Transcript
00:00:00 I get so passionate about it.
00:00:01 I get so angry, you know?
00:00:04 Because there’s a saying like,
00:00:05 oh, can you beat him in a hook?
00:00:06 Can you beat, man?
00:00:07 Win, win, that’s it.
00:00:10 Just win and don’t talk to me about anything else.
00:00:13 You believe the match is finished.
00:00:16 And I wonder if that gets in the head of the other person.
00:00:19 See this?
00:00:20 Yeah.
00:00:23 Quit.
00:00:26 The following is a conversation with Devon Larratt,
00:00:29 considered by many to be one of the greatest
00:00:32 arm wrestlers in history.
00:00:34 This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
00:00:37 To support it, please check out our sponsors
00:00:39 in the description.
00:00:40 And now, dear friends, here’s Devon Larratt.
00:00:45 You are considered to be one of the greatest
00:00:48 arm wrestlers in history,
00:00:49 plus are one of the most charismatic
00:00:52 and fun people to watch in arm wrestling.
00:00:54 But let me first start with a ridiculous,
00:00:57 the controversial opinion.
00:00:59 I actually really enjoy Over the Top,
00:01:01 the movie with Sylvester Stallone,
00:01:04 where he’s a trucker.
00:01:06 It’s like a father son movie.
00:01:08 It’s, you know, like a bunch of sports
00:01:10 have the definitive movie.
00:01:12 Boxing has Rocky, maybe folk style.
00:01:15 Collegiate wrestling has Vision Quest.
00:01:19 What else is there?
00:01:20 Billiards has Color of Money.
00:01:22 This is the sort of movie for arm wrestling.
00:01:26 So what did Over the Top get right?
00:01:28 What did it get wrong about arm wrestling?
00:01:31 That was actually based off of a real story.
00:01:34 A lot of people don’t know that.
00:01:35 Yeah, the Over the Top movie,
00:01:37 I mean, to a certain degree,
00:01:40 that’s actually real life.
00:01:41 Like that tournament, Over the Top, was real.
00:01:44 Yeah.
00:01:45 It was literally named Over the Top.
00:01:45 Yes, yes.
00:01:46 There was a trucker division,
00:01:48 and the guy actually won a truck for real.
00:01:50 His name’s John Brzenk.
00:01:51 You know who that is, right?
00:01:52 So the actual Over the Top tournament,
00:01:54 the trucker division, was won by John.
00:01:55 Who is John Brzenk?
00:01:57 He is, a lot of people talk about him as like a legend
00:02:01 and one of, if not the greatest,
00:02:03 arm wrestlers of all time.
00:02:04 John Brzenk is every arm wrestler’s father
00:02:11 to a certain degree, all of us.
00:02:14 The entire sport looks up to him.
00:02:19 It’s incredible what he’s done.
00:02:21 I mean, at 18, he won Over the Top.
00:02:24 At 57, he just competed with me a couple months ago.
00:02:29 Still at the world level.
00:02:31 18, that’s 40 years of being at the top of the sport.
00:02:35 It’s incredible.
00:02:37 He’s hailed as the greatest of all time
00:02:39 in the sport of arm wrestling.
00:02:41 Yeah.
00:02:41 And he doesn’t, he’s beaten some monsters.
00:02:44 Oh yeah, yeah.
00:02:45 And he doesn’t.
00:02:46 I mean, when you talk about like the evolution of the sport,
00:02:51 he’s responsible for so much of it.
00:02:54 Like when you talk about, like a lot of times
00:02:57 when you go back like 20 years, 30 years,
00:03:00 a lot of us looked at arm wrestling, I think it’s,
00:03:03 I mean, as something you could kind of do.
00:03:06 And he’s the first guy who’s like,
00:03:08 if you want to get better at arm wrestling,
00:03:09 you got to arm wrestle.
00:03:10 And it seems so simple, but you know,
00:03:14 he answered so many questions that all of us had
00:03:17 about techniques in the sport, back in a pre video internet.
00:03:25 He’s been everybody’s target for like 40 years.
00:03:28 So in terms of strength, there’s a power in terms of skill.
00:03:31 What did he teach the sport of arm wrestling?
00:03:33 So if you look, how did the sport change
00:03:35 from 80s, 90s to the aughts?
00:03:38 You were at the top of the world for many years.
00:03:43 Many argue you’re still at the very top of the world.
00:03:45 But like you were very dominant, both left and right hand
00:03:48 in, I don’t know, 2008 to 2013, something like that.
00:03:55 So how did that sport evolve to today?
00:03:57 So it’s hard for me to comment, you know, prior to,
00:04:03 you know, when I came to the sport was kind of mid nineties.
00:04:06 Like I’ve been arm wrestling my whole life,
00:04:08 but I wasn’t really involved in the sport to a major degree
00:04:13 until probably, you know, mid nineties.
00:04:16 But I’ll say that before the mid nineties,
00:04:20 it was really hard to get good at arm wrestling.
00:04:23 Very difficult.
00:04:25 Everybody was doing it wrong, really.
00:04:28 Like it was really rare to find people
00:04:30 who were technically good arm wrestlers.
00:04:33 It was very underground.
00:04:35 You know, when I got into sport,
00:04:37 it was a flyer that came in the mail.
00:04:39 You had to know somebody who knew you.
00:04:41 You had to know somebody who knew somebody
00:04:43 who knew somebody, and then you go to a club
00:04:46 and you can’t do anything with these people.
00:04:49 And they knew how to arm wrestle.
00:04:52 They did, but real masters were rare.
00:04:56 And you know, then internet helped everybody.
00:05:00 Communication, the transfer of knowledge
00:05:04 became so much faster.
00:05:06 People became technically, you know, invested.
00:05:11 People started to train, sharing ideas.
00:05:14 By, I’d say, 2000 and,
00:05:20 well, probably around the turn of the millennia,
00:05:23 I’d say that professional leagues started to slowly pick up.
00:05:27 More organized, bigger productions.
00:05:31 Started to attract more athletes.
00:05:33 More people took it seriously.
00:05:35 By 2010, I’d say there was another jump.
00:05:39 More serious leagues, a little bit more money.
00:05:43 By 2015, more major media.
00:05:47 Like, people were investing a lot of money.
00:05:49 Like, you know, millionaires, billionaires type of people
00:05:53 were organizing events, setting up leagues.
00:05:56 And yeah, I mean, the past five years,
00:05:59 it’s just blown up.
00:06:01 The techniques, I mean, if I was to go back
00:06:04 to when I started, you know, what took me
00:06:08 10 or 15 years to learn?
00:06:10 I mean, new guys are showing up
00:06:11 and they’ve got it down in like a year.
00:06:13 Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:15 Well, the thing about it, the development of the sport,
00:06:18 is it’s, like I was telling you off mic,
00:06:21 it’s a battle of one versus one.
00:06:27 And then that can turn into battle of nations,
00:06:30 which, you know, there is.
00:06:32 There’s Canada, there’s the United States,
00:06:34 there’s all the Eastern Europe, Russia, Georgia,
00:06:39 all of that.
00:06:40 That’s what makes some of the greatest sports
00:06:43 in Olympics great, like weightlifting.
00:06:46 It’s a battle of nations, not just a battle of individuals.
00:06:48 And it’s almost like these two humans
00:06:50 represent the two nations.
00:06:52 And I see that very much,
00:06:53 we’ll talk about your matches coming up,
00:06:55 but there is that battle between North America
00:06:59 and that other part of the world.
00:07:01 Yeah, yeah, North America is very prized.
00:07:05 You know, the North American champion
00:07:07 is always highly sought after
00:07:09 because they’re typically the most famous.
00:07:12 Even still when, you know, quite arguably,
00:07:16 there’s always somebody in Eastern Europe
00:07:18 who’s just monstrous.
00:07:20 It’s typically the North American athlete
00:07:23 who’s more recognized.
00:07:24 By the way. Oh, yeah.
00:07:26 We’ll have a cup here with some maple syrup.
00:07:28 Cheers, Lex. Cheers.
00:07:29 We should probably show,
00:07:32 you just downed that whole thing.
00:07:34 No, no, no, I’m gonna sip it.
00:07:36 I’m gonna sip it, you know?
00:07:37 But by all means.
00:07:41 It’s really good, right? That is delicious.
00:07:42 Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:43 That is. Canadian maple syrup.
00:07:45 Yeah.
00:07:46 That’s a perfect July day from Canada in a bottle, yeah.
00:07:52 So you’re on a total tangent.
00:07:56 You are known for appreciating food
00:07:59 in all kinds of ways,
00:07:59 but one of the things you’re known for is pancakes.
00:08:02 That is, yeah, that’s gone to a crazy place in the sport,
00:08:06 but yeah, like.
00:08:08 Where did that originate?
00:08:09 So, where that originated.
00:08:12 When it went from like your actual love for pancakes
00:08:15 to the meme.
00:08:16 Yeah, so I think what happened was.
00:08:22 So I had a match with Michael Todd, big match.
00:08:26 Michael, great champion.
00:08:30 He’s another guy who’s, you know,
00:08:31 he’s never gonna get off the horse.
00:08:34 You know, he’s, Jesus.
00:08:36 His elbow is a complete disaster.
00:08:40 Probably one of the most loved and hated guys
00:08:42 in the sport right now.
00:08:45 Is it because of the King’s move?
00:08:46 Yeah.
00:08:47 Yeah, the King’s move brings him a lot of hate.
00:08:50 Not from me, not from a lot of people,
00:08:52 but a lot of observers have a big problem
00:08:56 with the King’s move.
00:08:57 What’s wrong with being a little bit controversial?
00:09:00 That’s fun.
00:09:01 You know, I get so passionate about it.
00:09:03 I get so angry, you know?
00:09:05 Because there’s this saying like,
00:09:06 oh, can you beat him in a hook?
00:09:08 Can you beat, man?
00:09:09 Win, win.
00:09:10 That’s all that matters.
00:09:12 Just win and don’t talk to me about anything else.
00:09:15 If you can win with style, win with style,
00:09:18 but don’t talk to me about anything but winning.
00:09:21 That’s the priority.
00:09:23 So you had this match with Michael Todd.
00:09:24 Yeah.
00:09:25 So I was in a terrible place.
00:09:29 I guess it was, I get so screwed up with the years.
00:09:31 It’s 2022 now, right?
00:09:33 No, it’s 2030.
00:09:34 What are you talking about?
00:09:35 That’s right.
00:09:36 I think it is actually 2030.
00:09:38 We’re way ahead of schedule.
00:09:39 Yeah.
00:09:40 Oh, man.
00:09:41 That’s right.
00:09:42 So when was this?
00:09:43 This was like a decade ago or no?
00:09:43 No, this is like a year and a bit ago.
00:09:47 Oh, this is very recent.
00:09:48 Very recent, yeah.
00:09:49 So I got really sick.
00:09:52 Is that the match?
00:09:52 Yeah, this is the match, right?
00:09:54 Awesome match.
00:09:57 So this match is for the Legacy Hammer.
00:09:59 So we invented this thing called the Legacy Hammer
00:10:02 and Michael took it from me in, I think, 2018.
00:10:05 And then COVID shut everything down
00:10:08 and Michael went overseas to try and set up,
00:10:11 because at that time, Michael was a North American champion.
00:10:15 He beat me and he went to Dubai
00:10:18 and he organized this great big match with LeVon.
00:10:21 And the whole thing fell apart.
00:10:23 Organizers, leagues, wouldn’t let it happen,
00:10:25 but there was still an ability
00:10:27 to have a match of significance happen.
00:10:30 So Michael’s like, who do you want?
00:10:31 And I’m like, let’s give Devin a rematch.
00:10:33 And I’m like, yeah, yes.
00:10:36 And I was really sick at the time.
00:10:38 I had DVT, I had pulmonary embolism.
00:10:41 I was mentally in a terrible place
00:10:45 and I got offered the match
00:10:47 and I just totally turned my life around.
00:10:50 And I committed really hard.
00:10:57 What happened in this match, by the way?
00:10:59 Oh, I just totally destroyed him.
00:11:03 I just beat the piss out of him.
00:11:08 Michael’s a good friend of mine, but.
00:11:11 Yeah, there’s a lot of camaraderie
00:11:12 when you guys talked afterwards, it’s great.
00:11:14 But we fight like brothers,
00:11:17 so we let each other really fight hard against each other.
00:11:20 But so I was, I knew, I mean,
00:11:23 strength and mass, they go hand in hand.
00:11:26 And I committed to just getting as big
00:11:29 and as strong as I could.
00:11:30 And literally, I was eating pancakes every day.
00:11:34 Bacon, pancakes, every sloppy bit
00:11:37 of garbage food I could eat.
00:11:38 I was trying to eat healthy also,
00:11:40 but if there was garbage food, I’d eat it.
00:11:42 What do you mean, bacon and pancakes isn’t healthy?
00:11:44 What are you talking about?
00:11:45 Exactly.
00:11:46 But people should go watch, there’s a video
00:11:48 where you make the Canadian meal of bacon
00:11:54 with some bacon cooking tips, water, that was interesting.
00:11:57 And then obviously pancakes and maple syrup
00:12:01 all over the whole thing.
00:12:02 Yeah, you’re making me very hungry.
00:12:05 I’ve caused more diabetes than,
00:12:08 probably gonna get in trouble karmically
00:12:10 for making the world obese.
00:12:12 You should probably write a book, The Pancake Diet.
00:12:15 Yeah, I think I will do that one day.
00:12:18 So you said mass and strength go hand in hand,
00:12:21 just at a big level about arm wrestling,
00:12:24 what’s more important?
00:12:26 Strength, power, endurance, skills, strategy,
00:12:30 or mental toughness, how do these components
00:12:33 all come into play in arm wrestling?
00:12:36 They’re all important.
00:12:38 You can use everything and you can adjust your strategy
00:12:41 based off of the tools that you have.
00:12:43 I would say if I could pick ever just one thing
00:12:48 to have more of, I would say that it would be strength.
00:12:53 Gained while fighting.
00:12:56 While actually arm wrestling, so not off the table.
00:12:59 No, no, no, so you get stronger from arm wrestling.
00:13:02 How do you get stronger from arm wrestling?
00:13:03 In jiu jitsu and grappling, you can get good
00:13:06 by training with people much technically worse than you.
00:13:11 So with white belts and blue belts,
00:13:12 it’s actually beneficial because you get to work stuff out.
00:13:16 But I wouldn’t say it develops that intensity
00:13:22 and power required to go against people at your level.
00:13:27 So how do you balance that?
00:13:30 Is it okay to go against people
00:13:31 that are much weaker than you?
00:13:33 Or do you really have to go against people
00:13:36 at the same level?
00:13:38 I think that a blended strategy is probably the best.
00:13:44 I’d say kind of a rule is whatever you do,
00:13:48 you get better at, right?
00:13:49 So you wanna be kind of as precise as possible.
00:13:54 You don’t wanna get hurt.
00:13:56 And it’s just about investment.
00:13:58 And the answer’s not always the same.
00:14:02 Things are gonna change.
00:14:04 I am currently a big believer in what I call
00:14:08 tower building, right?
00:14:09 So you have to do a lot of volume to build a great tower.
00:14:15 You need to have a ton, a ton of volume.
00:14:19 So when you look at how to best build volume,
00:14:23 you want to do workouts that aren’t particularly challenging
00:14:27 to make you feel good and do them so that
00:14:30 when you add them all together, you get the biggest number.
00:14:35 So many easy workouts a day that are specific as possible,
00:14:41 in my opinion, is the best way to lay the foundation
00:14:45 for an extreme peak.
00:14:47 And precision, right?
00:14:49 Like there’s no more precise way to get strong
00:14:53 at arm wrestling than arm wrestle.
00:14:57 So how often can you arm wrestle?
00:15:00 What’s your training regimen?
00:15:02 You’ve talked about this as the climb.
00:15:07 What is the training process to get great at arm wrestling?
00:15:12 Well, again, it’s gonna depend on what level you’re at.
00:15:17 The answer at the beginning might not be the same.
00:15:21 For me, a guy who’s been doing it almost 30 years,
00:15:26 I have to harvest.
00:15:27 I have to harvest energy from clubs.
00:15:30 I call it cosmic punch.
00:15:32 Sorry to interrupt.
00:15:33 You were here in Austin, Texas.
00:15:34 You are in Austin, Texas, but you were at the,
00:15:37 what was it called?
00:15:38 The water tank.
00:15:40 And you had an awesome crowd.
00:15:41 It was great.
00:15:42 I get to watch.
00:15:43 I got to interact with a lot of those guys.
00:15:46 Yes, just amazing community, amazing human beings.
00:15:49 I got to talk to Dmitry in Russian and in English.
00:15:54 He’s an engineer.
00:15:55 His wife is an engineer.
