, 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 think about this a lot.
I hope you're right, but I fear that the drive to create,
I can even do more, all of that 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 watch
the stupidest YouTube videos for the rest of all eternity.
- Now, eternity's a long time.
- Eat Doritos and 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. (laughs)
So for the first thousand years,
it'll be the Dorito period of the Lex life.
- Yeah, you could be like Jabba the Hutt for a thousand years.
- You mentioned aliens, very important topic.
Do you actually think about this?
There's been an increased interest,
there's been increased UFO sightings and encounters,
all that kind of stuff, the US government
at least releasing data, releasing videos of pilots,
pilot observations and from airplanes of UFOs.
Do you think about this kind of stuff?
'Cause you mentioned in the following context,
you mentioned like us humans will get our shit together
when the aliens eventually come.
What do you make of all the sightings?
Is that something you think about?
- I thought about it a lot when I was younger.
And I've just, I made my conclusions and yeah,
I don't think that there's a possibility
that there aren't aliens.
I would think it would be impossible
for there not to be aliens.
I feel like this is pretty good real estate.
So, you 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 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 altogether
§14Transcript · 1:58:52–2:08:09
just 'cause 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.
- 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.
There could be much more special species here on Earth
that we're just totally oblivious to,
like trees on a scale of thousands of years.
Maybe they're onto something.
- Lex, you know, I think that so much
of what makes a person special is what they pass on,
your kids, 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 Devin, during this podcast,
I wear the doorbell ring, had to go downstairs,
and there was a big box, (laughs)
medicine box with a new-legged robot.
So the hilarity of you saying that is,
'cause that robot is actually going to likely be
the main robot that I show to the world
in the coming months, 'cause that has the,
that's the highest compute level in that robot.
So I've been playing a lot with legged robots,
the four legs, like a dog.
I like all 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 step, step, step, step,
and then the robot realizes you're here,
and then it steps and then notices you
in the way the dog does and raises its head.
It makes me feel noticed and heard
in the same way I do when a dog notices me.
That excitement, that stupid excitement of like,
yes, fellow living organism.
And what excites me about legged robots
is that holy shit, it's 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 think that they'll take us with them?
- Yeah, I think so, because 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 robots to become intelligent,
they have to integrate themselves with society.
So they, by the very nature of how they become intelligent,
have to bring us along.
So it's not that there'll be this separate thing.
They have to, like we'll have robots in the home,
where 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 the robots make your human to human relationships
much more meaningful and richer.
They bring more love to the world, but it's integrated.
It's not like they'll be developing smarter and smarter
as 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, increasing the bandwidth
at which they can communicate.
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.
That to me is exciting.
And also, I just don't think it's possible
to stop this development, so we should steer it.
- Yeah, yeah.
- For good.
- Did you, I mean, you must've watched
the movie "Terminator," right?
- Yeah, of course, I love "Terminator."
- Yeah.
- I love Schwarzenegger.
- My favorite movie of all time.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, 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.
- Yeah, so it's interesting, actually,
I was gonna bring this up as you were talking about it,
but China and the United States,
I 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 system development.
- They're not going to.
- They're not going to.
So because China said we're not going to,
and now US officially announced that we're not, we can't.
- Well, you can't.
It's like, you never could, right?
As soon as it exists and it's better, people will use it.
- Well, but there's been a global ban on bioweapons.
So you were able to come to an agreement there
that we're not going to use biological weapons in war.
So 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 bombing locations,
and so the area at which they attack.
And so you get some of that stuff that you mentioned
that drew you to the military
is that teamwork between humans,
that decision-making.
So there's strategy, but built into that team
is a deep humanity.
Even when there's an enemy,
there's lines that you are aware of,
of what is ethical and what is not,
what is just and what is not.
And it's so easy for a machine to miss all of that,
plow through it and do deeply inhumane acts,
commit atrocities.
That's something that worries a lot of people.
'Cause, yeah, an AI-based war is just, it's terrifying,
especially with cybersecurity,
which is becoming more and more of an issue,
which is hacking.
Sort of people that look a lot like me
being the warriors of the future,
which is meaning people behind a keyboard
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 gonna happen.
Like, at some point, it's just when, right?
When does it happen?
- So that, I mean, to me,
I'm ultimately optimistic about the future,
and to me, I'm excited about the world with AI.
I'm even excited about 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.
It says, "Oh, kids these days with their video games."
There's part of me that's like that.
But I think what's, technology at its best
can bring out the best of humanity.
And so I think virtual reality, all of these things,
over time, we'll figure out how to fix it
to bring out the humanity.
Social networks, 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, 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?
- Just all of that.
- Oh my God, wouldn't that be great 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.
There's actually a tournament called Over the Top
in Australia that's a couple months away.
I think they're doing an all-the-over-top scene.
§15Transcript · 2:08:11–2:10:22
But there are arm wrestling movies
that are being made right now.
Actually, there's a documentary that's filming me
for this whole LaVon thing.
But yeah, we're probably due for another big one.
- 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,
looking not like you're looking today,
but just like--
- Yeah, yeah.
- Just a beard.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, normally I'm not--
- Just 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 gonna find the club here
and start working on my arm wrestling game.
Devin, this is such a huge honor
that you would spend your valuable time.
You would come down to Austin.
You would hang out with me and do this conversation.
- Super cool to talk to you, Lex, yeah.
- As I mentioned, 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,
but I'm sure, I hope the conversation
between you, Devin, and Joe happens eventually.
That would be epic as well 'cause he's a--
- Yeah, he loves fighting.
- He loves fighting, he loves wrestling, he loves strength,
and I think all of those are like so perfectly encapsulated
in the sport of arm wrestling.
So thank you so much for talking to me, brother.
- Hey, thanks so much, Lex.
(laughing)
- Thanks for listening to this conversation
with Devin Larratt.
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.
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