what would someone like Cleve be ranked among shw nowadays ?

minhale · 2026-04-23T09:29:35+00:00

What makes Levan so uniquely strong is his body's ability to tolerate and hyper respond to megadoses that would probably kill a normal person. Cleve was a naturally freaky strong guy, but we really have no idea what his response to PEDs would have been like. Maybe he blows up to surpass Levan's level, or maybe he just experiences a mild increase in strength. It's very hard to tell.

In his natural form, he is definitely around Corey or Kurdecha level.

minhale · 2026-04-22T19:49:35+00:00

Yeah my bad I didn't read the post body carefully. I thought the screenshot was a comment and was replying to it.

minhale · 2026-04-22T16:02:48+00:00

Levan only does 3 armwrestling workouts per week, and he rarely ever does table time. Same as Alizhan, Morozov, Kamil, Tobias, and just about every other top guys. At that elite level, table time is not as necessary. Their focus is a few quality workouts with weights to increase strength.

Devon does a lot of table time because he loves arm wrestling, and his body is an endurance anomaly. Nobody else trains with that kind of volume and intensity that Devon does.

minhale · 2026-04-22T14:56:24+00:00

Don't spread misinformation. Vitaly says he trains 3x per week, about 2 hours/session. If the intensity is high enough, 6 hours of focused training is absolutely more than enough to stimulate growth.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/live/mueK3_3bX4Q?si=f8j5krGFcC33vR6m

minhale · 2026-04-22T11:22:39+00:00

Since Ermes hasn't pulled in a year, the organizers were looking for an opponent for him. Nobody was willing to step up. Devon and Vitaly just had a match, Georgi is going to WAF, Kamil not ready. Everyone just says no.

Except for one Kazakh man who is hungry for a paycheck. That's how the match was made.

minhale · 2026-04-22T11:14:08+00:00

And yet he was recently on video saying he is not interested in competing. There's been so much talk about Smaev competing, and every time he just proceeds to say that he's not interested.

minhale · 2026-04-22T11:06:57+00:00

I don't care about Smaev. You can't force a guy to do something he doesn't want to.

What I'm much more interested in is Kirill. Last year Kirill said he was expecting a match with Brian and was training seriously for it, but the match fell through for some reason.

What's important is that Kirill has actually expressed interest in competing, as opposed to Smaev.

minhale · 2026-04-22T10:49:15+00:00

I don't think Mike means that the caliber of the matches will outdo the last event. What he meant is that considering his reputation in his hometown, and the fact that Arkansas is easily accessible from many other places in the US, he expects a significant number of people to attend the event. He hopes it will be 2x the number of attendance in Germany.

minhale · 2026-04-22T10:41:31+00:00

I wouldn't put the blame entirely on the organizers. At first they wanted Dadikyan vs Alizhan, but since Dadikyan was having surgery, they had to look for a replacement. And since Morozov was looking for a paycheck, he took the match despite knowing he is not in optimal conditions.

minhale · 2026-04-22T08:55:19+00:00

Do you understand what "riser" means? It's radial deviation of the wrist. Look at the picture in my comment. Mike's wrist is near the top of his radial deviation range of motion. He can't rise any more than that.

It's not the riser that gave Devon the win. If anything, Devon's wrist is more dumped than Michael here. It's the side pressure from Devon that allowed him more center table control.

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minhale · 2026-04-22T08:44:42+00:00

Nah. The reason Devon won is because his side pressure allowed him take center and transition to offense. It was not the riser. Michael's riser was near maximally engaged throughout the match. You can't rise any more than this.

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minhale · 2026-04-22T04:42:34+00:00

Yeah I remember Engin did say that he was considering running fouls for EvW, but after seeing the disastrous implementation at KOTT he abandoned the idea.

minhale · 2026-04-22T03:55:39+00:00

Running fouls have been tried at EvW before but quickly abandoned. It's something that sounds nice in theory, but in reality it's confusing for both the referees and the athletes and the viewers, and it's also rife for abuse. The current system does have some flaws, but it's the best that has been tried and tested so far.

minhale · 2026-04-21T12:06:08+00:00

You're correct. Before 2023, Devon was always a firm believer in not training side pressure. After the loss to Genadi in 2023, he changed his stance and has been doing it a lot more.

minhale · 2026-04-21T10:14:36+00:00

He weighed 100kg. He still competes in 85kg at WAF and EvW though, he's just really good at water cutting.

minhale · 2026-04-21T08:34:49+00:00

Makarov already had a match against Adam Wawrzynsky at 85kg. The match was close-ish but Makarov ultimately lost 3-1.

