The Sevan Podcast - #168 - John Brzenk

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

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Well, we're just going to take a stab at this anyway. It's not bad, though. Okay, good. Thanks. Ah, it's pretty bad, Jake. An and that was bad you guys will get tired of this shit everyone looks like he's wearing a wetsuit watch it watch it elijah you got a lot of comments already come in the comment section you'll be doing burpees soon general this is kind of a weird um interview for me because i know so much about john i feel like we have to catch up on stuff but i don't want to ask any questions that are like This is kind of a weird interview for me because I know so much about John. I feel like we have to catch up on stuff, but I don't want to ask him questions that are like that have tons of presuppositions.

Because I know I need to keep you get you guys up to speed who aren't in the arm wrestling world. That makes sense. Makes sense to you, John. It makes sense to me perfectly. Where are you? I'm at home in my kitchen. My small home in Lasondas, Mesa, Arizona. Been here for seven years now. Oh, I haven't been to that house.

No, uh-uh. I've been down here for almost seven years now. I think seven years in March. I don't think I've been to your new house either, though. We drifted though. No. It's both of us. We drifted apart. Yeah.

No, it's been probably, what, 10 years or so? It's probably even more than that. When did you start the CrossFit thing? 15 years ago, 20 years ago? Yeah. Boy, time flies. When did we first meet? Do you know what year that was?

2004? Oh, I was going to say earlier than that. When you started calling about doing the Pulling John thing, I thought it was the early 2000s. It wasn't 2004, the Zloty Tour tournament. So it had to be a couple years before that. We had done a bunch of stuff. Was there even YouTube back then? No. bunch of stuff was there even youtube back then no hell i i can remember you talking about this new device that was coming out by apple that was a you know a computer on a phone the iphone

holy shit so i i knew you before the iphone existed why did you um let's jump forward for a second why did you all of a sudden just start getting into youtube what inspired you uh well a good friend that I met about two years ago, Ryan Bowen from Australia, came out to visit and talked about YouTube and how he wanted to make it a career and his involvement in it and how he thought it would work for me. And, of course, me not knowing anything about it and being lazy, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds all fine and dandy, great.

But here we are two years later and everybody seems to be doing it. I find myself watching YouTube more than I watch regular television anymore. I decided, why not? I'll throw myself out there and just say or do whatever and see where it goes. Two weeks later, three weeks later,

here we are. I'm starting to get a little bit more comfortable with it. But yeah, it's interesting. It's definitely interesting. My wife just said I had no idea that there was that many interested people out there in the world for YouTube type blogging. I guess that's what they call blogging, right? Yeah.

Well, I don't know what you call what you're doing. My wife just texted me and said, you're hard to hear. It's weird. All of a sudden, your volume just went down. I don't know why that happened. I don't know either. Oh, you are using that earpiece, Mike. Yeah. Okay. Can you keep... I don't want to mess with things too much, but yeah, my volume's all the way up. It looks like this other device, noise cancellation off.

Noise cancellation off. Better? Yeah. Better, better, better, better. I don't know, Chuck. Oh, now that's great. Now you sound like a sexy DJ. Who's Ryan Bone?

Why does he want to make a living doing YouTube? That seems like. Yeah, just a young kid. I think he was in the service for the australian service and um he decided he wanted to be the best arm wrestler in the world and he hey and i don't know i had some media experience and um i think i don't know how but to what extent his uh youtube experience was but he started with doing the instagram and the Facebook and then evolving into knowing this and knowing that. And then eventually led him to deciding that YouTube

was the best platform to, um, expand his, um, his career in arm wrestling. And, and I think he's doing quite well. And, you know, it's my, I did a bunch of talk shows with him to kind of help him get going, um, a couple of years ago. And then kind of help him get going a couple years ago. And then we did something just recently and some other guy came over that has a wife that's involved with YouTube quite extensively. And he was saying, oh, yeah, I need to do it. I need to do it. And that's that's who really eventually pushed me into saying, OK, screw it. I'm just going to go do it and see what see what happens but um yeah you what just totally blew me away is what you and devin did last week was that last week you guys pulled that stunt the what are you talking about stunt just the zoom video it was