00:15:56 He’s a brilliant dude, but also one of the toughest,
00:15:59 I guess, guys you faced there.
00:16:01 But you faced, I don’t know how many people.
00:16:03 It must’ve been hundreds of matches.
00:16:05 So the bar was full.
00:16:07 Yeah, and that for me is a perfect training scenario.
00:16:10 Yeah.
00:16:11 So if I go in and just kind of be,
00:16:13 I’m like a lightning rod,
00:16:15 and I just absorb everything that I can get from people,
00:16:20 all their effort, that’s perfect.
00:16:24 That’s perfect.
00:16:25 I’m lucky because I’m in a place that I can handle it.
00:16:29 If I was losing or failing, this would not be optimal.
00:16:35 But because I’m strong enough,
00:16:37 I’ve been doing it long enough that I can kind of absorb it
00:16:39 without damaging me, this is perfect.
00:16:42 This is perfect.
00:16:43 I typically, when I’m training up for a very serious match,
00:16:47 I’ll try and do that three or four times a week.
00:16:51 And then the days in between,
00:16:54 I will just do blood flow rehab, blood flow rehab.
00:16:58 I will never hit a PR, a record.
00:17:01 I’ll never do it anymore.
00:17:03 I don’t do it.
00:17:04 I used to.
00:17:05 A lot of things change, and that’s why I say
00:17:06 there’s a lot of ways to do it.
00:17:08 This is currently a system that’s working very well for me.
00:17:12 So when you say PR, you’re not aggressively chasing a peak.
00:17:16 You’re just building and building and building.
00:17:19 Yeah.
00:17:19 My only peak that I care about is for this cycle,
00:17:24 the 25th of June.
00:17:25 That’s my only PR.
00:17:26 Let’s talk about the 25th of June.
00:17:29 Oh, yeah.
00:17:30 Let’s talk about Levan Siginashvili, the Georgian Hulk.
00:17:39 Question number one, is it possible to beat him?
00:17:42 He is widely acknowledged as the most powerful person
00:17:49 in arm wrestling today.
00:17:51 Is he beatable?
00:17:52 And if so, how?
00:17:54 Everybody’s beatable.
00:17:56 Everybody’s beatable.
00:17:57 Levan is incredible.
00:17:58 He is what this modern peak of arm wrestling represents.
00:18:07 So for people who are just listening,
00:18:08 we also have an overlay of a video
00:18:11 of Levan going against Vitaliy Levin,
00:18:14 another top three person in the world, perhaps,
00:18:18 in arm wrestling.
00:18:20 And Levan’s the guy on the right, just big.
00:18:23 I love it.
00:18:25 And the aggression, I mean, actually,
00:18:28 sort of underneath it all, he seems to be a teddy bear,
00:18:31 but when he turns it on, it’s raw power.
00:18:36 He’s the full package.
00:18:38 Levan is, he represents the pinnacle.
00:18:42 There’s Dennis in the background.
00:18:44 He’s like, I wanna be back in there.
00:18:47 Levan has a lot of bases covered.
00:18:49 He’s, I mean, he’s curling 300 pounds with one arm.
00:18:54 I mean, the strength that he shows for arm wrestling
00:19:00 is so far ahead of the field.
00:19:02 He’s very, very strong.
00:19:07 But it’s absolutely possible.
00:19:10 It’s absolutely possible.
00:19:11 The one thing that I’m confident about,
00:19:14 well, I’d say there’s two things.
00:19:16 The two things I’m confident about
00:19:18 is that I have more experience than he does.
00:19:21 And experience counts for a lot.
00:19:25 The other thing is my ability to breathe and recover.
00:19:31 So if ever there’s an opportunity for the tide to turn,
00:19:37 that’s, I think, where you’ll never get it back.
00:19:40 So I think if I can somehow find a hole in his game,
00:19:45 then, yeah.
00:19:46 So you want to hold off the initial assault of power
00:19:51 and then worm out and to find the hole.
00:19:56 And then, how much of that is mental?
00:20:00 How much of it is just the physical ability to do
00:20:03 for your muscles to have the endurance to hold off?
00:20:08 I like to make the sport bigger.
00:20:11 And a lot of things that most arm wrestlers
00:20:15 believe the sport is,
00:20:17 I always try and push those boundaries.
00:20:20 So there is definitely a mental aspect to it
00:20:25 when you’re faced with something
00:20:26 that you’ve never seen before.
00:20:28 That’s when things like experience comes in.
00:20:33 He can become surprised.
00:20:35 Where what’s a surprise for him is routine for me.
00:20:39 So my adjustments will be more precise, more accurate.
00:20:45 Yeah, that’s how I get in.
00:20:46 That’s how I get in.
00:20:47 Yeah, I play a dirty game.
00:20:49 You know?
00:20:51 So some of it, how important is confidence
00:20:54 in the progression of the match?
00:20:58 Is there ups and downs of confidence?
00:21:02 Like, holy shit, I actually have a chance to win this.
00:21:05 Holy shit, I’m winning this, you’re done.
00:21:07 There’s some of my favorite moments.
00:21:09 I don’t know if those are fake or not
00:21:11 in terms of your expressions,
00:21:12 if it’s fake until you make it.
00:21:14 But whenever you shake your head or whatever,
00:21:17 you make it apparent that you believe the match is finished.
00:21:22 And I wonder if that gets in the head of the other person.
00:21:25 When you start to actually,
00:21:28 so I’m sure you’re doing things,
00:21:31 like precise, detailed things with your hands
00:21:34 to also indicate that you believe they’re fake.
00:21:37 They’re finished.
00:21:38 But you’re facially just.
00:21:40 See this? Yeah.
00:21:43 Quit.
00:21:45 Oh, that’s right, because it’s facing the other.
00:21:49 So that’s ultimately what the battle is about.
00:21:51 It’s like, you’re done.
00:21:54 You might as well give up.
00:21:55 Commitment is so important in anything that you do, right?
00:21:59 Like, I always kind of try and bring things
00:22:04 to a level of commitment that’s uncommon.
00:22:08 I think that that’s a lot of reasons why I do well,
00:22:11 is because I just get so committed in the whole process.
00:22:15 And by the time that I actually show up to fight,
00:22:19 I sometimes just wish that they would kill me.
00:22:22 I wish that they would,
00:22:24 because that’s how far I want to go.
00:22:27 People talk about like, how committed are you to the match?
00:22:30 If you’re committed to the match and you lose,
00:22:32 you should be hurt.
00:22:34 I’m often unhappy when I lose a match
00:22:39 and I don’t have an injury.
00:22:40 I’m like, damn, what the fuck?
00:22:42 I shoulda.
00:22:43 I feel like I didn’t commit, you know?
00:22:47 I don’t know if you know Dan Gable as the wrestler.
00:22:50 Oh yeah, he was on.
00:22:51 He was on the podcast? Yeah.
00:22:52 Yeah, yeah.
00:22:55 He talked about his whole career.
00:22:56 He dreamed of working so hard that he can’t get off the mat.
00:23:01 By himself.
00:23:03 And he’s disappointed ultimately at the end of his career
00:23:08 because he was always able to get off the mat
00:23:10 on his own accord.
00:23:11 So he wants to, yeah, leave it all on the mat
00:23:15 just from exhaustion.
00:23:16 So that’s what commitment looks like.
00:23:19 What is this process, what is this climb
00:23:21 for probably the toughest match of your career?
00:23:26 I would say the most epic match in arm wrestling history.
00:23:31 I mean, it’s really building up.
00:23:33 You are, as you said, North America.
00:23:36 That’s, I mean, I think by accounts of many
00:23:41 you’re one of the greatest arm wrestlers ever.
00:23:43 He is one of the scariest arm wrestlers ever.
00:23:47 And so this match, by the way, where’s it happening?
00:23:50 It’ll be in Dubai. In Dubai.
00:23:51 June, so what does the climb look like?
00:23:55 The climb for me, what I have to change in my life always,
00:24:01 people talk about being a professional.
00:24:04 I’ve always loved the sport.
00:24:06 I’ve loved it like crazy, but to me,
00:24:10 the path is about simplicity and removal of distractions.
00:24:18 I do better and better the more I get rid of everything,
00:24:23 nothing else, so that my life is just the goal,
00:24:30 just the target and everything else is off the table.
00:24:32 And that’s where I need to get to, where there’s nothing.
00:24:38 There’s nothing between me and him.
00:24:39 And every single day you’re putting in the volume.
00:24:42 Every day, all day.
00:24:44 Now you said you worked out.
00:24:45 So yesterday you did hundreds of arm wrestling matches.
00:24:49 And then today you said in the morning you still worked out.
00:24:51 So what was that workout?
00:24:52 So you’re mixing up stuff where you’re doing weights also?
00:24:56 This morning, I try to really focus
00:25:00 on what’s administratively easy.
00:25:03 That’s a big part of me, everything I do.
00:25:06 So I just travel with bands.
00:25:08 Yeah, I got bands with me and it’s rehabilitative in nature.
00:25:13 So I’m really focusing on blood flow,
00:25:17 feeling good, doing proper movements,
00:25:20 but yeah, it’s just a band workout in the hotel room.
00:25:23 What does a band workout look like?
00:25:24 So are you doing the arm wrestling movement?
00:25:26 Oh, you see that?
00:25:27 See what you did there?
00:25:28 What’s that?
00:25:30 Yeah, it’s you.
00:25:31 You want to bring him in.
00:25:32 Yeah, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up into your center.
00:25:38 You think what can you control out here?
00:25:40 No, you bring everything close.
00:25:43 That’s it.
00:25:43 Don’t worry about pinning.
00:25:44 Pinning happens once it’s close to you.
00:25:46 Pinning is, people always think about pinning.
00:25:50 Don’t think about pinning.
00:25:51 How much of the body is a part of this, too?
00:25:53 Like the core, the torso,
00:25:56 because it feels like there’s that almost like
00:25:59 Mike Tyson punch power, right?
00:26:01 Yeah.
00:26:02 Does it come from the hips, too, and the legs?
00:26:06 It’s definitely the whole body.
00:26:08 It’s definitely the whole body.
00:26:10 Like everything is working.
00:26:12 You’re connected to the table at times,
00:26:14 as far as your base.
00:26:15 Sometimes your base is your feet,
00:26:17 but a lot of times you can base off the table.
00:26:20 So you can base off your hips, but I’ll tell you,
00:26:24 no arm wrestler cares about doing squats.
00:26:27 No arm wrestler is doing planks.
00:26:29 Okay?
00:26:30 It’s all about the forearm and the actions of the hand.
00:26:34 That’s always the limiting factor.
00:26:36 You look at a guy like Oleg Zakh.
00:26:38 Okay, do you know this guy?
00:26:39 Oleg Zakh.
00:26:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:41 Marvelous.
00:26:42 He’s a total hell boy.
00:26:43 He’s my inspiration to what I call pumpkin training.
00:26:47 But.
00:26:48 What’s pumpkin training?
00:26:50 Probably we’ll get into that,
00:26:51 but I only train my right arm.
00:26:53 That’s it.
00:26:54 Yeah, with homework.
00:26:56 But back to full body, it is full body.
00:27:00 My good friend Matt Mask, when he arm wrestled me,
00:27:04 he actually blew his internal abductor in his leg.
00:27:09 So yeah, people walk away from tournament.
00:27:11 Their calves can be sore sometimes.
00:27:13 You know, it happens.
00:27:14 But no, oh, there he is right there.
00:27:16 Yeah.
00:27:17 Oleg, he is a real life hell boy.
00:27:20 He’s like 170 pounds there.
00:27:23 Look at his arm.
00:27:24 Look at his arm.
00:27:25 Crazy.
00:27:26 Yeah.
00:27:28 Yeah, he’s totally crazy.
00:27:29 That’s you doing left right there.
00:27:30 So by the way, Levan, you’re going right.
00:27:33 Yeah.
00:27:34 Yeah.
00:27:36 So can you say more about the mental side?
00:27:39 Are you visualizing what it takes to beat him?
00:27:42 Are you trying to get in his head?
00:27:44 All of these things.
00:27:45 So do you think it’s possible to get in his head?
00:27:50 There’s definitely strategies that you can do
00:27:52 depending on who it is you’re facing.
00:27:55 It’s very good to know who it is you’re fighting
00:27:58 and choose the correct strategy mentally.
00:28:02 But I always follow a process
00:28:06 when it comes to my mental preparation.
00:28:09 When I’m far away from an event,
00:28:11 I just always build up my opponent,
00:28:15 build them, I build them, I respect them.
00:28:18 To a point where I almost start to fear them
00:28:21 and start to believe that they’ll beat me.
00:28:23 And this is a very vital part of my preparation.
00:28:27 And that’s where I am right now with Levan.
00:28:29 I just build them up into this thing that scares me.
00:28:33 And it forces me to be responsible,
00:28:37 because I don’t want to lose, I want to win.
00:28:40 So the greater my opponent,
00:28:42 the greater I can build their worth in my mind,
00:28:46 the more motivation it gives me.
00:28:49 Then there comes a point when it changes.
00:28:53 And then I start to degrade them.
00:28:56 And yeah, that’s when it normally starts to get fun.
00:29:01 And normally by the time I face them,
00:29:05 I just try and completely dominate
00:29:07 from every interaction from start to finish.
00:29:10 So, yeah.
00:29:13 When in the actual moment of the match,
00:29:17 like in the moments leading up to it,
00:29:19 what’s the feeling?
00:29:21 Is it fear, is it confidence, anxiety?
00:29:26 What’s going through your mind?
00:29:29 I love to fight, I love it, I always have.
00:29:33 There’s every day where you have the distractions of life,
00:29:42 and then there’s really living in the moment.
00:29:45 It’s whatever you love to do,
00:29:46 and that’s when you can really be free.
00:29:49 I’m free when I’m fighting.
00:29:52 So you put me in a good fight, and I just love it.
00:29:56 And I don’t think about the past,
00:29:57 I don’t think about the future,
00:29:58 I just think about killing that dude in front of me,
00:30:00 and I enjoy that.
00:30:02 And just being intensely in the moment.
00:30:04 That’s it.
00:30:05 Just right there, just fighting as hard as I can.
00:30:08 Do you study the opponent?
00:30:10 Have you, for this particular match,
00:30:12 do you study videos of LeVon?
00:30:14 I’ve seen everything.
00:30:17 I’ve read everything.
00:30:20 I get opinions from other people.
00:30:22 I watch very closely, yeah.
00:30:25 What do you make of his evolution?
00:30:26 So he’s grown in size,
00:30:30 but also you’ve talked about his
00:30:34 evolution technically as well.
00:30:37 Then studying him.
00:30:40 Since we’re in the build your opponent
00:30:43 to be terrifying stage, what makes him great?
00:30:49 He’s very impressive.
00:30:50 The greatest thing about him is his strength.
00:30:54 That’s the thing that sets him apart from everyone.
00:30:58 His strength, specialized strength.
00:31:01 Exact strength for arm wrestling.
00:31:05 I believe it’s unmatched.
00:31:06 Can we just linger on that word strength?
00:31:12 What does strength mean?
00:31:13 What does it feel like?
00:31:15 Are we talking about bicep, shoulder?
00:31:21 Are we talking about whatever controls the wrist?
00:31:25 Is it the, how does strength manifest?
00:31:29 When I touch your hand, when we grab arms,
00:31:32 I feel like fuck, that’s strong.
00:31:36 There’s control, right?
00:31:36 What is that feeling?
00:31:37 Where does that come from in arm wrestling?
00:31:40 When you’re at the top of the world,
00:31:41 where does that come from?
00:31:42 So it’s chains.
00:31:44 There’s chains of strength.
00:31:46 And in arm wrestling, this is like technical strength.
00:31:50 And we use these technical chains to fight each other.
00:31:53 The chains that I’ll talk about is,
00:31:58 so you’ll talk, remember how we talked about the post,
00:32:00 this upwards drive, this ability to close this angle?
00:32:04 This is a chain.
00:32:07 It can be used, it’s a technical attack.
00:32:09 It’s also an attack that can be built with training.
00:32:12 Just the ability to just drive upwards.
00:32:15 There’s a chain where you cup, right?
00:32:17 Cup your wrist in.
00:32:18 Cup your wrist in and the anchor and the chain
00:32:22 brings you right to your heart, right to your center.
00:32:25 This chain, and this can be done at any time.
00:32:27 There’s a pronation chain,
00:32:29 and that’s to turn your thumb over, right?
00:32:32 Turn your thumb over and you attack
00:32:34 the person’s cupping chain.
00:32:36 And there’s a huge number of muscles
00:32:37 involved in each of those chains.
00:32:39 And that’s why I say it’s a chain, right?
00:32:41 But they’re movements, and these movements
00:32:45 you can develop in the gym or through practice.
00:32:48 So you don’t mean, so it’s easy to sort of
00:32:51 interpret strength to mean how much you curl, essentially.