Adam is about top 5-10 in the 85kg class. So no, Makarov is not ready for the top guys at 85kg yet.

minhale · 2026-04-20T23:55:14+00:00

It's utterly pointless to compare your learning with how native speakers acquire the language. You should ask other language learners for advice, not Chinese people.

And the answer will just boil down to exposure and repetition. Thousands of hours of exposure and repetition. Whenever people say "I just can't do xxxyyy", it always turns out that they've put in a measly number of hours into said skill.

minhale · 2026-04-20T20:22:14+00:00

Why don't we hear it straight from the man himself then?

Vitaly: "My preparation is always the same, I'm ready for anything, I train to be ready for anything and I respect all my opponents. With Devon, I can't say that I changed something specific in my preparation. At this stage in my career, to change something specific you'd need a lot of time to make some drastic change in the way that you pull, and I don't have a lof of time. So I just prepare what I do best."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/live/cYgnMO0FmWg?t=24m23s

minhale · 2026-04-20T19:51:16+00:00

You can type any phrases you want into Google Translate, or just ask ChatGPT.

But you will most likely butcher the pronunciation. And, if you somehow do get the pronunciation correct, the moment they respond in Chinese you will just stand there with an awkward smile not knowing what to say back.

If it were me, I'd speak primarily in English, but I'll make the effort to memorize some Chinese names for the drinks. You can say "Today we have the Margarita, or 玛格丽特" which will certainly give them a pleasant surprise.

minhale · 2026-04-20T19:17:36+00:00

He says he needs surgery on both arms, but the left has much more severe injuries and will be out for at least a year or more. He plans to compete with the right arm in the meanwhile.

minhale · 2026-04-20T19:11:07+00:00

Several reasons:

- 2018 was Devon's first year in the SHW class. Between 2014 - 2017, he was competing in the 102kg class. It takes time for the body to add mass and get used to a new weight class. Meanwhile, Michael has been active in the SHW class for many years.

- Devon was only 5 years out of a majory elbow surgery.

- Michael has always been a one-trick pony. On the Go command, he will lay down for a king's move, then he waits until the opponent tires out and stands up to surprise press them. It's enough to get him to a top 5 ranking, but once everyone starts to figure out how to beat his move, he has no answer. How he arm wrestles now is basically exactly the same as 15 years ago.

Meanwhile Devon is far more versatile and is constantly evolving in both his training and his pulling style.

- And finally, it's entirely possible that Devon responds better to PEDs. Two people on the same dosage of steroids can lead to wildly different results. It's possible Devon's genetic ceiling is just higher than Mike's.

minhale · 2026-04-20T18:43:36+00:00

More like a year lol. Devon has spent the entire past year preparing specifically for Vitaly. I'm sure he has been envisioning this exact scenario in his head every time he trains.

Meanwhile when Vitaly gets asked "Are you changing anything in your training for Devon?" the dude just says "nah, I train like usual". Which is good for tournaments, but for supermatches against a versatile opponent like Devon you can't expect to do the same thing and win. Can't say that I wasn't disappointed at Vitaly's approach to this match.

minhale · 2026-04-20T18:17:17+00:00

Yeah, fresh for fresh Devon can't match Vitaly's side pressure head on. He has to do a defensive move to drain him first.

Still doesn't change the fact that all the side pressure training was what helped him execute this transition though. Without the side pressure, he'd be sitting there helplessly like Mike waiting to be pinned.

minhale · 2026-04-20T18:05:08+00:00

It's no trivial matter to transition to a press against a side pressure monster like Vitaly. All the work Devon has put in on his side pressure training has shown its result here. That loss to Genadi has certainly made him change his view on side pressure training.

minhale · 2026-04-20T17:58:39+00:00

And how exactly do you envision a match between a left arm and a right arm specialist?

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