just no the um and by stunt i don't even mean it was conscious. You arm wrestle this guy. I want to say in Texas, it's a 17-minute video. It's like five matches. Oh, right, right, right. It's a war. Dimitri, yeah. Well, my two comeback matches, I just decided to start arm wrestling again in maybe June,

and a heavyweight that's been doing really well in the sport called me out early in January to do a super match which I hadn't been arm wrestling at all I'd had been basically retired after I'd pulled Devin in 2015 and then he contacted me again in April he was coming out to Arizona for another super match there was a state tournament and I said no no thank you and then come June I decided to start arm wrestling again because I had made a deal with Igor Mezarenko, who you know very well through PAL, to do the top eight. Before COVID had all started, he asked me if I would be part of top eight. And I told him yes, and then, of course, COVID hit,

and everything kind of went to hell. But kind of last minute, he wanted me to pull the first round against this guy named David Datacon in Moscow. So I started getting ready and I started pulling. And Travis, well, you know, Travis Bajent decided to do a tournament in West Virginia. And I knew I was going out there and I wasn't planning on pulling. I was just going to be kind of a guest. And I knew Chance Charles was from Florida so I I said hey I'm gonna be out east and if you want to pull let's pull let's do some stuff you know not super

official just to see where I'm at see where you're at I know he's he's been wanting to test themselves you know test himself with some of the bigger stronger guys and it ended up turning into a super super match and here we are you know two months later i got a super match with uh this uh texas kid dimitri uh kachan from uh originally from russia and i'm pulling paul in in about a week and a half two weeks and back in west virginia again so holy shit it's happening quick um so many questions so guys basically what happened is i was making i was trying to make a documentary on armenian genocide the first three letters of armenian are arm i ended up coming across arm wrestling so many damn times that i ended up making a arm wrestling documentary

the name of it is pulling john um john brazink the guy you're looking at right here is the main character and there's a cast of um co-stars that are amazing it's actually it's a really good film i shouldn't say actually it's it's a really good film it's fun you'll enjoy it and it kind of catapulted my i don't know my confidence in what was possible one of the things that john and i did together was for a couple thousand bucks i with two cameras i filmed an arm wrestling competition on a casino boat in kansas and i and i brought and it was the united states championships and to tell you how good john is is um he didn't even go to it because it was

my words not john's below, below his... Right. They weren't given on enough cash. Yeah, okay, let's just say. It wasn't very much compensation involved. It was an amateur tournament. So I go to this tournament, and I film it with my girlfriend at the time, and we only have two cameras. We come back to my bedroom at my mom's house

where me and my girlfriend are living, and amongst other things we do in that bedroom, we assemble three half-hour arm wrestling shows and um i bring john over and travis over to the house and john and i end up commentating arm wrestling events like um like we were there and then espn2 i think re-aired those shows those three shows about 300 times it was crazy it was super well done for what you had available just your apple computer in your bedroom we pieced that together with some photographs that you found off i don't know where and uh yeah no it turned out really good it was really down to earth and just country country through and through and yeah it really was amazing for

what it was crazy and and we made it for a couple thousand bucks and john was nice enough to come out and travis nice enough to come out and do the commentary for it so basically so then the movie comes out um and slowly over time john and i just drift just the way two people would drift he lived in utah i lived in california he lives in arizona. I'm still in California. And then, you know, we would text each other, I don't know, once a year, once every three months. Hey, what's up? He'd make some jokes about the way I'm raising my kids.

I'd find out his daughters were grown up and married. Just, you know, small talk. And then I see this video on YouTube where John is given his iPhone to someone to film this match and it's a live match and he streams it live to his YouTube channel it's 17 minutes long I would always scrub even as a fan of Armorson I'd always scrub through Armorson matches I watch

all 17 minutes I don't stop it has 70,000 views and then YouTube says hey do you want to watch Devin Lorette's assessment of that video? Like YouTube suggests that to me in the algorithm. I'm like, what the fuck is this shit? And I look and Devin's filming a TV set with his phone, which is John's live stream. And that thing has 50,000 views.