00:32:54 Yeah.
00:32:55 But you mean the chain.
00:32:56 It’s all has to do with the.
00:32:57 Right, and that’s, I mean, people talk is it a bicep?
00:32:59 I mean, yes, there’s bicep for sure involved,
00:33:01 but I’ll always be inaccurate if I try and tell you
00:33:05 what muscles are the, so I prefer to explain it
00:33:08 in a movement and then everything that’s involved
00:33:11 to do that movement, right?
00:33:13 Yeah, and Levan’s movements for arm wrestling
00:33:17 are incredibly impressive.
00:33:19 What do you attribute to, how much of that is genetics?
00:33:22 How much of it is some training thing he’s doing?
00:33:28 I think that Levan is very special in terms
00:33:32 of his genetics, like not everybody can be Levan.
00:33:36 You know?
00:33:37 Yeah.
00:33:38 There’s not many Levans out there.
00:33:41 But what I’ve encountered in the bias that I always see,
00:33:44 like when people talk about people like Levan,
00:33:48 they discount the other side so very quickly.
00:33:51 And the thing is Levan rarely has to show the other side
00:33:54 because he’s so far ahead.
00:33:56 You talk about the technical application of the sport,
00:33:59 he so rarely needs to show it, but he’s clearly incredible.
00:34:03 If you watch his progression, he came up
00:34:07 having very difficult technical struggles to overcome.
00:34:11 Georgia is a great country for arm wrestling.
00:34:13 Like there’s this guy, Gennady Kvikvinia,
00:34:15 who no one would ever say is not technical.
00:34:18 And you know, it took him years to defeat him
00:34:23 to a point where now it’s not even a discussion.
00:34:26 Yeah, you talk about the progression,
00:34:28 they had a lot of battles together over the years.
00:34:30 Yeah.
00:34:31 It’s fascinating to see the tides turn.
00:34:32 Oh yeah, and once they’ve turned,
00:34:34 it’s like completely, completely different level.
00:34:38 Yeah, I mean, he’s got strength, he’s got technique.
00:34:43 Some people will argue that his technique is flawed.
00:34:48 At times, they’ve shown matches where
00:34:51 he hasn’t shown the best technique, but he’s still won.
00:34:54 And I think sometimes he just plays with people.
00:34:58 You know, like there’s a famous match that he had with,
00:35:03 they call him the Bruce Lee of arm wrestling,
00:35:05 a guy called Angurbaev, Kurtagali Angurbaev.
00:35:08 He’s, they had a match in the top eight, great match.
00:35:11 Kurtagali is like 220 pound guy from Kazakhstan,
00:35:17 brilliant technician, but power wise,
00:35:19 you know, not in the same world.
00:35:22 And Kurtagali did well, even though he lost six nothing,
00:35:26 he still did well, but in my opinion, Levan didn’t care.
00:35:31 Levan was like grabbing him low and just like, whatever.
00:35:34 Like, I will show him things that he’s not seen before.
00:35:38 I will.
00:35:39 And he hasn’t competed often in this rule set,
00:35:42 which will be a challenge for him.
00:35:45 But yeah, what can I say?
00:35:48 Like Levan, he’s Everest.
00:35:50 Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:51 Yeah, you are seen by basically everybody
00:35:54 as the big, big underdog.
00:35:56 But you’re also, even in the Eastern,
00:35:58 even, I mean, I talk to Russians a lot.
00:36:02 You know that moment in Rocky
00:36:05 when they start cheering for Rocky?
00:36:06 Yeah, yeah.
00:36:07 You’re kind of the, they love you, they want you to win.
00:36:11 And just, you know, it’s not even,
00:36:13 just the battle itself is inspiring.
00:36:16 And it’s like the culmination in your career
00:36:19 because it’s, you know, you’re at the top for a long time,
00:36:23 but it’s like, it’s almost like it should be over for you,
00:36:26 but no, you’re returning.
00:36:28 It is like this big moment.
00:36:31 Yeah.
00:36:32 The big climb.
00:36:34 I will be the pointy end of the spear for North America.
00:36:38 Yeah.
00:36:39 Ah, beautiful.
00:36:40 Well, let’s, thanks for bringing that match up.
00:36:43 Let’s talk about just the match against Dennis,
00:36:50 your left hand match.
00:36:51 Yeah.
00:36:52 He’s also terrifying and seen as one of the strongest,
00:36:54 probably one of, if not the strongest
00:36:58 left hand arm wrestler.
00:36:59 Yeah.
00:37:01 There’s a lot to be said there.
00:37:03 Maybe you could talk about this match at a high level.
00:37:06 Why did you take on this match?
00:37:08 Why did you do the left hand versus the right hand?
00:37:10 What, can you tell the story?
00:37:12 Okay, Dennis the Plankoff.
00:37:15 There’s so much about this match.
00:37:17 I love Dennis.
00:37:18 Russian guy.
00:37:19 Yeah, Russian guy.
00:37:20 Russian, I used to call him Dennis Chernobyl.
00:37:23 Ah, what a monster.
00:37:27 He kind of led, I’d say, this new era of arm wrestling,
00:37:34 where the super heavyweight strength level
00:37:37 has just gone through the roof.
00:37:40 I wanted the match for such a long time.
00:37:42 We tried to get the match.
00:37:44 We couldn’t get it organized.
00:37:45 This is back in like 2008 to 2012.
00:37:48 Couldn’t get the match, couldn’t get the match.
00:37:50 I’ve always been more of a one on one puller.
00:37:52 He was doing the tournament format.
00:37:55 I was ranked number one in the world,
00:37:57 and towards the end, it kind of was very undecided.
00:38:00 I ended up getting surgery.
00:38:02 I ended up abandoning the super heavyweight division.
00:38:05 I went down to the 225s for a few years.
00:38:08 WAL failed, temporarily.
00:38:13 So the 225 pound division was scrapped.
00:38:15 And I said, okay, I’m going to go for the big crown once again.
00:38:21 And I started to go after super heavyweights.
00:38:26 The 2018 season was right hand.
00:38:33 I started to enter negotiations to have the match with him.
00:38:38 We’d been chasing the match for 10 years.
00:38:41 They wanted to do a left hand.
00:38:42 I wanted to do a right hand.
00:38:44 I just wanted to do the match.
00:38:46 I wanted to do the match with Dennis.
00:38:47 I wanted to meet Dennis.
00:38:48 So people should know that you were,
00:38:50 the right hand has always been your strongest.
00:38:53 It has been, I mean, I had surgery in 2016.
00:38:57 I hate to make excuses.
00:38:59 I hate to do it.
00:39:01 Dennis was better than me that day, even on my best day.
00:39:05 If you had gone back my entire career,
00:39:07 at no single day do I beat Dennis De Plankhoff in 2018.
00:39:11 I would like to think that I could maybe do it now.
00:39:14 But at that point, there would have been no version
00:39:16 that could have beat him.
00:39:18 Left or right?
00:39:20 Right hand?
00:39:21 No, I’m curious about the right, but left hand.
00:39:25 So is the world.
00:39:27 Well, it might still happen.
00:39:28 It might.
00:39:29 But Dennis completely destroyed me.
00:39:36 And I learned a lot from it.
00:39:40 I think before the Dennis match, I think I was, I don’t know.
00:39:46 I don’t know exactly what words to use.
00:39:49 Maybe I felt like my thinking was a little bit elitist.
00:39:54 And I really learned a lot.
00:39:57 I was really humbled that day by how far, and how professional,
00:40:03 and how prepared Dennis was, and how seriously he
00:40:07 took the sport.
00:40:09 There’s a mental, a slightly terrifying calmness
00:40:14 to him, which only comes with extreme preparation, I think.
00:40:17 Yeah.
00:40:18 His level of dedication was extremely inspiring to me.
00:40:26 I used to do a job where it was serious enough
00:40:34 that the price could be death.
00:40:37 And I arm wrestled throughout that entire period.
00:40:41 And I always kind of looked at the cost of doing an activity,
00:40:49 being death, limited to soldiering.
00:40:55 And I kind of changed my mind a lot after that match.
00:41:00 I realized that anything that you’re in love with,
00:41:04 once you get far enough down the road,
00:41:06 and professional enough at it, it’s going to kill you.
00:41:09 Doesn’t matter what you’re doing, if you’re crazy enough
00:41:12 about anything, it’s probably going to take your life
00:41:15 from you in some way.
00:41:18 And that doesn’t mean you rush towards death.
00:41:21 It’s just your level of investment and level of risk
00:41:24 can have some catastrophic effects.
00:41:27 Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, I think
00:41:29 has the quote, do what you love and let it kill you.
00:41:32 Right.
00:41:33 Like that.
00:41:33 Right.
00:41:35 And I understood that Dennis’s level of professionalism
00:41:40 far exceeded mine in what we were doing at the time.
00:41:45 And I realized that I was no longer employed.
00:41:50 I was now in the world of professional arm wrestling.
00:41:54 And I realized that what was I doing?
00:41:58 How serious was I?
00:42:00 So Dennis is an incredible guy.
00:42:02 Is there moments in that match, there’s
00:42:04 humility there, too, from him.
00:42:07 That was a fascinating sort of, it
00:42:12 seemed like you realized that you just hit a wall
00:42:14 and you were not ready enough for it.
00:42:16 It was incredible.
00:42:17 There was so many things that I remember about the Dennis
00:42:20 match.
00:42:21 I mean, I remember seeing videos of somebody
00:42:25 and then meeting them in person, it’s different.
00:42:28 I remember in the weigh ins, sorry, not the weigh ins,
00:42:30 the standoff that we did before the match.
00:42:32 I’m looking at him, I’m close.
00:42:34 I’m looking at his arms.
00:42:36 And his bicep, it looked like an ass.
00:42:42 It was like a freaking glute muscle.
00:42:44 Like his entire structure was so sinewy and just so strong.
00:42:51 I was like, wow, he’s physically so impressive.
00:42:55 And I remember when I arm wrestled him at a certain time,
00:43:01 he allowed me to kind of set my position.
00:43:04 You can’t really tell because it happens very quickly.
00:43:09 But he let me set my position, which
00:43:10 means I kind of got my locks in, where you can kind of really
00:43:15 do a great hold.
00:43:18 And he just ripped through me.
00:43:20 So you were able to get this great position.
00:43:23 So it was tore right through me.
00:43:27 And the first time I ever thought
00:43:30 that I had torn something.
00:43:33 I thought, after the match, I’m like,
00:43:34 geez, did he rip my chest right in half?
00:43:38 What, did it?
00:43:40 No, I think it was 100%.
00:43:42 Yeah, no, I didn’t actually.
00:43:43 Nothing went purple or anything.
00:43:45 But yeah, the strength gap was very significant with Dennis.
00:43:52 Could he, what would it take to beat him on that day?
00:43:58 It would take me just being a little bit stronger and more
00:44:04 healthy, yeah.
00:44:06 My left was not as healthy as it should be.
00:44:10 I didn’t have a full rounded technical arsenal.
00:44:13 It takes a time after surgery.
00:44:15 It really does.
00:44:17 You can be good, but after a surgery, like what I had,
00:44:22 you’re probably looking at three or four years
00:44:24 before you’re starting to hit technical proficiency
00:44:26 the way you should be.
00:44:28 And yeah, just a bit stronger.
00:44:31 How do you interpret the calmness on his face?
00:44:33 Well, what is that about?
00:44:35 Is he actually that calm or is he just trained?
00:44:37 It’s a Russian thing, I think.
00:44:38 I don’t know.
00:44:39 I see a lot of Russians like that.
00:44:41 They’re so stoic.
00:44:42 And I’m such a fan of Russia.
00:44:44 I really want to go to Moscow.
00:44:46 I’ve been saying it forever.
00:44:47 You’ve never been?
00:44:48 Not yet.
00:44:49 I want to go.
00:44:50 I want to just go and live there for a month and just train.
00:44:53 Moscow has got such a crazy arm wrestling scene.
00:44:56 From what I understand, they just have so many clubs.
00:44:58 There’s so many strong athletes.
00:45:00 Just go and just lightning rod.
00:45:03 Yeah.
00:45:04 Have you considered doing something of that sort?
00:45:08 It’s like Rocky IV again.
00:45:09 Oh, yeah.
00:45:11 And lead up to June.
00:45:12 I would certainly consider it.
00:45:14 I’ve got only one trip planned at the moment.
00:45:19 Administration is very important.
00:45:22 What do you mean by administration?
00:45:24 Like managing your time?
00:45:25 Management.
00:45:26 Yeah, the management has to be very efficient.
00:45:29 When I’m a tourist, when I’m a visitor,
00:45:31 a little bit of that goes down.
00:45:33 When I’m at my home and things are familiar,
00:45:37 I’ve got a really great grasp on my time.
00:45:40 Everything’s in place.
00:45:41 Everything’s perfect.
00:45:43 If I could magically transport Moscow into my hometown
00:45:47 and just go out and visit them, yeah.
00:45:50 So it’s very difficult when you’re traveling.
00:45:53 You have to figure out what you’re eating,
00:45:55 how are you getting the food, all the socializing.
00:45:58 Plus, you’re more and more a celebrity,
00:46:00 so there’s a social interaction, which
00:46:02 I don’t know how draining that could be on you
00:46:05 outside of the arm wrestling table.
00:46:07 So you have to manage all of that,
00:46:09 because ultimately, you have to focus on the fight ahead.
00:46:13 Yeah.
00:46:14 Yeah, a lot of my strength comes from just
00:46:18 being in a familiar place, doing my routine.
00:46:22 I love to travel.
00:46:23 I love to get out there and meet people and new experiences.
00:46:29 But when I just want to really prepare for a big match,
00:46:32 yeah, home is where I get strong.
00:46:35 So that loss against Dennis was one
00:46:38 of the few losses in your career.
00:46:40 How did that feel in the moments after, in the days after,
00:46:46 in the months after, in the years after?
00:46:48 How has it changed you as an arm wrestler as a human being?
00:46:53 Well, it’s tough to lose.
00:46:58 Still haunt you?
00:47:01 I don’t think so.
00:47:02 I actually was really happy to lose to Dennis,
00:47:05 because sometimes when you lose a match,
00:47:08 there’s a lot of matches that I’ve lost where they upset me,
00:47:11 because I know I made a mistake.
00:47:13 I didn’t make a mistake with Dennis.
00:47:15 He was just way better.
00:47:17 There’s nothing I could have done that day.
00:47:19 I’m really at peace with it.
00:47:22 Dennis, to me, was just a big inspiration.
00:47:25 I think that me arm wrestling Dennis left handed that day
00:47:28 just let me touch probably one of the strongest
00:47:31 human beings on the arm wrestling table
00:47:33 that’s ever lived, left handed.
00:47:36 So knowing that’s possible is almost like inspiration to you
00:47:41 that I can be at that level, too.
00:47:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:47:45 Seeing what Dennis did, just trying
00:47:48 to absorb a little bit of his knowledge planted seeds in me.
00:47:54 When I look at my career, it’s a bit like the stock market.
00:47:59 But for sure, I’m trending upwards.
00:48:02 And since really kind of wrapping my mind
00:48:05 around some of the Russian philosophies,
00:48:09 they really changed my training systems.
00:48:12 There were some base philosophies
00:48:14 that they talked to me about over there
00:48:16 that massively impacted my training.
00:48:19 Is it possible to convert some of those philosophies
00:48:21 into words?
00:48:22 Can you describe some of the ideas they taught you?
00:48:25 Never smile.
00:48:27 Right?
00:48:29 Man, it takes a while to break the ice
00:48:32 with a lot of these guys.
00:48:34 Well, once you do, that’s the deepest bonds you can form.
00:48:37 Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:48:39 I think that I was raised under, I believe it’s a flawed.
00:48:46 I mean, it’s not flawed, because it has its value as well.
00:48:50 But it’s best if you understand both philosophies.
00:48:54 I think a North American thing that’s
00:48:57 just so ingrained in our fitness society is no pain, no gain.
00:49:05 And just pushing, and sweating, and going harder,
00:49:09 and fighting through, and grit, and tough.
00:49:14 And then you talk to the Russians,
00:49:16 and they’re like, yeah, never fail.
00:49:18 You never fail.
00:49:19 Never go to failure.
00:49:21 Always feel good.
00:49:23 Always feel good.
00:49:23 It should always feel good.
00:49:26 And those two philosophies express themselves
00:49:29 very differently.
00:49:31 And if you want to get strong, yeah, don’t fail.
00:49:36 Don’t fail.
00:49:37 So they also are believers of volume.
00:49:41 Yeah, there’s a lot of strategies,
00:49:44 but volume is a massive principle.
00:49:47 And volume is very hard to achieve
00:49:50 when you’re believing in no pain, no gain.
00:49:53 They don’t really go together.
