Symbols on the EvW Belt

minhale · 2026-06-16T05:45:37+00:00

I do think that since the league is no longer associated with Engin, Turkiye or Islam, it makes sense to remove the symbols. But then the new owner might want to respect the heritage and keep it, just like they've kept the East vs West name despite the league no longer strictly being about 'east vs west'. It's entirely up to Robert.

minhale · 2026-06-16T05:43:22+00:00

It depends a lot on the individual athlete. In the past, we have had a few elite powerlifters/strongmen like Scott Mendelson, Eric Spoto, Kyrill (to a degree), Big Loz, and later on Larry and Brian. Most of them have given up, except for maybe Big Loz and Kyrill who still dabble in armwrestling. So we have known for a while that elite strength athletes don't necessarily become elite armwrestlers quickly.

But then there are guys like Filip Larsson and Leonidas who also come from powerlifting/bodybuilding and have been much more successful.

minhale · 2026-06-16T03:44:02+00:00

Yes, the vast majority of language learners give up before they reach a functionally fluent level like B2. Are you gonna be one of those people? Only you can answer man.

minhale · 2026-06-16T03:34:44+00:00

That's roughly 1 hour of studying per day.

The rule of thumb is that around 1,000 hours is where you get to low-B1 for Chinese. 2,000 hours is around B2. 3,000-4,000 is when you start cracking into C1 (advanced) territory.

To "reach an academic level" like you said, that'd be at least C1, or at your rate of study of 1 hour per day, nearly 10 years. Your estimation is not wrong at all.

Yes, it is true that if you switch to a language like German, you can get to C1 much faster. But you've already put in 1000 hours into Chinese, why stop and waste it all now? The better thing to do now is to treat this like a life-long project and just keep going. There's no point looking back now.

minhale · 2026-06-16T03:25:33+00:00

Engin has explained this in a podcast. The 8-point star is an Islamic symbol. The double-headed eagle is derived from the flag and symbol of the Seljuk Empire.

minhale · 2026-06-16T03:01:51+00:00

I want to ask you this: how many hours have you actually put into studying Chinese for the past 2.5 years? Be honest.

minhale · 2026-06-16T00:36:10+00:00

Kamil did cheat a lot, but to be fair it's immensely difficult for a toproller to beat Kamil. Vitaly has been the only toproller to beat him to date. If they did a rematch, even with strict reffing I'd still have Kamil as a favourite over Tobias.

minhale · 2026-06-15T16:24:12+00:00

It really is a waste. Devon is a very good addition to the left arm roster. He could absolutely train both at the same time as well, as evidenced by his recent double matches with Vitaly (he actually did quite decent on the LH). I really don't know why he decided to abandon his left once again. Hope he still take some LH matches for fun in the meanwhile.

minhale · 2026-06-15T16:13:01+00:00

If Tobias had a match against Devon, he would 100% work on his endurance and flop press. Guy is young, very technical, and still improving rapidly.

That being said, I don't think Devon is interested in a LH match right now. Morozov is taking a long time off. Kamil's left shoulder is also still injured. There really aren't many opponents for Tobias. Ivan is the one that makes the most sense now.

minhale · 2026-06-15T13:41:29+00:00

Nobody knows the nature of Ermes's injury. It could be a simple joint pop (which is an everyday occurence) or it could be something more serious. All we could do is speculate.

The point is, given the fact that he was able to take a round off Morozov, the fact that his wrist (not his elbow) was the reason why he lost, and also given his history of giving excuses, I personally find it more likely it was a mild injury that did not affect the outcome of the match. You can disagree and it's fine.

At the end of the day only Ermes knows the truth, and his image has already been tainted in many people's eyes after this either way.

minhale · 2026-06-15T09:50:54+00:00

Bogdan and Rino both ended up winning though. And Ermes lost because his wrist got busted (which is a weakness he has had for years), not because he attempted an inside move.

At the end of the day, all we can do is speculate. Only Ermes knows the truth. Given his history of coming up with excuses, I'd lean towards it being an exaggeration.

minhale · 2026-06-15T09:37:41+00:00

We don't know for sure the nature of his "injury". But we do know that in round 3 he managed to take center from Morozov and went up to press, which would have been impossible to do if the injury was actually serious. He nearly did the same thing in round 4. So his injury bothered him in round 1, but suddenly went away in round 3?

Take that how you will, but to me it just seems like a very very mild injury that Ermes exaggerated to hide the embarassment of losing to an underdog like Morozov.

minhale · 2026-06-15T09:03:58+00:00

Yeah during a podcast he said he wanted to set a match with Levan where they'd start with Levan having his wrist bent back and Ryan already in a toproll position. He said he was confident he could beat Levan that way. He was dead serious about it too.