I'm like, these guys are brilliant. Yeah, that blew up yeah that was doing quite well with the uh the youtube stuff he's anything he does is entertaining it's it's hilarious so um i just reached out to the producer of the show and i was just like hey um can you try to schedule with my buddy john and we had a little mishap this morning and bam here you are right yeah why and if you i can't i can't just tell you how good John is at arm wrestling. It's beyond just that he's good at arm wrestling. It's his contribution to the sport.

You can't overstate it. There's nothing I can do. You just have to start Googling around and looking at message boards. It's over the top. It's been my life. I've been doing it ever since i was 13 14 years old and you know i'm i just turned 57 so yeah you can do the math i'm it's it's it's been my whole life and it's it's definitely evolved and changed and it's good to be an arm wrestler

right now there's so many fun things happening now with the youtube and it's you know the the availability of it is instantaneous and you could, you know, sit down and watch arm wrestling all night long if you want to on YouTube. It's pretty crazy. It's, it's fun. God, I can't believe you're saying this. So, so you guys know how shocked I am. When I met John in 2000, one, two, three, or four, whenever it was, two, three, or four, whenever it was, he was the greatest living arm wrestler of the time, of all time. He was on the very top of the mountain.

And yet, if you talk to John, and you correct me if I'm wrong, John, he was over it. He was having a little bit of elbow pain. It seemed like a dead end. He had accomplished everything, traveling every weekend to make a few hundred bucks or a few thousand bucks here and there he was just like okay new chapter i'll start making beer been there done that i mean it's it was it was still kind of an underground sport well it still kind of is but at least the internet has brought it somewhat to life but we know how

hard it was just to get any kind of airtime at all back 15, 20 years ago. I mean, it was, you know, it was pulling teeth to try to get ESPN, even, you know, even with the successful show that you did, you know, to try to repeat it and get them to be interested in it was, was just impossible practically. So, um, yeah, now anybody can just do a great arm wrestling show with a, you know, a, a cell phone and an iPhone and boom, you know, you go live and, you know, do a little bit of editing with the, with your cell phone an iphone and boom you know you go live and you know do a little bit of editing with the with your cell phone and hell you got a show so when you very first started arm wrestling did you know there was professional arm wrestling yeah i mean yeah my dad introduced it to me at an early early age so i mean it wasn't it wasn't, it wasn't really professional. I mean, you could win a little bit of money, but nobody would survive very well on, on the money made from arm wrestling. So

that's kind of a, you know, a false name of being a professional. You think professional, you think of, you know, the mainstream sports, you know, where that's their whole livelihood and they make their living doing it. Um, professional arm wrestling just meant that you were good at it. And, um, you know, you could, you could occasionally go out on the weekend and make $1,000 here, $1,000 there. But it's nothing to sustain a break of a family. What's equivalent to it today? Like those mechanical bulls. Let's say you were good at riding mechanical bulls.

And you just went from bar to bar living in your car, like trying to stay on. I mean, I don't even know if that is something.'m completely making that up i yeah i don't know i mean you know what you think about uh weightlifters the weightlifters make very much money it seems like they're kind of moving across to the arm wrestling world so i think arm wrestling is actually doing um a little better in that respect than even some of the other you know sports that have been around forever so yeah no i don't know i don't know what i don't know what the dart players make or the better in that respect than even some of the other, you know, sports that have been around forever. So, yeah, no, I don't know. I don't know what the dart players make or the bull riders and things like that.

But, yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny. Arm wrestling, it still goes in cycles. We get promoters that have some big dreams and big high hopes and get some big sponsors on board, and there'll be an occasional big tournament here or there, and then it kind of fizzles because there's not a huge amount of support. And I don't know. I guess big sponsors maybe just still don't want to associate themselves with the stereotypic bar arm wrestler,

but hopefully the Internet will change that. It seems like some bigger promotions are in the works right now, so we'll just have to see how many times we'll tell. Do you remember your very, very first time arm wrestling, or was it just always there? I kind of somewhat remember some of the small tournaments that my dad would take me to. I wasn't old enough to drink yet, but all the arm wrestling tournaments were in bars,

small bars in the Chicago area, you know, Chicago area. Uh, but yeah, no, I can remember going and practicing, you know, going against maybe four or five different men, you know, small time stuff, you know, 40, 50 people in the bar that were part of this tournament. That's, that's how I started. But, um, yeah, you mean 20 people that were part of the tournament and 20 people who were just regular bar flies. Right. Yeah. So nothing, nothing super big, but it was still fun to do. You know, we, we, we got a chance to challenge ourselves from, uh, challenge ourselves against the guys from, you know, across the County and, um, you know, the cities that were close by, but yeah. Someone in the comments wrote double triple seven says to put John into context for CrossFitters listening.