00:49:55 No pain, no gain, more injuries.
00:49:58 So is there parallels?
00:50:00 Because in wrestling, some of the greatest wrestlers
00:50:03 of all time are Russian.
00:50:04 And they were big, Dan Gable talks about it,
00:50:07 they were big on play.
00:50:10 Like, lighter wrestling is probably,
00:50:12 ultimately, actually, it boils down to
00:50:15 that’s how you achieve higher volume.
00:50:17 Like, over the stretch of years,
00:50:20 the way to reduce injury.
00:50:24 I mean, in wrestling also, technique
00:50:27 might have greater value than it does in arm wrestling.
00:50:32 Obviously, technique is extremely important
00:50:33 in arm wrestling.
00:50:34 But power can defeat technique, it seems like.
00:50:40 In wrestling, you can get away.
00:50:42 There’s a lot of ways you can really do sneak attacks,
00:50:46 sort of use leverage on those kinds of things.
00:50:49 So there’s even more incentive to do play
00:50:51 and all that kind of stuff.
00:50:53 But do you see the parallels between the two worlds,
00:50:57 wrestling and arm wrestling?
00:50:58 100%.
00:50:59 Well, you saw what I did the other night, right?
00:51:01 So I’m playing on the table for hours, right?
00:51:04 So that’s my number one training thing that I do,
00:51:09 is I go on the table for hours and I play.
00:51:13 Yeah.
00:51:14 Yeah, when you did, Sergey, can you pull up that video?
00:51:16 It’s on Devin’s channel, the water tank one.
00:51:20 Oh, it’s like 180p.
00:51:22 It’s like, the wifi in there was so bad.
00:51:25 Yeah.
00:51:26 It’s great, I love it.
00:51:26 It’s, maybe, I don’t know if it was fish eye,
00:51:29 but it had a fish eye feel, it was crowded.
00:51:32 I mean, so much camaraderie, it was amazing.
00:51:34 But maybe just a brief mention of Dimitri,
00:51:39 the Russian guy.
00:51:42 What, in that play, what are some memorable things here?
00:51:48 Like, when you go against a bunch of different people,
00:51:51 a bunch of strangers, what are all the differences
00:51:54 and how do you grow from them, how do you learn from them?
00:51:56 Well, everybody’s a bit different.
00:51:58 So, I love to go to new clubs,
00:52:02 because the energy’s always high.
00:52:04 Like, the first time you go to a club,
00:52:06 everybody’s trying to kill you.
00:52:07 Yeah.
00:52:08 Yeah, so they’re gonna.
00:52:09 There’s excitement and there’s this,
00:52:09 and so you feed off of that.
00:52:11 Yeah, you do, you can, if you’re able to be strong enough
00:52:14 to absorb it without injury, it’s awesome, it’s awesome.
00:52:19 Because they’re giving you everything they can.
00:52:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:52:23 Right, so it’s very specific, right?
00:52:26 Like, I’m gonna get way stronger at arm wrestling.
00:52:28 And what I try and do, when I go to these places,
00:52:31 is I make an assumption, I make an assumption
00:52:34 that I’m the best guy there.
00:52:36 And so, I’ll arm wrestle in a way that kind of protects them,
00:52:41 because the more I can protect them
00:52:43 and kind of keep them kind of in a good position,
00:52:47 they can actually give me more, right?
00:52:49 So, I kind of give them little pieces
00:52:52 that I think will put them in a place
00:52:55 that they can really give me more.
00:52:58 And so, yeah, that’s what I’m doing.
00:53:00 And then, when I see somebody like Dimitri,
00:53:03 I pull that in a little bit, right?
00:53:06 So, okay, so I know Dimitri’s the number one guy in Texas.
00:53:10 Lots of respect to the guy.
00:53:12 I won’t give him all the pieces
00:53:15 until I really kind of gauge where he’s at,
00:53:17 because I certainly, in training, don’t wanna fail.
00:53:21 I don’t want that, I don’t want to.
00:53:24 When you fail in arm wrestling,
00:53:26 imagine it’s just bad technique.
00:53:28 And you’re trying, and bad technique,
00:53:30 you’re gonna get hurt, yeah.
00:53:31 So, you always want to be in a strong position here.
00:53:34 What about, how does endurance come into play here?
00:53:37 And here’s video of you strapping up with Dimitri.
00:53:39 How do you, I mean, you went for like, I don’t know,
00:53:43 two hours?
00:53:43 Yeah, it was long.
00:53:44 So, this first run of the video, I think,
00:53:47 was a little over an hour, and then I took a break,
00:53:50 and I probably did another 45 minutes or so, but.
00:53:53 I mean, do you, how can, are you okay
00:53:57 with the endurance aspect of this?
00:53:58 Yeah, that’s probably, like, when you talk
00:54:00 to the arm wrestling world, that’s probably
00:54:02 what I’m best known for, is my endurance.
00:54:05 So, this helps build that.
00:54:07 It does, but that’s not why I’m doing it.
00:54:08 I’m doing it to get strong.
00:54:11 In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to get strong,
00:54:14 especially far away from a tournament,
00:54:17 or any kind of an event.
00:54:21 I wouldn’t wanna do this, you know, even a month,
00:54:25 or even six weeks, or even, maybe even eight weeks
00:54:28 before a big event.
00:54:29 I’d want to already be kind of shrinking my volume,
00:54:33 but far away from an event, yeah, as much volume
00:54:36 as your body can handle, and you’ll feel it.
00:54:38 You’ll feel it.
00:54:39 Like, I felt it at times, like, you know,
00:54:41 after the hour mark, I’m like, okay,
00:54:43 I can feel my blood sugar kind of diminishing.
00:54:45 I can feel, like, the blood that’s going to my muscles
00:54:48 is kinda like, it’s not really pushing more good stuff in.
00:54:53 It’s, I’m starting to break down, and you don’t want that.
00:54:56 You don’t want that.
00:54:57 Quick pause.
00:54:58 Bathroom break?
00:54:59 I’m good, I’m good.
00:55:00 I kinda need one.
00:55:02 I’ll maybe get a sweater, it’s a bit.
00:55:04 Is it cold?
00:55:05 Does that matter?
00:55:06 Does that care for kind of continuity?
00:55:07 No, no, no, no.
00:55:08 I can make it warmer.
00:55:09 No, no, no, I’ll just put a sweater on,
00:55:10 it’s fine, but that doesn’t matter.
00:55:12 And I still love the idea of you going to Russia.
00:55:14 Yeah.
00:55:15 And training there.
00:55:16 Yeah.
00:55:17 I’m also making a trip out to Russia.
00:55:18 Oh yeah, when?
00:55:19 For different reasons.
00:55:20 Well, it’s hard with the current conflict,
00:55:23 the tensions there, but I’m hoping before your match,
00:55:26 actually, so May, for a couple of interviews
00:55:29 with a couple of folks, some of which people know.
00:55:34 Maybe I could ask you about,
00:55:37 to comment on some matches that stand out to you
00:55:40 in your career.
00:55:42 Sure.
00:55:45 Is there something, is there a particular,
00:55:48 I have a bunch that I really enjoy,
00:55:50 but is there something that stands out to you as memorable?
00:55:54 We talked about sort of a defining loss, perhaps,
00:55:58 to Dennis.
00:56:00 Then you faced Michael Todd, like you mentioned,
00:56:04 John Brzenk, you faced Matt.
00:56:09 Is there something that stands out to you
00:56:11 that technically or psychologically
00:56:14 you’ve learned a lot from?
00:56:17 I feel like I try and learn something from every match,
00:56:20 but there is a very special match to me
00:56:22 that to this day, I can’t explain.
00:56:27 Very weird phenomenon.
00:56:30 So, I think it was 2005 was my first combat tour overseas.
00:56:38 So, it was a active tour.
00:56:44 Among other things, I got shot during that tour,
00:56:48 we got blown, long tour, rough tour.
00:56:51 And I trained the whole time through
00:56:53 knowing that at the end of this,
00:56:55 I was gonna have a big match.
00:56:56 So, there’s a champion, a guy called Ron Bath.
00:57:02 He’s kind of, if there was no John Brzenk,
00:57:05 there would be Ron Bath.
00:57:06 Okay, so, extremely decorated,
00:57:10 unbelievable arm wrestler from the United States.
00:57:13 And this is kind of when I was just
00:57:15 kind of coming up in the sport still.
00:57:17 I was fairly well established,
00:57:18 I was definitely the best guy in Canada.
00:57:21 And I had been for a few years,
00:57:23 but I hadn’t really expanded internationally too much.
00:57:27 So, I had a one on one match with Ron Bath
00:57:32 and that’s the one.
00:57:35 Yeah, extremely hard fought battle.
00:57:39 Was three one, I think, three one,
00:57:41 but every match was really close
00:57:44 and he won the first one.
00:57:45 And I had to kind of dig my way out of the trenches
00:57:49 and ended up coming back and winning.
00:57:51 But it was a match that was probably,
00:57:55 it was probably one of my closest matches ever.
00:57:58 And it was.
00:58:00 It seems like there’s frustration on you.
00:58:02 What is that?
00:58:03 What was going through your mind here with these?
00:58:06 Was it, first of all, going in,
00:58:08 did you think you could beat him?
00:58:09 What was the level of confidence?
00:58:10 I always think I can win, like I always do.
00:58:13 But, you know, a lot of respect to the guy.
00:58:17 But yeah, I mean, I always think I can do it.
00:58:21 So how did, what lessons did you take away from it?
00:58:24 Why is it so meaningful to you?
00:58:27 Well, it’s what happened afterwards.
00:58:29 So, I had some kind of a release afterwards.
00:58:33 And that was the strange thing to me.
00:58:36 So, match ended and I felt like,
00:58:41 so relaxed afterwards, so calm, so, so, you know, satisfied.
00:58:47 Because it was one of those matches
00:58:49 that kind of takes everything from you, but you win it.
00:58:53 And I was relaxing in the chair
00:58:57 and I’ve never had this sensation before.
00:59:01 I’ve never had it afterwards,
00:59:03 but it’s like the center of my backbone just exploded.
00:59:07 And it was like, it’s so weird, right?
00:59:11 Cause I’m not really spiritual that much or religious even,
00:59:14 but it’s like a fire just ripped through me
00:59:17 and it only lasted an instant.
00:59:19 Just exploded through my whole body,
00:59:22 out the top, through my feet.
00:59:25 And then it was gone, that was it.
00:59:27 Weirdest thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
00:59:32 Yeah, but it was as a result of,
00:59:35 yeah, but it was as a result of what happened in the match
00:59:39 and leading up to it, I had some kind of a release.
00:59:44 To what it does, it almost,
00:59:46 how did you interpret it psychologically?
00:59:48 Was it like some kind of, I mean,
00:59:52 not to be spiritual or whatever,
00:59:53 but some kind of superpower that was like,
00:59:58 like a lingering feeling like, holy shit, I, you know.
01:00:03 I can’t, I can’t explain it.
01:00:05 And I haven’t really tried hard enough to try to.
01:00:09 But something changed.
01:00:10 Something happened there, yeah.
01:00:12 Something happened to me.
01:00:13 I was sore for about three or four months afterwards.
01:00:15 It’s like it smoked out my entire body.
01:00:18 Yeah, that whole summer I was kind of sore.
01:00:21 And yeah, and then after that,
01:00:23 like two or three years later,
01:00:25 that’s when I won the world championships.
01:00:29 Yeah, I mean, all the matches are,
01:00:30 you know, you get something from people, like, you know,
01:00:33 you study them, you take something from them.
01:00:37 People have an invisible crown and he had one.
01:00:42 And I think I took it from him.
01:00:43 Yeah.
01:00:44 Yeah.
01:00:45 Maybe that was the feeling of wearing the crown.
01:00:48 Yeah, maybe.
01:00:50 What about all the trash talk?
01:00:51 How much of that did you learn?
01:00:53 Does that come naturally to you?
01:00:54 You’re one of the most charismatic, fun.
01:00:56 I mean, there’s always like respect behind it.
01:00:59 I would say to me, and I’m a fan of a lot of sports,
01:01:02 you’re one of the greatest trash talkers in all of sports
01:01:06 that I’ve ever seen because you’re able to talk shit,
01:01:10 but there’s so much love and respect behind it.
01:01:13 It’s just masterful.
01:01:14 But you also get into people’s heads in the moment.
01:01:17 It’s beautiful to watch
01:01:18 because it really gets to some people.
01:01:21 So where does that come from?
01:01:22 It’s a powerful weapon, right?
01:01:24 Yeah.
01:01:25 Your voice is a powerful, powerful weapon.
01:01:28 And it’s underutilized by so many athletes
01:01:31 because they think that it’s not sportsmanlike
01:01:34 or something like that.
01:01:37 But the truth is, I mean, you can be a weak person,
01:01:43 but with your voice, you can influence
01:01:46 and change any number of things.
01:01:48 And the same thing happens in a fight between two people.
01:01:52 If you can just be a never ending, you know,
01:01:55 flow of negative encouragement to someone
01:01:59 or, you know, suggestion, anything can happen.
01:02:05 It’s a tool.
01:02:08 And when you’re fighting a person,
01:02:11 you’re not just fighting them.
01:02:13 You’re fighting everyone who’s watching.
01:02:15 You’re fighting the crowd, the referees.
01:02:19 And, you know, to get in the most ideal positions,
01:02:24 situations, you need to use your voice, yeah.
01:02:27 Yeah, and there’s, for people who haven’t seen,
01:02:30 I definitely recommend you watch
01:02:32 a bunch of arm wrestling matches
01:02:33 because there’s a crowd really gets into it.
01:02:36 And it feels like there’s a really intimate connection
01:02:38 with the crowd.
01:02:39 I suppose because the crowd is allowed
01:02:41 to be very close to you.
01:02:42 Yeah, I love it.
01:02:45 I want the crowd like right up on me.
01:02:47 Yeah. Yeah.
01:02:48 So sometimes, oh yeah.
01:02:52 So who are you, whenever you talk to somebody,
01:02:56 you literally pick somebody from the crowd?
01:02:58 Oh yeah.
01:02:59 Oh yeah, I’ll fucking, like I’ll start fucking off
01:03:02 his fans and like, yeah, like I’ll start talking
01:03:06 to their wives or whatever.
01:03:08 Yeah, yeah, there’s Jody.
01:03:12 She’s pretty dangerous to listen to also.
01:03:16 But yeah, one of his buddies, Mike Solares,
01:03:18 who’s, you know, really good arm wrestler,
01:03:21 was cheering for him, so I started to go after him.
01:03:25 Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:26 Smiling the whole time.
01:03:27 Yeah, it’s fun, right?
01:03:29 It’s fun.
01:03:29 It’s a fan, it’s fun to listen to,
01:03:31 but it’s also, what’s fun is how much it actually affects
01:03:35 some of the people you’re facing.
01:03:36 They get frustrated.
01:03:37 Yeah.
01:03:38 It’s great to see.
01:03:39 Well, you have to fight, right?
01:03:40 Like a lot of people think things will be given to them.
01:03:43 And the thing that, you know, I’ve always believed
01:03:47 from the time I was very young,
01:03:48 like I was convinced that our inevitable death
01:03:54 was gonna come from aliens, right?
01:03:57 Like some super aggressive, super violent species
01:04:01 was gonna come and smoke us all, you know?
01:04:03 And I’m like, I’m not like that.
01:04:06 I’m like, but as soon as one person is,
01:04:09 then you’re forced to have to accept it as reality, right?
01:04:12 So I like to fight for every single thing.
01:04:17 I like to try and be more and more aggressive.
01:04:20 And if someone matches me,
01:04:22 that’s when I can use my endurance.
01:04:24 And if they don’t, then I have the tactical advantage.
01:04:27 So that’s kind of my balance point.
01:04:29 And then, by the way, you also yell at the ref.
01:04:31 Yeah.
01:04:32 I mean, the games, there’s like levels to this game,
01:04:35 but you know, the feeling sometimes
01:04:37 when people get frustrated is like,
01:04:38 okay, this person’s cheating,
01:04:40 or like you’re trying to get a good grip
01:04:43 before it goes.
01:04:47 And I think some of the frustration
01:04:50 in combination with the trash talk is,
01:04:52 well, this person is cheating,
01:04:54 but everybody is like kind of trying to cheat,
01:04:56 get an edge within the rules.
01:04:58 Yeah.
01:04:59 So I try and just ramp it, ramp it, ramp it.
01:05:04 But you know, everybody’s different.
01:05:06 I’ve learned how to play the game
01:05:08 based off of the tools that I have physically.
01:05:11 And for me, this works because, you know,
01:05:14 my genetic makeup is more of a persistence hunter, right?
01:05:19 So like, I need to extend things,
01:05:21 and that works well for me.
01:05:25 You know, if I was more explosive,
01:05:28 I probably wouldn’t have the same strategies.