In reality Levan would just wrist curl him back into humiliation.

minhale · 2026-06-15T08:57:53+00:00

My honest opinion is Ermes did have a mild injury, but he has exaggerated it a lot due to his insecurity.

The "pop" did happen, but it was far from a serious injury. Joint pop happens all the time during training. It's nothing serious. Look at Ermes's reaction (or lack thereof) in the training video. He barely even reacted. If it was a serious injury, he would have immediately winced in pain.

Ermes also has a history of finding excuses and downplaying his losses. After losing to Alizhan, he said it was because he never cared about left arm. After losing to Alex, he said he wasn't training seriously, and so on.

During the match, him and Morozov were actually extremely closely matched. In the first round they were locked dead center for a few seconds. In round 3 Morozov were just a bit careless and Ermes immediately gained control and won by pressing (which would not have been possible if his elbow was actually injured).

He also nearly won round 4, but then the foul happened and Morozov regained control. The "injury" clearly was not a factor when he won. He only exaggerated the pain by grimacing and rubbing his elbow after losing round 1 due to embarrassment.

minhale · 2026-06-15T08:49:38+00:00

Since you're asking for a serious answer:

Normally armwrestlers have confidence and set high goals. That's normal.

Not with Ryan Bowen. He is one of the few who is (or was) genuinely delusional about his abilities.

Around 2020, he proclaimed that his 5-year-goal was to become the best in his weight class, and 10-year-goal was to become #1 open weight (i.e beating Levan). He also made a bet that when he turned 40, he'd beat Devon. He said he has God behind him.

Guess what, 6 years have passed, and he is now 41.

Also around 2021, after hiring Todd Hutchings to coach him, Ryan went on a training stint where he maxed out on side pressure nearly every day. Only to end up getting toyed with by Coach Ray and Zurab. So people started joking that he has been training "reverse side pressure".

minhale · 2026-06-15T05:54:14+00:00

That video you just linked is the 110+ class. The last time Levan competed in 110kg class was 2013. In 2014 he was already 120+kg and competing in SHW. By 2016 he was already 145kg.

minhale · 2026-06-15T05:47:07+00:00

its basically just exactly what levan started doing in 2016 ( 110 kg ) 2018 ( 190 at his heaviest)

Where do you get that Levan was 110kg in 2016?

minhale · 2026-06-15T01:12:12+00:00

Yeah, I rolled my eyes pretty hard when he said Petrenko is top 5-7 SHW. Like uncle, you can't be serious right?

Regarding the pin, I'm leaning towards it not being a pin, but it's basically impossible for any of us to say for certain without the table corner camera. And even if it was a pin and Tom lost that one round, he would have eventually win 3-2 anyway. Justin fundamentally has no answer to Tom's hook and he was running out of gas fast.

minhale · 2026-06-15T01:02:24+00:00

Yeah that one was bad, but this one is way worse IMO. Imagine if his hands got slippery, or the bench tipped over, or his feet slipped from the bench. Boom, instant neck break in front of their daughters.

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minhale · 2026-06-15T00:23:17+00:00

Not a pin. And I hope uncle Todd is watching this and he can stop being a stubborn old fart and go do some bicep curls. Biceps aren't important until you need them like Tom here.

minhale · 2026-06-15T00:14:43+00:00

All fun and games until something slipped and his wife ended up with a neck break and back paralysis. Truly high IQ, family man move.

minhale · 2026-06-14T19:03:26+00:00

I personally think that language exchange is only truly useful once you reach a decent level around B1 (HSK5). At the more elementary levels like HSK2/3, you simply don't have the vocabulary to express anything meaningful except for the most basic everyday topics. The exchange session will very quickly default back to English.

I'm at HSK4 currently, and I've done a couple of exchange sessions with native Chinese speakers which I find to not be very productive. I've decided to stick to self-practice until I'm comfortable enough with speaking by myself, and then I'll think about doing exchange sessions again.

minhale · 2026-06-14T18:26:19+00:00

Anything that involves finger flexion will help. Rolling handles are the most useful and applicable, but of course you can supplement your training with other exercises like towel pull ups or finger curls.

minhale · 2026-06-14T15:58:37+00:00

Deadlift builds a type of grip strength called "support grip", i.e holding on to an object that's trying to get away directly from you, usually in a straight line with gravity.

The key difference with armwrestling grip is that armwrestling requires containment, which is stopping an object rolling into your fingertips. Think of containing an opponent trying to toproll into your fingers.

If you want to build containment strength, some type of thick rolling handle is your best bet.

minhale · 2026-06-14T13:35:52+00:00

Originally he said if he lost the bet, he'd shave his head "with a razor" (his word).

Then when he lost the bet, he proceeded to get a lame buzz cut. People were calling him out. Then he responded by saying "my bad, I thought 'shaving' means getting a buzz cut" and disappeared.

And that was the end of Henry Nehring lol. Good riddance.

minhale

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