Imagine if there was a CrossFitter that Froning and Fraser would be just happy to remain competitive against. I think that's a pretty fair assessment. Those two guys have been, I don't know if you know who they are, John, they've been super dominant in the CrossFit world. Rich won the CrossFit games four times,

which is nuts. And Matt won it five times, which is, and now there's a, now there's a woman on the scene and is and now there's a now there's a woman on the scene and it's it's a it's a horrible way to make a living in a professional crossfitter it's horrible um and there's now there's a woman who's about to do it she's done it five times and she's about to do it six times and it's um yeah i haven't been keeping up with the crossfit i mean how long has that been going on now for you um i'm out you know i got fired right i told you that

well if you did i didn't keep track of it oh yeah yeah a bit my boss got canceled so your boss got canceled and but the games are still going on somebody else has taken over the games and he made more money than god he sold the company to some venture capitalists who don't know what the fuck they bought and they're to try to make a run at it. So it's not the same as it was? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Before it was health and fitness and longevity were the premium. Now it's making money and making sure you have the right quotient of black, white, Jewish, midget, dwarf, hetero, homo combination of characters to present to you.

Is it a world competition? It is still a world competition. It is still a world competition. But CrossFit Inc. – I mean I think you know this about CrossFit, but we look at each other as humans, but the truth is that 90% of us is inside of our skin, right? And CrossFit was the same. The games were just this thin layer around the outside. But once you scratch the surface, it's really 15,000 mom-and-pop gyms around the world trying to save people from dying of type 2 diabetes, right?

And hanging with like-minded people. So when you were a kid, how did your dad know about these tournaments? There was no internet. Did he magazine? How did people find out about tournaments? Yeah There was no internet. Did he magazine? How did people find out about tournaments? Yeah, I think the story goes he went to somebody. Well, my dad owned a bowling alley in McHenry, Illinois. So he would get an influx of people that were, you know, barroom people.

And somebody mentioned about a tournament that was being held in Chicago area. I think it was at some carnival. And that's all it took, going to one tournament. You get on the list, you get on the flyer list, and then boom. I mean, you get notified when there's anything else going on. And, yeah, even back then, you know, you start talking to people that are arm wrestlers. They keep in touch and kind of keep their ear to the ground and just let other arm wrestlers know that, hey, you know, this is coming up.

We're doing this. We're doing that. So, you know, that's how that's how we got sucked in and and then, you know, evolve from there. Is anyone else around from when you were 13? Is there even one person? No, they're all dead. They are, right?

Are they gone? They're all dead of old age. Yeah, no, they're all gone. No, I still talk to them. I mean, you know Ron Bath. I did a little Zoom cast with him just a couple days ago, and he's still alive and well and kicking and competing more than I have. But he wasn't around when you were 13.

Oh, I met Ron in my teens. I don't know. You did? He's a couple years older than me. No, not at 13 no it was probably more like 17 18 when i first met ron oh shit i didn't know that yeah no see he i think he's two years older than me but yeah no um yeah mostly good well i traversed this tournament i saw a lot of the old guard that um that i knew that were maybe 10 years older than me when i

first started and they seem you know but now, now seeing them, of course they're in their mid sixties, late sixties. And it's like, Ooh, okay. Yeah. I forgot. Yeah. We're all getting older. Did you see that match recently? I think it's recently between, um, uh, Michael Todd and Ron bath. It looks like it's their training. Um, I haven't seen that video. I, Ron mentioned it, that he had, that, Michael Todd and Ron Bath? It looks like it's their training. I haven't seen that video. Ron mentioned it, that he had,

that Michael had come through his town and was able to kind of somewhat get an angle on him and push with a shoulder roll, but I haven't got a chance to see the match. Mike's doing the RV tour. Have you kind of been watching that a little bit? That's kind of cool. I mean, it's the RV's dough Have you kind of been watching that a little bit? That's kind of cool. I mean, it's the RV's dough. I like that stuff.