01:05:31 Yeah.
01:05:33 By the way, for people who are watching,
01:05:36 you’re wearing a No Limits hoodie,
01:05:37 which is one of your nicknames.
01:05:40 I don’t wash this thing too much.
01:05:42 It’s my bacterial shield to the world.
01:05:45 Yeah.
01:05:46 Yeah.
01:05:47 Awesome.
01:05:48 So you mentioned Jody.
01:05:49 She’s often in your corner
01:05:51 and does perhaps more trash talking than even you.
01:05:54 So I mean, if we could step away,
01:05:58 she’s an incredible human being.
01:06:00 As sort of as a fan, it’s fun to watch the two of you,
01:06:04 both when you’re arm wrestling and just as people.
01:06:07 I just see so much, I don’t know,
01:06:11 kindness and love radiating from the two of you
01:06:14 whenever you’re trash talking
01:06:17 or talking about just random things
01:06:19 or just talking about life.
01:06:20 It’s just a beautiful thing to watch.
01:06:22 And thank you for sharing that with the world.
01:06:23 But maybe can you, she paid me to ask you this,
01:06:28 but what are the things you love about Jody,
01:06:32 your wife, Jody Laird?
01:06:33 What are the ways she’s affected your life?
01:06:38 Yeah.
01:06:39 Jody and I go way back, right?
01:06:42 We were in high school together.
01:06:46 The thing that I admire most in people is bravery.
01:06:53 To me, it’s the most admirable quality.
01:06:57 And Jody always has inspired me
01:07:02 because she’s such a fighter.
01:07:04 If she believes that something’s true,
01:07:09 she does not back down.
01:07:10 She will not.
01:07:11 And not to say that she can’t change her mind
01:07:14 because she can, but while she is convicted,
01:07:19 she will not stop fighting.
01:07:22 She’s pulled me out of the fire repeatedly.
01:07:25 We’ve lived through so many things.
01:07:28 Very lucky.
01:07:29 How has she made you a better arm wrestler?
01:07:32 She’s fed me.
01:07:35 Yeah, I could see your videos of your house
01:07:38 basically coming apart when she’s not there.
01:07:40 Yeah.
01:07:42 Yeah, without Jody, I’m on the street living in a tent
01:07:46 and yeah, eating dog food.
01:07:50 Yeah.
01:07:53 Bravery.
01:07:54 Yeah.
01:07:55 What about love?
01:07:56 How has love made you stronger?
01:07:57 Now we’re gonna make Devin uncomfortable.
01:08:00 Yeah, love is difficult to accept.
01:08:04 Love is one of those things that,
01:08:08 a lot of times, you don’t feel worthy of it.
01:08:12 And so it’s hard sometimes to accept someone’s love.
01:08:15 And someone who really loves you,
01:08:18 they’ll love you even when you don’t.
01:08:22 And here you go, you’re gonna make me cry, Alex.
01:08:25 Yeah, Jody and I have been through so much.
01:08:29 And she’s shown me how she supported me
01:08:35 just repeatedly, repeatedly.
01:08:37 Some of that is loyalty and patience and perseverance
01:08:40 and all those things.
01:08:41 That’s like when love really shows itself.
01:08:46 Yeah.
01:08:47 It’s like sticking through together for years
01:08:49 even when you’re through the shitty times.
01:08:52 Love and faith are powerful forces in this universe.
01:08:57 Without them, we can descend into darkness very quickly.
01:09:02 As a world, even between people.
01:09:04 When love and faith is destroyed, then we fall apart.
01:09:11 And I’ve been graced by the love that Jody’s given me.
01:09:16 It’s allowed me to continue to build.
01:09:19 When you have love between people, then you build together.
01:09:23 I love my family, I love Canada,
01:09:27 I love the arm wrestling community.
01:09:29 I have a love for what we’re trying to achieve
01:09:31 as a human species, you know?
01:09:33 And when that falls apart, we don’t have much.
01:09:38 Yeah, just with my boy there, yeah.
01:09:42 Yeah.
01:09:43 You also mentioned you once had a job
01:09:50 where your death was a real possibility.
01:09:54 So you were in the Canadian Special Forces.
01:09:56 What did you take away from that experience,
01:10:01 that time in your life?
01:10:02 It was such a great life.
01:10:05 Really, really loved it.
01:10:07 Honestly, I never wanted to leave.
01:10:09 I never thought I would leave.
01:10:10 I thought I’d be there my whole life.
01:10:15 A real honor to get to serve.
01:10:18 What did you get to do?
01:10:19 What was the things you loved craftsmanship wise,
01:10:22 like fun things you get to do, learn and challenge yourself?
01:10:25 And you mentioned sort of honor in terms of the serving part.
01:10:31 Yeah.
01:10:33 Yeah, my favorite thing about serving in the Special Forces
01:10:38 was for sure the people that I worked with.
01:10:40 That’s probably the first thing I could say, you know,
01:10:43 I never, I always felt like totally comfortable
01:10:48 and putting my life in the other guy’s hands.
01:10:51 I was so happy to be in a place where I felt I could follow.
01:10:56 Like didn’t matter.
01:10:59 Like I knew that the people ahead of me were incredible.
01:11:03 I knew the people beside me were incredible.
01:11:05 So just having that faith in your team, it’s very special.
01:11:09 And to know that they’re there for a reason
01:11:12 that has nothing to do with money, you know,
01:11:15 and that’s what kind of brings everybody together
01:11:17 is you’re there for a higher purpose.
01:11:21 And in terms of being an adrenaline junkie,
01:11:24 there’s nothing like it.
01:11:25 I mean, there’s nothing like, you know,
01:11:27 going out at night and fighting.
01:11:29 And when I say fighting, like my whole life I wanted to fight.
01:11:33 And to me, there’s a lot of, and look at,
01:11:39 I’ve said this in the past
01:11:40 and I think it’s been a personal failure of mine
01:11:43 because I’ve said things like,
01:11:44 it’s the highest level that you can do.
01:11:46 And I don’t believe that to be true anymore.
01:11:48 But at the time, I thought it was the best way
01:11:52 I could express my drives that I had, you know,
01:11:56 to be a fighter.
01:11:58 So your sense in the past and maybe in part now
01:12:02 is that sort of fighting is when humans get a chance
01:12:05 to express themselves deeply, like that mix of the bravery,
01:12:12 the integrity, the, whatever that is that makes us human,
01:12:17 that human spirit can really shine.
01:12:19 And I don’t believe that anymore.
01:12:21 I believe that you can do that in any field,
01:12:24 in any discipline, you know, if you go hard enough,
01:12:26 it all kind of starts to feel the same.
01:12:28 But at the time, that, you know,
01:12:31 expression to me was really, really awesome.
01:12:34 I loved close quarter battle.
01:12:36 That was my favorite thing.
01:12:37 That’s really the whole reason I was there.
01:12:41 Can you describe close quarter battle?
01:12:43 Close quarter battle is team fighting.
01:12:46 So, and it can look a lot of different ways,
01:12:50 but basically it’s ground troops doing something
01:12:55 and it’s ground troops doing some kind of a mission.
01:13:00 And it’s the orchestrated movement that is the skill.
01:13:04 The orchestrated movement and the drills done quickly
01:13:08 and accurately, it’s very difficult to do.
01:13:10 With communication?
01:13:11 With communication.
01:13:12 Yeah, so it’s basically cooperating together,
01:13:16 communicating, there’s some strategy,
01:13:18 there’s some adapting to the changing environment.
01:13:20 And the more the team works together,
01:13:22 the less communication there is.
01:13:24 Yeah, yeah.
01:13:26 And that’s an amazing thing to do,
01:13:28 to be part of a machine, well, machine,
01:13:30 a team of people who can fight together like that.
01:13:35 I think it’s, we’re really designed to do it.
01:13:39 Like, as good as we can fight as individuals,
01:13:42 the thing that makes us really good
01:13:43 is our ability to fight as a team.
01:13:46 Yeah.
01:13:47 Yeah, that’s one of the things that makes us really human
01:13:50 is that collective intelligence, that social aspect.
01:13:52 And fighting is the highest of stakes.
01:13:56 So that social interaction under the highest of stakes
01:13:59 is, really does bring out something that’s deeply human.
01:14:06 I mean, war in general brings out something deeply human.
01:14:10 It does.
01:14:11 It’s, I mean, obvious to say that it’s tragic
01:14:15 that it results in so much loss of life and well being.
01:14:20 Let me, if it’s okay, for a brief moment
01:14:25 to take us back to arm wrestling.
01:14:28 We did this offline, we talked about,
01:14:31 you gave me some advice about arm wrestling.
01:14:34 But maybe do a high level overview
01:14:35 of the different styles and strategies
01:14:42 that we’ve talked about.
01:14:43 We talked about the importance of strength and power.
01:14:46 But is there offensive, defensive styles?
01:14:49 Is there, we mentioned King’s move.
01:14:52 What would you classify your style as?
01:14:55 It’s nice for people that don’t know.
01:14:58 Maybe even zoom back out.
01:14:59 So arm wrestling is a sport where two people have to,
01:15:08 when we talk about strictly the sport,
01:15:09 put their elbow on a particular pad,
01:15:12 means they have to keep that elbow on that pad.
01:15:15 And they win when the back of one of their hands
01:15:20 crosses some kind of, or basically touches the table.
01:15:23 That’s it.
01:15:24 And when you actually lock up, you do so,
01:15:30 depending on the organization, without straps,
01:15:33 meaning there’s just you, agree, it’s like mutual agreement
01:15:37 that you’re going to clasp your hands in a way that’s fair
01:15:42 and there’s a referee that helps ensure that it’s fair.
01:15:45 But of course there’s these little games going on.
01:15:47 And then when you actually go all out with this battle,
01:15:51 if there’s no straps, you can slip out.
01:15:53 So often you’ll put the straps, which means you’re,
01:15:57 it’s like marriage, you’re committed for,
01:16:01 like somebody will have to lose essentially.
01:16:04 There’s no pulling out.
01:16:06 So that’s sort of the battle within that.
01:16:11 What are the different styles that you can speak to
01:16:13 that people that don’t know arm wrestling could understand?
01:16:17 Yeah, we can start to kind of just dance
01:16:19 around the subject a bit.
01:16:21 I’d say there’s a lot of different types.
01:16:25 There’s specialists and there’s kind of blenders
01:16:31 and people who are very versatile.
01:16:34 A lot of guys win world championships on one singular move.
01:16:38 They get just extremely crisp at say a hook or a top roll.
01:16:43 And their style is very kind of focused.
01:16:46 And you’ll see it with a lot of athletes,
01:16:49 like kind of a talk about guy who’s very active,
01:16:54 a guy called Jerry Cataret.
01:16:55 As soon as you think Jerry Cataret,
01:16:57 he’s got a very unique style.
01:16:58 He’s got a flop wrist press.
01:17:01 So most of his technique is built around this one system.
01:17:04 Flop wrist means what it sounds like.
01:17:09 Your wrist is flopped, so it looks like you’re losing.
01:17:12 So he is pushing from a losing position.
01:17:15 No, he will be offensive.
01:17:18 So he will be in a press, so offensively,
01:17:20 so he’ll give his hand away
01:17:22 so that he can get his shoulder behind it properly.
01:17:24 So he doesn’t, wow.
01:17:27 So you can press, press means push.
01:17:31 Push, yeah, without having that hook position.
01:17:36 Which is what most people are always looking for.
01:17:40 And Jerry’s looking for it as well.
01:17:41 And then, so example, there’s another one.
01:17:43 There’s another specialist, Matt Mask.
01:17:45 He’s a top roller, right?
01:17:48 Basically, that’s his great move is a top roll.
01:17:51 And his other weapons aren’t nearly as powerful.
01:17:55 Just incredible top roll.
01:17:57 And then you have a lot of athletes that are more blended.
01:18:00 They have a lot of good options.
01:18:03 I think that I probably fall more into that category.
01:18:07 You have people who are more speed guys, okay?
01:18:10 So they try and do very little, I call it attrition, right?
01:18:17 So a lot of people are very willing to trade energy, right?
01:18:21 Because they have faith that their gas tank
01:18:24 or their pool eventually will tire the other person out.
01:18:27 So anytime there’s a trade, they’ll trade.
01:18:30 Whereas a guy like Travis Bajan,
01:18:33 he was very, very well known
01:18:35 as being extremely explosive, right?
01:18:38 But if the match stops, typically he’s gonna lose.
01:18:43 All right, so based off of your genetics, your hands,
01:18:48 there’s a lot of ways to skin it.
01:18:50 So I think you said something like you’re a 22nd guy.
01:18:55 That’s right, I’m a 22nd guy.
01:19:00 So what are the seconds we’re talking about?
01:19:03 So a lot of the power people,
01:19:04 they want to win in the first maybe five seconds,
01:19:06 like just that first push, that first press.
01:19:10 Absolutely, right to the pad, yeah.
01:19:14 And so you’re trying to hold off that attack.
01:19:17 Yeah, if I beat you in a second,
01:19:19 we’re not in the same world, yeah.
01:19:21 But when I’m with my peer group,
01:19:25 I will typically win 20 seconds and beyond.
01:19:28 That’s a typical win for me when I’m with a peer.
01:19:33 Whereas other guys, when they’re with their peers,
01:19:35 they’ll win in a second, right?
01:19:37 That’s how they do it, that’s the way they’re built,
01:19:40 that’s the way they train.
01:19:43 Yeah, most guys at a higher level at all
01:19:46 starts to kind of, it starts to get more and more difficult
01:19:49 to be a specialist at the high level now.
01:19:51 Some people just have little holes in their games.
01:19:56 It’s rare to get someone who can really do all the moves.
01:20:00 It’s very rare.
01:20:04 Where would you put Levan?
01:20:06 I would not say he’s a specialist.
01:20:08 I’d say his top roll is his strongest move.
01:20:11 Top roll?
01:20:12 Top roll is his strongest move, yeah.
01:20:14 And the interesting thing about the specialist
01:20:18 versus the blender, there’s a counter, right?
01:20:23 Every move has a move that theoretically
01:20:27 should be the right choice.
01:20:29 So if you’re a single move guy,
01:20:33 there’s gonna be a guy out there who’ll get you.
01:20:35 Yeah, it’ll be very difficult for you to beat that guy.
01:20:39 But when you come to a tournament,
01:20:43 typically specialists do much better
01:20:45 in tournament scenarios because their singular move
01:20:49 can get them through a tournament
01:20:50 very quickly and efficiently.
01:20:53 Whereas you get a blender in a tournament,
01:20:55 they typically will have longer and more difficult matches.
01:20:58 And by, oh, right, yeah.
01:21:00 But in supermatch format, typically blenders do better.
01:21:06 So we offline also talked about arm sumo
01:21:09 or freedom arm wrestling.
01:21:11 I don’t know how you wanna call it.
01:21:12 Oh, I love freedom.
01:21:13 Well, exactly, North American way.
01:21:20 So this is this idea, and I watched a few videos,
01:21:25 and it looks fun, is basically removing the restriction
01:21:29 of having to keep your elbow on the pad
01:21:32 and just being able to arm wrestle over the whole table.
01:21:35 I think you’ve mentioned that the criticism that gets
01:21:38 is it might be injury prone or something like that.
01:21:40 So can you describe this arm sumo, freedom arm wrestling
01:21:44 idea?
01:21:45 When you come to freedom arm wrestling,
01:21:47 basically it removes the limitation
01:21:50 of a standard arm wrestling table.
01:21:52 So basically every single thing
01:21:54 is a freedom arm wrestling table.
01:21:56 Some are better than others.
01:21:57 So looking for that nice table where we can kind of
01:22:00 stand apart from each other and we’re anatomically
01:22:04 in a fairly safe position.
01:22:07 And the rules in freedom, the way you win,
01:22:09 is the knuckles must either touch the tabletop
01:22:14 or you hold it off the edge for a three count.
01:22:18 So this is the main way to win.
01:22:20 Yes, you can foul, like if you lift your elbow up,
01:22:21 it’s still a foul, but you have the entire playing surface.
01:22:25 So your elbow’s no longer limited to your seven by seven
01:22:28 or seven by nine pad, so you can move it all over the table.
01:22:30 You can move your body around the table a bit too.
01:22:33 And if it’s a big table, your body
01:22:36 could largely be on the table.
01:22:38 Yeah, so basically it’s like adjusting your ring size.
01:22:41 So arm wrestling, you’re fighting in a phone booth, right?
01:22:44 So you’re fighting in a field, you’re fighting just bigger.
01:22:47 So it just makes the sport bigger.
01:22:50 Yeah, this is Japan.
01:22:51 But even on a small table, even in a slightly larger
01:22:55 phone booth, you can get a lot more fun and variety.
01:22:59 It’s very interesting to watch.
01:23:00 I love it.
01:23:01 I think it makes the sport bigger.
01:23:02 I actually believe that it’s the future of the sport.
01:23:05 I really do.
01:23:06 Because it makes it more accessible.
01:23:08 Like you don’t need the equipment.
01:23:09 You can do it at a bar, all that kind of stuff.
01:23:11 Yeah, less equipment requirements.
01:23:15 Most kids start freedom.
01:23:16 Like most kids arm wrestle on school desks.
01:23:19 And like if you see a guy on the street, you’re like,
01:23:22 whatever, you can arm wrestle anywhere.
01:23:23 You don’t need to bring your table around with you.
01:23:26 If we talked about the elite level,
01:23:29 if somebody was interested in starting in arm wrestling
01:23:34 or going from just like, you go to the gym,
01:23:40 you kind of lift, you’ve arm wrestled a few times,
01:23:43 trying to get better at it, trying to learn.
01:23:45 How would you advise getting better to where you can
01:23:49 beat your closest buddies?
01:23:51 That first step.
01:23:53 First step, I’d say find people.
01:23:56 Find people.
01:23:57 Find good people.
01:24:00 Volume.
01:24:01 Well, get with a club.
01:24:02 Get with people who know what they’re doing,
01:24:03 who can mentor you.
01:24:05 And that’s really cool.
01:24:06 I realized there’s a club in Austin.
01:24:08 Yeah.
01:24:09 I’m sure there’s in a lot of places.
01:24:10 Oh, they’re everywhere.
01:24:11 We got this app called Armbet.
01:24:14 Yeah.
01:24:15 Which is a app that helps you find other people there.
01:24:18 Yeah, very easy.
01:24:19 But I mean, they’re all over social networks.
01:24:21 I mean, it’s kind of widespread now.
01:24:24 But yeah, find people.
01:24:26 Find people and it’s just much easier to learn
01:24:30 with another person and you’ll get stronger that way.
01:24:33 But I mean, do the lifts.
01:24:36 I mean, if you go to the gym, just start doing the lifts.
01:24:39 And right away, those will technically prepare you.
01:24:42 What are the lifts?
01:24:44 Can we describe what the first one is?
01:24:45 Yeah, so I’d say if you wanna just keep it
01:24:48 very, very simple, let’s just talk about three.
01:24:50 There’s much more than three.
01:24:52 But when you talk about energy allocation,
01:24:56 these three lifts, in my opinion,
01:24:58 should be like 90% of your investment.
01:25:03 It’s very big, these three lifts.
01:25:06 And the exact percentages, you can argue about it,
01:25:10 but we’ll start off with the cupping of the wrist.
01:25:14 Just this, it’s a simple thing.
01:25:16 And do it with a cable.
01:25:19 You can get a thicker diameter, so it kind of
01:25:22 is more out on your fingers where an armrest
01:25:25 is gonna attack you.
01:25:26 Because any good armrest is gonna attack your fingers.
01:25:28 So like open hand.
01:25:30 No, no.
01:25:31 Well, I mean, for health, yes, you could.
01:25:33 But if you wanna be really specific,
01:25:35 you train exactly the way you would at a table.
01:25:38 In the position that you actually start that match.
01:25:40 Yeah, and then you’re just doing this kind of thing.
01:25:43 Yes, to your center.
01:25:47 One of the big misconceptions in armwrestling
01:25:50 is that you’re aiming for that pin pad.
01:25:53 No.
01:25:54 The center.
01:25:56 The chest up here.
01:25:56 Bring it close to you.
01:25:58 Make it come close to you, right?
01:25:59 You see like whenever I do my exercises,
01:26:02 the vector is always pulling straight towards me.
01:26:05 Yeah.
01:26:06 Yeah, so just cupping close to you.
01:26:10 The most dangerous thing that a person can do to me
01:26:12 on an armwrestling match is just pull me away from my body.
01:26:15 That’s a terrible thing for me.
01:26:17 Yeah, so that cupping, that’s a massive part of the sport.
01:26:23 So now when you think what does the cup do
01:26:26 to the other person, if I cup, they get turned over.
01:26:32 Right?
01:26:33 So this has to get really strong.
01:26:36 This pronation.
01:26:39 So to fight that rolling.
01:26:42 Exactly, yeah.
01:26:44 So that’s through the thumb.
01:26:47 Yeah.
01:26:48 Oh, so you put, got it, you put on the thumb
01:26:51 and you put this motion.
01:26:52 Yeah.
01:26:53 Got it.
01:26:54 Yeah.
01:26:55 So those two things, those two things together,
01:26:57 this cupping and rolling, this is what’s gonna make
01:27:00 the person’s hand bend back, and once the person’s hand
01:27:03 is bent back, just their whole game gets cut to pieces.
01:27:07 They have very little good options.
01:27:09 It’s all like nasty stuff.
01:27:12 Wow.
01:27:12 Yeah, so those two things, that’s a huge part
01:27:16 of your investment.
01:27:19 Rise.
01:27:21 Always be climbing.
01:27:22 Yeah, exactly.
01:27:24 Yeah, those three simple things, that’s what I would tell
01:27:28 anybody to spend most of their time on if you wanna
01:27:31 become an art wrestler.
01:27:32 So bands would be good for this?
01:27:35 Bands are great because they’re easy to transport.
01:27:37 The only problem I have with bands is like if you like
01:27:41 to measure, you know, and if you like to be precise,
01:27:43 bands just aren’t that precise.
01:27:45 Right, so to have growth.
01:27:46 Yeah.
01:27:47 Just, I mean, it’s just like, you know, you know exactly
01:27:50 what you need, the prescription is kind of, a band
01:27:52 is kind of like, and a lot of people, myself included,
01:27:55 I like to know exactly my outputs, so weights.
01:28:02 So would it be like cables?
01:28:04 Yep.
01:28:05 Cables are nice.
01:28:06 Bands are great, too.
01:28:07 I mix the two.
01:28:08 Bands are when I kind of don’t need to, they’re more
01:28:14 like easy for me.
01:28:15 When I train bands, bands are dangerous
01:28:18 because the acceleration is so high on them.
01:28:20 Like when you screw up with band training,
01:28:22 the acceleration is way faster than gravity, right?
01:28:25 So if you do something bad, it can make it go
01:28:28 really much worse.
01:28:29 Yeah.
01:28:30 It’s funny that you didn’t mention bicep curls or.
01:28:35 Well, it’s a chain.
01:28:36 It’s a chain.
01:28:37 And so you’re, I mean, the idea if you focus on these three,
01:28:40 the other stuff catches up, like it’s all involved.
01:28:43 This whole thing is involved.
01:28:45 So if you have an ax, right, the blade of the ax,
01:28:50 that’s these things, right?
01:28:54 Like you need the pointy end of all your attacks
01:28:57 to be awesome, right?
01:28:59 If you have a super sharp ax, you could have
01:29:02 a shitty handle.
01:29:03 Yeah, right?
01:29:05 Yeah, so focus on that, the tip of the ax.
01:29:08 Yeah, the tip of the ax is so important, right?
01:29:11 Like if I have an awesome bicep and I can’t quite use it,
01:29:15 what’s it good for, right?
01:29:16 Yeah, I think a lot of the motions with the wrist
01:29:19 that you mentioned are, just thinking about jiu jitsu,
01:29:22 especially in the gi, there’s a lot of,
01:29:25 I mean, there’s so much importance to this,
01:29:27 and people don’t often work it explicitly.
01:29:32 So many of the chokes require ability to,
01:29:35 it’s almost like exactly like arm wrestling.
01:29:37 Very close.
01:29:38 Because you’re weak here, what’s that called,
01:29:41 flop wrist, and you’re strong with the cup, yeah.
01:29:45 And so just getting the, whatever that’s involved,
01:29:49 the muscle, the turning, the pressure,
01:29:51 because that’s where also the choke comes.
01:29:54 That little, the thing that makes you win in arm wrestling
01:29:57 is also the thing that finishes the person
01:30:00 when you have them grabbed.
01:30:02 The strength is very similar.
01:30:03 Yeah, it’s fascinating, actually.
01:30:05 Of course, like you said, if you wanna be very good,
01:30:08 you should be doing the very specific exact motion.
01:30:12 Yeah, so if I was gonna do jiu jitsu,
01:30:13 I’d be like working out with the gi.
01:30:15 Yeah, the problem is, you know,
01:30:18 it’s difficult to construct the exact,
01:30:24 so you have to actually go with people,
01:30:25 and then they don’t like being choked on, right?
01:30:28 So like it’s hard to, I’m actually a big,
01:30:31 we have these kinds of debates all the time,
01:30:33 is, you know, I’m a big believer in drilling.
01:30:38 I love doing something thousands of times.
01:30:40 Like John Donahoe is somebody I mentioned to you about
01:30:43 who, the jiu jitsu folks here,
01:30:46 they’re less believers in drilling.
01:30:48 They see the value of almost like the mind
01:30:52 of going live and exploring ideas.
01:30:55 It’s that play.
01:30:56 You don’t need to do the thing a thousand times.
01:30:58 You just need to always be thinking about
01:31:02 the little details that make you better,
01:31:05 and then in action practicing,
01:31:07 like developing the strength, the power,
01:31:09 the explosive of the agility in action.
01:31:12 So actually rolling.
01:31:14 I don’t, you know, I agree with this,
01:31:16 but I just believe in volume more.
01:31:20 Yeah, so you can accomplish it through volume.
01:31:22 You can play a lot.
01:31:24 Yes, exactly.
01:31:25 Well, that’s the, if you really wanna get it good
01:31:28 is you’re talking about, I mean,
01:31:30 that’s why a lot of these folks are training
01:31:33 three times a day.
01:31:34 They’re doing, you know, they’re putting in the hours,
01:31:37 eight hours, nine hours, just.
01:31:40 Well, that’s tough, oh my God.
01:31:41 Well, so there are a lot of them are not going hard.
01:31:44 It’s just being on the mat.
01:31:45 Some of it is just sitting there talking through ideas,
01:31:48 watching others or teaching, explaining stuff.
01:31:50 It’s just, it’s like, it’s not just physical.
01:31:53 It’s mental too, because you’re keeping in your mind.
01:31:56 And some of the greatest, they talk about the wrestlers
01:32:01 I’ve talked with, the fighters, at the top of their career,
01:32:05 they basically, George St. Pierre is like this,
01:32:10 another fellow Canadian, is like,
01:32:14 has stick figures in his head that he can’t help.
01:32:17 They’re like in there, because if you train enough hours,
01:32:20 you’re, it’s just gonna be in your head
01:32:23 and they’re all going to be playing around in your head.
01:32:25 And some little detail over time,
01:32:27 it’s almost like computing or something like that.
01:32:29 And that ends up having a result
01:32:32 even though you’re not physically doing anything.
01:32:34 It’s always in there.
01:32:36 I do have to return to diet real quick.
01:32:41 I know we talk about pancakes.
01:32:42 Let me, quite seriously, you are one of the,
01:32:49 I mean, strongest athletes in the world for your sport.
01:32:54 So you have to get big, you have to get powerful,
01:32:56 you have to get strong.
01:32:59 What is the right diet for you for that?
01:33:02 Like, what do you eat?
01:33:04 How often do you eat, yeah, from the highest detail
01:33:10 to the smallest, or the things that make you happy
01:33:12 and feel good?
01:33:13 Yeah, I’ve experimented with every diet.
01:33:17 I’ve done it all, I’ve been a vegan, I’ve done raw,
01:33:22 I’ve eaten only meat, I’ve eaten balanced,
01:33:26 I’ve eaten like a bodybuilder, you know, you name it,
01:33:31 I’ve probably tried it, I don’t believe
01:33:36 that it’s as important in the sport of arm wrestling
01:33:40 as it is perhaps in other sports.
01:33:43 I believe that, I mean, just to be very basic,
01:33:47 I mean, if you’re eating enough food,
01:33:49 you’re probably gonna be okay.
01:33:52 So it’s just calories.
01:33:54 I mean, really, I mean, not to overcomplicate it,
01:33:57 but I mean, that’s where the conversation starts
01:33:59 where you’re eating enough food.
01:34:01 And it can come in any number of ways,
01:34:04 and I don’t think it’s as important
01:34:08 as a lot of other people do.
01:34:11 I’m certainly irresponsible in a lot,
01:34:13 but the thing is, back to like, volume, right?
01:34:17 Like, you need to, like, if you wanna be
01:34:20 a super heavyweight, it’s very different
01:34:23 than if you wanna be a weight category guy.
01:34:26 If you wanna be a weight category guy,
01:34:27 I’d say that you need to be more responsible,
01:34:30 make better choices.
01:34:32 If you wanna be a super heavyweight, everything.
01:34:36 Just so we’re watching a delicious looking omelet,
01:34:38 so eggs, bacon, syrup, so you don’t care, carbs.
01:34:42 So in all the things you try, so I mostly eat meat now.
01:34:46 And I landed on that, there’s several things,
01:34:50 obviously I’m not, but I do a lot of sport.
01:34:53 And I was very surprised how my particular,
01:34:55 very specific body could perform better with only meat.
01:35:00 Why better?
01:35:01 The sports I do, the mind matters.
01:35:03 And so for some reason, my mind’s just clear.
01:35:06 And I don’t think, because it feels unhealthy.
01:35:09 It just makes me feel really good.
01:35:10 I don’t think I would recommend it to anybody else.
01:35:13 So it’s interesting that that journey of just exploring
01:35:19 can take you to figure out something about your own self.
01:35:22 One of the most interesting things that I heard about
01:35:25 nutrition was, I heard there was a.
01:35:29 Actually, Doritos, I forgot about that.
01:35:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot.
01:35:35 Now, I’d say over the last couple of years,
01:35:38 I’ve really gone into carbs a lot and high glycemic carbs.
01:35:42 And just to, I feel like it’s one of the best things
01:35:44 you can do if you’re working out really hard.
01:35:45 Just add carbs, yeah, exactly.
01:35:48 But, oh, where was I?
01:35:55 So you’ve added, syrup is so delicious it’s distracting.
01:35:59 No, so you’ve added the high glycemic carbs into the mix.
01:36:03 So those help, but that’s for mass building.
01:36:06 Right, so there was a study that I heard about
01:36:10 by somebody who was trying to identify heart attacks.
01:36:12 They did this great big study.
01:36:14 And at the end of it, I mean, didn’t matter
01:36:17 what the people ate, the most important thing
01:36:20 was how they felt about the food that they were eating.
01:36:23 Yeah, so if you believe in the food,
01:36:27 if you believe that it’s gonna do good things for you,
01:36:30 if you allocate it the right way,
01:36:32 it’s gonna have a positive impact.
01:36:35 And I try and do that no matter what it is.
01:36:37 Like I have my foods that I think do certain things.
01:36:40 And so, you know, for me, I know that,
01:36:44 actually, I mean, I learned about corn fed pumps
01:36:48 when I was overseas.
01:36:50 I realized that I never used to eat crap, really didn’t.
01:36:55 I ate super clean all the time.
01:36:58 And when I was faced with imminent death more,
01:37:05 I would be like, okay, I’m going out tonight,
01:37:07 let’s have a couple ice cream bars.
01:37:10 You know, like whatever.
01:37:12 And what I realized is if I eat like an entire bag of chips
01:37:18 or like, you know, a bunch of chocolate bars,
01:37:22 and then I go and have a workout,
01:37:25 my workout will be incredible.
01:37:27 It’ll be incredible.
01:37:30 There’s something about easily processed carbohydrates
01:37:35 that will continue to quickly get into your blood
01:37:40 as fast as you can burn it.
01:37:42 And there’s something about that
01:37:45 that will give you incredible blood flow, yeah.
01:37:51 And also your mind plugging in, enjoying that.
01:37:54 Right.
01:37:54 And then believing it works,
01:37:56 and that’s how it makes it work better.
01:37:58 Exactly.
01:37:59 I mean, I feel that way.
01:38:01 I think this is really not,
01:38:03 this has been frustrating to me
01:38:04 about the health culture in the United States
01:38:07 in the studies that are done.
01:38:09 You know, you look at like the importance of sleep,
01:38:12 the importance of X diet, all those kinds of things.
01:38:16 I wish incorporated into that would be
01:38:19 your mental relationship with all of these things.
01:38:22 So for example, people that tell me,
01:38:23 well, your sleep schedule is insane.
01:38:26 Yes, perhaps.
01:38:28 But also, it’s insane because I’m doing what I love
01:38:32 and I don’t see it as a problem.
01:38:34 Right.
01:38:35 And I think that’s really important to understand.
01:38:38 If you sleeping crazy hours
01:38:45 is not affecting your stress
01:38:47 and is actually making you happy
01:38:48 or you’re drawing some kind of source of happiness
01:38:51 and pleasure and satisfaction,
01:38:53 like being awake when others aren’t.
01:38:54 It’s like the Mike Tyson thing or something,
01:38:57 like training when you’ve convinced yourself
01:39:00 everybody’s sleeping and therefore
01:39:01 you’re somehow training much better.
01:39:04 That’s powerful even if you look statistically
01:39:07 six hours may be worse than eight hours
01:39:10 or four hours may be worse than six hours.
01:39:12 So the mind is a powerful thing.
01:39:14 Super powerful.
01:39:16 But if you want to be a super heavyweight.
01:39:18 Eat.
01:39:19 You got to eat like stupid amounts all the time, yeah.
01:39:23 You have to test your digestive system.
01:39:25 What’s your favorite meal by the way?
01:39:26 Just if you had to, you know, your last meal.
01:39:29 I am, I do, oh geez, I like so much food, it’s tough.
01:39:34 But I’d say the food that I rely on a lot
01:39:37 when I’m getting ready to compete is sushi.
01:39:41 Just because it normally comes in
01:39:42 an all you can eat format, you know.
01:39:45 So I love to go and just binge all you can eat buffets.
01:39:50 Sushi is just super convenient.
01:39:52 Yeah.
01:39:53 If I was a sushi all you can eat buffet place
01:39:56 I’d be terrified when I saw you.
01:39:58 Have you had barbecue at Texas?
01:40:01 Yeah, I love it, I love it, yeah.
01:40:03 So you, just a small tangent on this.
01:40:06 You faced The Mountain for Bjornsson.
01:40:10 Well first of all you arm wrestled him.
01:40:12 It’s interesting to ask, so this is The Mountain
01:40:15 from the Game of Thrones, a strong man,
01:40:18 one of the strongest people in the world,
01:40:19 for a time the strongest person in the world.
01:40:22 What was it like, I know sort of you guys
01:40:24 maybe weren’t going 1,000%, but what’s it like?
01:40:28 Well he probably wasn’t going 1,000%.
01:40:30 Yeah.
01:40:31 But like what, it’s interesting to think
01:40:34 what does that strength feel like?
01:40:36 So it’s a specialized strength in another sport.
01:40:41 Yeah.
01:40:41 What did it feel like?
01:40:42 What, how strong was he, what are some kind
01:40:46 of deep insights you’ve drawn from that battle?
01:40:50 I feel like if we were to go back 1,000 years
01:40:56 and if you give him armor and a two handed sword
01:41:00 he will just rip across the landscape.
01:41:04 And no one will stop him.
01:41:06 So this is the boxing match you came to,
01:41:08 but there’s also a video of them arm wrestling.
01:41:12 Yeah, what a titan though, what a titan.
01:41:15 A guy like that, tall, strong, fit, disciplined.
01:41:21 I mean he is quite a warrior.
01:41:24 419 pounds?
01:41:25 Yeah, yeah, he’s incredibly impressive.
01:41:29 I really like Hap Thor and I like Eddie Hall too.
01:41:34 And I was just so, I’m just so caught up with the drama.
01:41:38 Okay, so Eddie Hall and Hap Thor Bjornsson,
01:41:42 two of the strongest legendary strongmen that we have.
01:41:48 And they were the coolest, they were the top
01:41:50 when strongman was really super cool.
01:41:54 I don’t know all the details,
01:41:56 but they legit hit each other.
01:41:58 Like legit.
01:42:00 So I think it kind of stems, I don’t know,
01:42:03 like I say, I’m not right there with them,
01:42:05 but Eddie won the World’s Strongest Man event
01:42:11 or something one year and the thing is,
01:42:13 one of those victories where Hap Thor
01:42:17 was not accepting of his defeat.
01:42:20 Okay, and there was a little bit of back and forth.
01:42:22 And basically from what I understand,
01:42:23 they were gonna fight the knight
01:42:25 of the World’s Strongest Man.
01:42:27 And they kind of got pulled apart
01:42:29 and this heat between them got translated
01:42:33 into a potential boxing match.
01:42:35 So it’s very real.
01:42:37 It’s a very real fight.
01:42:38 So you have the two strongest dudes on the planet
01:42:41 are gonna fight each other.
01:42:43 So I’ve been like, you know,
01:42:45 because arm wrestling and strongman,
01:42:46 it’s kind of similar communities.
01:42:49 Who do you got?
01:42:51 If you were giving me financial advice
01:42:53 in the middle of the fight.
01:42:55 I am so bad, I always call it wrong.
01:42:57 They’re very different.
01:42:59 I see Hap Thor as being, you know, more.
01:43:03 Eddie Hall slimming down, is that what you mean as well?
01:43:06 I see Hap Thor as a bit more regimented,
01:43:10 but I see Eddie Hall as like way more barbaric
01:43:13 and like, I think he’s a little bit more athletic,
01:43:17 but Hap Thor is bigger and, you know,
01:43:21 they’ve chosen slightly different paths
01:43:22 to prepare for the match.
01:43:24 But what happened was like, they were about to fight
01:43:28 and Eddie Hall blew his bicep.
01:43:31 So me, I was getting ready for Levan in December.
01:43:34 We were supposed to arm wrestle in December,
01:43:36 but he’s got his movie.
01:43:38 And so I was like, okay, I can kind of get away
01:43:40 from the sport just a little bit, broaden my base.
01:43:43 That happened and I was like, ah, an opportunity.
01:43:47 You stepped in.
01:43:48 An opportunity to fight.
01:43:49 I’m like, I’ll do it, so.
01:43:50 How much training, you trained a little bit,
01:43:54 so can you tell about your own decision to do that?
01:43:56 What was the training like?
01:43:57 What was the experience like?
01:43:58 Oh, it was so much fun.
01:44:00 It was so much fun.
01:44:02 So basically, I made a funny video
01:44:05 and I sent it to the organizers of Core Sports
01:44:08 that I would do it.
01:44:09 I’m like, I’ll do it.
01:44:10 I’m sure they got a thousand people who wanted to do it.
01:44:13 But I’m like, listen, I’m an old man.
01:44:16 Like I’m gimped up like everywhere
01:44:18 outside the arm wrestling lanes.
01:44:21 I said, but I will 100%.
01:44:23 Like if you let me fight them, I’ll give it my all.
01:44:26 And whatever, they didn’t get back to me.
01:44:29 They’re like, yeah, whatever, okay.
01:44:30 So then they call me on a Friday,
01:44:33 like five weeks before the event,
01:44:37 and they’re like, hey, Devin, were you serious?
01:44:39 And I’m like, oh, shit.
01:44:41 And I’m like, yes, I was serious.
01:44:46 Yeah, I’ll do it.
01:44:47 And they’re like, okay, they’re like,
01:44:51 it’s down to you and like two other people
01:44:54 we’ll get back to you in a day or two,
01:44:56 but you would do it.
01:44:57 And I’m like, okay.
01:44:58 So they got back to me on Sunday, like,
01:45:01 so right away I’m like skipping rope.
01:45:03 And I’m like, and I’m so, I only arm wrestle legs.
01:45:06 That’s all I do.
01:45:07 So what was your, you did some striking training.
01:45:10 Yeah, so I went to this guy that he was awesome,
01:45:14 Zach, Ben Bushida there, that was it from TriStar.
01:45:19 Do you know for us the hobby and that’s.
01:45:22 And yes, people in the comments,
01:45:23 I will interview him on this podcast and people can.
01:45:26 He’s brilliant, right?
01:45:28 He’s an incredible guy.
01:45:29 So right away, like I had no idea
01:45:31 about the fight community across Canada really.
01:45:33 And I got like by the fifth message
01:45:37 that said you must train with Feras.
01:45:40 I was like, okay, called him up.
01:45:42 He was incredible right away.
01:45:43 He’s like, yeah, you can come and we’ll just work with you.
01:45:46 So I got, I got the call, I called him on like Monday
01:45:50 at two oclock by like seven oclock.
01:45:53 I had my things packed and I went to Montreal
01:45:56 and I spent four weeks in the fighter dorms.
01:46:00 Just humbling yourself.
01:46:01 Yeah, every day, just getting punched in the face,
01:46:05 you know, over and over going for runs with all,
01:46:10 like they’re all like Olympians and pro fighters
01:46:12 living in the dorms, super cool dudes.
01:46:13 They were so good to me.
01:46:15 Yeah, there’s a good video of you and Feras just talking.
01:46:19 Yeah, I don’t remember which stage this was,
01:46:21 but basically, but you were already beginning
01:46:24 to get humbled.
01:46:25 Oh man, I knew.
01:46:26 I mean, I knew what I was getting into.
01:46:28 Like I knew it was, I knew it was gonna be a losing battle,
01:46:31 but I felt like the opportunity to fight Thor,
01:46:35 like how cool is that?
01:46:37 Like I had to say, I had to do it.
01:46:40 I loved the process and I learned a lot from doing it.
01:46:46 Like the dorms, I wanna do something like that
01:46:49 with arm wrestling.
01:46:50 I think we’re big enough now that we can have these
01:46:52 kind of, you know, dorms, frat houses,
01:46:55 whatever you wanna call it.
01:46:56 What’s the dorm like?
01:46:57 So you’re basically staying there, food’s there.
01:47:00 So you mentioned, what was the word you used?
01:47:03 Administration.
01:47:04 Yeah, exactly, that’s it.
01:47:06 So it removes all of that.
01:47:07 Makes it so simple.
01:47:08 You can just focus.
01:47:09 You know, the gym is here, you live here.
01:47:12 Yeah.
01:47:12 You know, that your life becomes simple.
01:47:15 Yeah.
01:47:16 So there’s a guy named Jimmy Pedro here in America.
01:47:18 He’s a famous coach, has a place up in Boston.
01:47:21 He has kind of a dorm like that too.
01:47:23 Yeah.
01:47:24 And that becomes essential when the community is small,
01:47:28 but you’re trying to do epic things like win an Olympic gold.
01:47:32 Yeah.
01:47:33 So you have to really put the people together
01:47:35 in these kind of minimalist conditions
01:47:37 where they just focus on the training,
01:47:39 focus, focus, focus.
01:47:40 Yes.
01:47:42 Yeah, it wasn’t enough time.
01:47:43 I mean, I trained for about three or four weeks,
01:47:47 but I loved the journey and…
01:47:50 Well, what are some of the fun things you enjoy?
01:47:52 So you did mostly striking, did you?
01:47:54 Yeah, I guess it was…
01:47:55 Yeah, it was boxing.
01:47:56 It was straight up boxing.
01:47:56 Boxing, yeah.
01:47:58 What are some things that were transferable?
01:47:59 What are some cool things you learned from that?
01:48:02 So from the world of armwrestling,
01:48:03 have you taken anything back?
01:48:05 Like some training regimens, ideas about training,
01:48:09 even movements?
01:48:12 Because for us it’s a unique mind as well for training.
01:48:17 Yeah.
01:48:18 I don’t know.
01:48:19 I mean, I’ve gone very far down the path of armwrestling.
01:48:24 Boxing and armwrestling are very different.
01:48:27 They’re very different sports.
01:48:30 The physicality required is very different.
01:48:36 The mentality, I mean, it’s fighting.
01:48:39 So it’s another form of fighting, which is cool.
01:48:41 The big things that I took back from it,
01:48:44 the things that I loved about it was I had to run again.
01:48:49 So really work on endurance.
01:48:51 Yeah.
01:48:52 Yeah, I was going for runs with guys in the dorms
01:48:54 and they would just destroy me.
01:48:57 Just like it was so bad.
01:49:04 How did you feel in the actual boxing
01:49:06 in terms of endurance?
01:49:08 Were you able to?
01:49:09 No.
01:49:10 No.
01:49:11 It’s just torture.
01:49:12 It was terrible.
01:49:14 And the thing is it was so crazy for me
01:49:16 because I really was good once upon a time.
01:49:19 I really was.
01:49:20 Like physically, I had incredible full body endurance.
01:49:24 But being so specialized, I realized how much I had slipped.
01:49:30 And yeah, it was fun to try and regain it.
01:49:33 I think it’s affected my body composition.
01:49:36 I think since that training, I’ve become much more lean.
01:49:39 I think it was a very healthy thing for me to do.
01:49:42 Like health wise, I always think that when you’re far away
01:49:46 from competition, it’s really good to kind of spread out.
01:49:48 Really good.
01:49:49 So I think that in that way.
01:49:51 Also for your mind.
01:49:52 Yeah.
01:49:52 Yeah, just like, yeah.
01:49:56 Yeah, it’s something about clearing your,
01:50:00 I think you’ve talked about this is like
01:50:03 you’re basically taking steps back
01:50:06 before you take steps forward.
01:50:08 I forget how you call it.
01:50:08 Yeah, the wave.
01:50:09 Yeah.
01:50:10 Yeah, under, you know, you have to go under.
01:50:13 You got to.
01:50:14 You know, if you want to go above the line,
01:50:16 you have to spend some time beneath it.
01:50:18 And yeah, I was definitely beneath the line
01:50:20 for a long time.
01:50:21 Yeah.
01:50:22 But Mountain, I mean, like the interesting thing was
01:50:26 as incredible as he is, you know, like what a monster.
01:50:32 And I think if you had had him training in boxing,
01:50:37 you know, for a long time and like from his youth,
01:50:40 I think you, you know, the guy could be world champion,
01:50:42 but you know, to be so specialized and then to switch,
01:50:46 you’re at a disadvantage.
01:50:47 Yeah.
01:50:48 And also like I know from just fighting guys in the gym
01:50:53 in TriStar, some of those guys were way scarier, for real.
01:50:58 Like as scary as Thor is, like there’s guys
01:51:01 in that TriStar gym that don’t look like anything
01:51:05 that would murder me much worse, much worse.
01:51:10 Yeah, but also, you know, that’s the difference
01:51:12 between being in the gym and under the lights too.
01:51:15 I mean, GSB is an example, George St. Pierre is an example,
01:51:18 somebody that maybe doesn’t look terrifying.
01:51:21 He’s at a TriStar.
01:51:22 Yep, he trains at TriStar, but he’s quite,
01:51:25 he’s super nice, super humble,
01:51:29 but is terrifying when he’s fighting.
01:51:31 Right.
01:51:32 He’s dominating people.
01:51:33 You mentioned death and your Canadian special forces
01:51:39 and in general, thinking about mortality.
01:51:42 Do you think about your death?
01:51:44 Do you?
01:51:45 Yeah.
01:51:46 Do you contemplate the end, that this thing,
01:51:49 that this ride ends?
01:51:50 All the time, yeah.
01:51:52 From, I’ve thought about death from a young age.
01:51:55 Are you afraid of it?
01:51:56 Yeah, I hate it.
01:51:58 Yeah, I don’t wanna die.
01:51:59 Yeah, definitely don’t wanna die.
01:52:02 But there’s times when I can rid myself of it, yeah.
01:52:06 But for sure, I mean, I’m not happy that death is inevitable
01:52:11 and I’m not happy that potentially it’s inevitable
01:52:16 for all of us, but it does, I like to fight against it.
01:52:25 Does it, if you could be immortal, would you choose to?
01:52:28 That’s my only wish.
01:52:30 Oh, see, but here’s the thing.
01:52:32 That’s, but the point is to have that wish.
01:52:35 It’s like the all you can eat buffet at sushi.
01:52:40 It’s, that sushi’s more delicious if you have a limit.
01:52:44 Do you have a, oh.
01:52:44 Well, I don’t know.
01:52:47 I mean, I don’t think I get sick of stuff.
01:52:49 I’m very simple.
01:52:50 Yeah, I don’t think I would get tired of it.
01:52:52 I really don’t.
01:52:54 I mean, if someone would pose it to you,
01:52:56 do you wanna live forever?
01:52:57 You would choose no?
01:52:59 Yeah, I would choose no.
01:53:00 Choose no.
01:53:01 Well, my answer’s probably yes.
01:53:04 Like, no, I would, it’s more like the snooze button.
01:53:08 Do you wanna, do you, do you want?
01:53:11 Well, you could go to sleep.
01:53:13 But it’s very difficult in the moment to go to sleep,
01:53:16 but if I’m allowed to live forever,
01:53:21 I’m going to delay all the crazy,
01:53:26 like all the ambitious goals, all the,
01:53:30 because, oh, there’s always time.
01:53:31 That’s fine, but there is tomorrow, then.
01:53:33 But there is tomorrow, but see,
01:53:34 I think that takes away from the richness of,
01:53:37 like, the richness of the lived experience
01:53:41 of just each moment.
01:53:42 I think the richness of each moment
01:53:45 comes from saying, like, I could die tonight.
01:53:48 Like, that, it tastes delicious because you’re gonna die.
01:53:51 I’m afraid if you’re not,
01:53:54 I’m afraid all of that goes away,
01:53:55 all of that magic goes away if you can live forever.
01:53:58 I don’t know.
01:53:59 I don’t know.
01:54:01 But I’ll tell you, every time I have a near death experience
01:54:05 or think I’m gonna die,
01:54:06 I definitely live better afterwards, yeah.
01:54:09 Like, it’s always been that way.
01:54:11 But yeah, no.
01:54:14 That’s why the Stoics, you know,
01:54:15 they really preach contemplating your mortality often.
01:54:19 It kind of reminds you.
01:54:21 This whole thing could just end any moment
01:54:23 and it makes you really appreciate.
01:54:25 Yeah, I don’t know.
01:54:27 I don’t know.
01:54:29 Certainly improving the quality of life is important.
01:54:34 But part of me thinks that immortality
01:54:39 is not as fun as we would like to imagine.
01:54:43 Do you think that maybe you’re,
01:54:46 in what you’re building potentially is immortal?
01:54:50 Well, that’s what I definitely think about with robots.
01:54:56 If they were to have a humanlike experience
01:55:00 and be able to interact with humans
01:55:01 in a deep, meaningful way,
01:55:03 I think they too have to be mortal
01:55:05 in some fundamental way that means mortal.
01:55:08 Like, their ride has to end as well.
01:55:10 Because they won’t be able to interact with humans deeply
01:55:15 unless that’s the case.
01:55:18 Like, to have fear, to have love,
01:55:25 the ability to suffer, the ability to miss somebody,
01:55:29 I think scarcity is important.
01:55:32 You have to be able to truly lose somebody.
01:55:36 You have to be, to fear things,
01:55:38 you have to truly have the risk of destroying yourself.
01:55:43 And to have a sense of what it means to be a self,
01:55:47 you have to be able to lose it.
01:55:51 So if you’re immortal, you’re just going to be,
01:55:53 I feel like you’re going to be like a toaster,
01:55:58 an intelligent toaster that just serves.
01:56:00 There’s such a negative perspective on it.
01:56:03 And then mortality?
01:56:04 Yeah, just think, well, now you just,
01:56:05 you can get all those things done that you want to do.
01:56:08 I hope you’re right, I hope you’re right.
01:56:10 Yeah, I mean, potentially, you could invest even harder
01:56:14 because you’re like, wow, I’m actually going to be able
01:56:16 to get all this stuff done.
01:56:17 I think about this a lot, I hope you’re right,
01:56:20 but I fear that the drive to create,
01:56:25 I can even do more, all of that dissipates,
01:56:28 disappears if you have all the time in the world.
01:56:31 I just know how lazy I am.
01:56:33 And if I have all the time in the world,
01:56:35 I’m just going to sit there and just watch
01:56:39 the stupidest YouTube videos for the rest of all eternity.
01:56:44 Now, eternity’s a long time.
01:56:46 Eat Doritos and Cheetos and just get fatter and fatter.
01:56:50 I can get in shape later, there’s always time.
01:56:53 That’s like a long period of contemplation.
01:56:56 Yeah, so for the first 1,000 years,
01:56:59 it’ll be the Dorito period of the Lex life.
01:57:02 Yeah, you could be like Jabba the Hutt for 1,000 years.
01:57:06 You mentioned aliens, very important topic.
01:57:09 Do you actually think about this
01:57:11 has been an increased interest,
01:57:13 and there’s been increased UFO sightings and encounters,
01:57:18 all that kind of stuff, the US government at least
01:57:20 releasing data, releasing videos of pilots,
01:57:26 pilot observations, and from airplanes of UFOs.
01:57:30 Do you think about this kind of stuff?
01:57:31 Because you mentioned in the following context,
01:57:33 you mentioned like us humans will get our shit together
01:57:37 when the aliens eventually come.
01:57:42 What do you make of all the sightings?
01:57:43 Is that something you think about?
01:57:45 I thought about it a lot when I was younger,
01:57:47 and I’ve just, I made my conclusions,
01:57:50 and yeah, I don’t think that there’s a possibility
01:57:54 that there aren’t aliens.
01:57:55 I would think that it would be impossible
01:57:57 for there not to be aliens.
01:58:01 I feel like this is pretty good real estate,
01:58:03 so you’d probably want it,
01:58:07 but we already might be, well, I don’t even think might.
01:58:10 I mean, it’s probably quite likely
01:58:11 that we are to some degree aliens.
01:58:13 I mean, all life is probably to some degree alien.
01:58:16 I like the real estate, so the resources,
01:58:18 but we’re also kind of interesting.
01:58:21 Whatever this ant colony of living organisms
01:58:24 that we’ve created, it’s kind of interesting to study.
01:58:27 I tend to believe that the alien civilizations
01:58:29 that are going to reach us or have reached us
01:58:33 are far more intelligent,
01:58:36 just orders of magnitude more intelligent than us,
01:58:39 and so it’s going to be very difficult both ways, actually,
01:58:41 for us to understand them and for them
01:58:44 to dumb themselves down enough to understand us.
01:58:47 Yeah, probably.
01:58:48 So they might even just miss our existence altogether
01:58:52 just because I tend to believe,
01:58:56 I don’t know what you think,
01:58:57 that we’re not that special
01:58:59 in terms of all the life forms in the universe.
01:59:02 There’s a lot of cool stuff out there.
01:59:04 Has to be, has to be.
01:59:06 But to us, we’re special.
01:59:08 Yeah, well, that’s all that matters, right?
01:59:11 Even the human species is the most special to us humans.
01:59:14 There could be much more special species here on Earth
01:59:18 they were just totally oblivious to,
01:59:20 like trees on a scale of thousands of years.
01:59:23 Maybe they’re onto something.
01:59:26 Lex, you know,
01:59:30 I think that so much of what makes a person special
01:59:34 is what they pass on, your kids.
01:59:37 But I think that you are quite special
01:59:39 because you’re part of this thing
01:59:42 that’s potentially giving birth to the next thing.
01:59:47 The robots.
01:59:48 The robots.
01:59:49 I should say, the funny thing is,
01:59:50 while talking to Devon during this podcast,
01:59:53 I had a doorbell ring, had to go downstairs,
01:59:57 and there was a big box,
02:00:01 medicine box with a new legged robot.
02:00:04 So the hilarity of you saying that is,
02:00:07 because that robot is actually going to likely be
02:00:11 the main robot that I show to the world in the coming months
02:00:15 because that has the,
02:00:17 that’s the highest compute level in that robot.
02:00:19 So I’ve been playing a lot with legged robots,
02:00:22 the four legs, so like a dog.
02:00:28 I like all the robots,
02:00:30 but there’s something about when a robot has legs,
02:00:33 it’s able to communicate,
02:00:36 it’s able to connect with humans in some kind of deep way,
02:00:38 in the way a dog can, just show affection.
02:00:40 Something about like, step, step, step, step,
02:00:43 and then the robot realizes you’re here,
02:00:46 and then it steps and then notices you
02:00:48 in the way the dog does and raises its head.
02:00:52 It makes me feel noticed and heard
02:00:56 in the same way I do when a dog notices me.
02:00:59 That excitement, that stupid excitement of like,
02:01:02 yes, fellow living organism.
02:01:05 And what excites me about legged robots
02:01:09 is that holy shit, it’s possible to engineer this.
02:01:13 It’s possible to create that feeling,
02:01:15 and I wonder where that can go.
02:01:17 There’s a lot of negative possible trajectories,
02:01:20 but I have a sense that there’s positive ones too.
02:01:23 Adding more love to the world.
02:01:23 You think that they’ll take us with them?
02:01:27 Yeah, I think so because I,
02:01:29 so there’s this fear of robots
02:01:33 that they become super intelligent
02:01:34 and run away from us humans,
02:01:36 and basically become so intelligent
02:01:38 and then they almost just not giving a damn will destroy us.
02:01:44 But I think in order for robots to become intelligent,
02:01:48 they have to integrate themselves with society.
02:01:51 So they, by the very nature of how they become intelligent,
02:01:57 have to bring us along.
02:01:58 So it’s not that there’ll be this separate thing.
02:02:02 They have to, like, we’ll have robots in the home.
02:02:05 Well, they’ll be interacting with us.
02:02:07 You have human kids, and you have a bunch of robots.
02:02:10 You have robot friends.
02:02:11 You have human friends,
02:02:12 and the robots make your human to human relationships
02:02:16 much more meaningful and richer.
02:02:18 They bring more love to the world, but it’s integrated.
02:02:20 It’s not like they’ll be developing smarter and smarter
02:02:26 as, like, sentient beings by themselves.
02:02:30 I think that’s very difficult to do.
02:02:32 You have to be doing that together with humans,
02:02:34 and so we’ll come for the ride.
02:02:35 There’s technical things, like,
02:02:37 we might merge, like, cyborgs more and more.
02:02:41 Well, we already saw our cyborgs, right?
02:02:43 With the phones and so on, but more and more.
02:02:46 So with Elon and Neuralink, deeper integration of robots
02:02:50 and AI into, like, increasing the bandwidth
02:02:55 at which they can communicate.
02:02:56 So if we do implants in the brain,
02:03:00 I think, again, a lot of people are really nervous
02:03:04 about this, as am I, but I think there’s a lot
02:03:07 of trajectories that are positive there.
02:03:10 That, to me, is exciting, and also,
02:03:12 I just don’t think it’s possible to stop this development,
02:03:15 so we should steer it.
02:03:18 Yeah, yeah.
02:03:20 For good.
02:03:20 Did you, I mean, you must have watched
02:03:22 the movie Terminator, right?
02:03:23 Yeah, of course, I love Terminator.
02:03:25 Yeah, it’s probably my favorite movie of all time.
02:03:28 Yeah, yeah, I mean, that’s the big fear, right?
02:03:35 Yeah, what’s the conclusion with Terminator?
02:03:37 Isn’t ultimately humanity wins?
02:03:39 I think they’re at, like, Terminator 8 now.
02:03:41 Yeah.
02:03:42 You know, I don’t know.
02:03:44 Yeah, and it’s interesting, actually,
02:03:48 I was gonna bring this up as you were talking about it,
02:03:50 but China and the United States actually don’t know
02:03:54 where Canada is on this, but they both have agreed
02:03:59 that they’re not going to put limits
02:04:00 on autonomous weapon system development.
02:04:04 They’re not going to.
02:04:05 They’re not going to.
02:04:06 So, because China said we’re not going to,
02:04:08 and now US officially announced that we’re not, we can’t.
02:04:12 Well, you can’t, it’s like, you never could, right?
02:04:16 As soon as it exists and it’s better, people will use it.
02:04:20 Well, but you, there’s been a global ban on bioweapons.
02:04:26 So, you were able to come to an agreement there
02:04:28 that we’re not going to use biological weapons in war.
02:04:32 So, it was, a lot of people are really upset
02:04:34 that in the case of AI driven weapons,
02:04:39 the world said, nope, that’s okay.
02:04:42 And so, now you have this potential
02:04:45 for greater and greater automation in drones,
02:04:48 for example, in picking bombing locations.
02:04:51 And so, the area at which they attack.
02:04:54 And so, you get, some of that stuff that you mentioned
02:04:57 that drew you to the military is that teamwork
02:05:03 between humans, that decision making.
02:05:05 So, there’s strategy, but built into that team
02:05:10 is a deep humanity.
02:05:12 Like, even when there’s an enemy, there’s lines
02:05:17 that you’re aware of, of what is ethical, what is not,
02:05:20 what is just and what is not.
02:05:23 And it’s so easy for a machine to miss all of that,
02:05:29 plow through it and do deeply inhumane acts,
02:05:33 commit atrocities.
02:05:34 That’s something that worries a lot of people.
02:05:38 Yeah.
02:05:41 Because, yeah, an AI based war is just, it’s terrifying.
02:05:45 Especially with cyber security, which is becoming
02:05:48 more and more of an issue, which is hacking.
02:05:51 Yeah.
02:05:51 Sort of people that look a lot like me
02:05:57 being the warriors of the future.
02:05:59 Yeah.
02:06:00 Which is meaning people behind a keyboard
02:06:03 versus the traditional warriors.
02:06:08 Probably inevitable.
02:06:11 Yeah.
02:06:12 And terrifying.
02:06:13 It is, it is.
02:06:14 But I think if you believe that it’s possible,
02:06:18 it’s certainly gonna happen.
02:06:19 Like, at some point, it’s just when, right?
02:06:22 When does it happen?
02:06:24 So that, I mean, to me, I’m ultimately optimistic
02:06:28 about the future.
02:06:29 And to me, I’m excited about the world with AI.
02:06:31 I’m even excited about the metaverse
02:06:34 and all these kinds of things, living more and more
02:06:37 in the digital space, in the virtual reality.
02:06:40 I think, so it’s a part of me that grew up
02:06:43 in the noninternet world, noncomputer world.
02:06:46 It says, oh, kids these days with their video games.
02:06:49 There’s part of me that’s like that.
02:06:52 But I think technology at its best
02:06:56 can bring out the best of humanity.
02:06:59 And so I think virtual reality, all of these things,
02:07:03 over time, we’ll figure out how to fix it
02:07:06 to bring out the humanity.
02:07:08 Social networks, the first generation social networks,
02:07:12 now Facebook, Twitter, and so on,
02:07:13 they have so many problems.
02:07:15 They’re bringing out the worst in people.
02:07:17 But I think we’re learning from that.
02:07:18 And I think the next generation of social networks
02:07:20 will be better and better and better.
02:07:22 And so I’m optimistic.
02:07:26 But of course, one reason we may have not seen aliens yet,
02:07:30 obviously, like in a way that’s obvious,
02:07:34 is because once you get clever and smart
02:07:36 and have all this cool technology, you destroy yourself.
02:07:40 And we sure as humans are pretty close to that.
02:07:42 Yeah, yeah, there might be that limit
02:07:45 that is hard to get right.
02:07:46 I’m hoping we get all our aggression between nations
02:07:49 out through arm wrestling competition.
02:07:52 Right?
02:07:53 Just all of that life.
02:07:54 Oh my God, wouldn’t that be great
02:07:56 if it was that simple, yeah.
02:07:59 Do you know if there’s another
02:08:00 over the top type movie to be made?
02:08:02 Oh yeah, yeah, there’s always stuff in the works.
02:08:04 There’s actually a, there’s a tournament called
02:08:07 Over the Top in Australia that’s a couple months away.
02:08:09 I think they’re doing an all the over the top scene.
02:08:11 But there are arm wrestling movies
02:08:13 that are being made right now.
02:08:14 Actually, there’s a documentary that’s filming me
02:08:17 for this whole Levan thing.
02:08:19 But yeah, we’re probably due for another big one, yeah.
02:08:23 But you’re also, just with your YouTube channel,
02:08:26 you’re doing a lot for the sport.
02:08:27 That’s really cool to see.
02:08:28 Just being genuine, but just being like,
02:08:32 looking not like you’re looking today, but just like.
02:08:34 Yeah, yeah.
02:08:35 Just a beard.
02:08:36 Yeah, yeah, yeah, normally a mess.
02:08:37 Just like sleepy.
02:08:39 You know, and just putting yourself out there
02:08:41 completely as you are.
02:08:42 That’s a beautiful thing.
02:08:44 The best thing about the sport
02:08:45 is it brings people together.
02:08:47 That’s it.
02:08:47 Yeah, the community, the folks I got to interact with,
02:08:50 just so awesome, so excited, so full of kindness.
02:08:54 I’m definitely gonna find the club here
02:08:55 and start working on my arm wrestling game.
02:09:02 Devin, this is such a huge honor
02:09:03 that you would spend your valuable time.
02:09:07 You would come down to Austin.
02:09:09 You would hang out with me and do this conversation.
02:09:14 Super cool to talk to you, Lex, yeah.
02:09:16 As I mentioned, in case people,
02:09:18 you know, people I’m sure will tell me.
02:09:20 So I hang out with Joe Rogan all the time.
02:09:23 He’s a friend.
02:09:24 I told him that he should talk to Devin.
02:09:26 He’s going through some stuff currently, you know.
02:09:29 But I’m sure, I hope the conversation
02:09:31 between you, Devin, and Joe happens eventually.
02:09:34 He’s, that would be epic as well,
02:09:36 because he’s a, yeah, he loves fighting.
02:09:39 He loves fighting, he loves wrestling, he loves strength.
02:09:43 And I think all of those are, like,
02:09:47 so perfectly encapsulated in the sport of arm wrestling.
02:09:51 So thank you so much for talking to me.
02:09:52 Thanks so much, Lex.
02:09:55 Thanks for listening to this conversation with Devin Larratt.
02:09:58 To support this podcast,
02:10:00 please check out our sponsors in the description.
02:10:02 And now, let me leave you with some words from Miyamoto Musashi.
02:10:07 The only reason a warrior is alive is to fight.
02:10:11 And the only reason a warrior fights is to win.
02:10:15 Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.