You used to do that. I forgot about that. That was that was your thing, right? Going across country with the pulling John banner on the side of the RV. And people thought it was a porn. The porn.

Yeah, the porn shooters. Pulling John. When I watch a match like that, as much as I love Michael Todd, and as much as I like arm wrestling, I see Ron in the dominant winning position for two and a half minutes and then lose the match. Can't get through it. That's the latest thing.

But some people hate it. Some people love it. Okay, good. Love the drama. Love the long-lasting matches love michael todd's matches because every one of them is a you know fighting from the losing position and you know scratching and crawling and and gut check and you know just all heart type of a match i mean mike's mike's mike he's always had that kind of a disadvantage of not being really genetically gifted for the sport. But after just a ton of hard work and persistence and he's he's developed himself into this this really difficult to beat person. And he's got his one he's got his one spot. He'll hang out until you just drain yourself.

And I promise I promise you guys I won't fall into the weeds too much. I'm going to pull out. We're going to talk about what John does for a living. Is Michael Todd the George Izakowitz of the modern era? You remember that guy, right? Yeah, same move, same move. Exactly same move. Straight arm.

Not even just the same move. I mean just the frustration. You either love him or hate him. The King's move, yeah. same move straight arm not even it's the same move i mean just the the frustration you either love him or hate him the king's move yeah um yeah at least with michael todd though michael you look at him and go okay well that's a dedicated hardcore athlete crazy george crazy george was old guy with a pot belly gut and it's like oh man that's just bad for the sport to have some guy like that just be so dominant and have that you know that sticking position didn't really give the sport much credibility right i mean it was like

anybody but i want to ask you so many questions about so many people but it's going to just fuck up the whole show i want to ask you about you ever see vernon martel what happened to crazy george but do you see barboza but before i do do that, are you still working at Delta? I am. And how long have you worked there? Oh, 36 years. They're coming up on 37 in March. My whole life.

That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, no, it's had its ups and downs. I mean, it hasn't been a bad job. It's afforded me the opportunity to go anywhere on this planet that I wanted to go. So that's always been a big perk and great, especially for this sport of arm wrestling. I mean, I can't complain. It's been a good job. I mean, sometimes I wish I would have maybe broke away from it.

I almost broke away this last year when they were offering the early outs. I was like, oh, I can afford to do it. And I was afraid that what would I do with myself if I ended up not having to get up every morning and go to the airport? So I kind of talked myself, scared myself out of early retirement. Like what? Like you drink yourself to death or start watching porn? Yeah, I just wouldn't know what to do with myself. I actually took the four months voluntary leave. And yeah, within a couple of weeks, I'm like, what do I do? I got all this free time and I don't have anything to do with myself. But I don't know.

If I was closer to you, maybe I would have jumped on the YouTube thing and asked for your advice on editing and traveled down that road. for your advice on editing and travel down that road. That's always somewhat interested me when you did the Pulling John stuff with all the tracks and the audio and that Final Cut stuff was always, was kind of interesting. So yeah, so maybe I'll end up, maybe try to end up doing that.

I guess it's a different program now, but yeah, I was kind of. You're killing it on YouTube. I don't feel comfortable on it. So I'm not saying I'm killing it. I'm not, I'm not waking up going, Oh, I got this great idea. And I, this is what I want to post for today. It's, it's like every day I go, well, I don't have anything to say today.

You know, it's gonna, it's gonna be difficult. I mean, sure. The first week or two, it's, it's kind of fun. And you know, the, the dumb guy that don't week or two, it's, it's kind of fun. And you know, the dumb guy that don't know how to, you know, that doesn't know how to do anything, but after a while, there's going to have to be some real content, right? Don't, don't you feel good after every time you make something and you publish it, aren't you pretty stoked? Um, I'm not skilled enough where I'm, I feel proud of, uh, what I'm doing. I know what needs to be done and i don't have the time to really

learn and figure it out um i i've seen it done um and i have some ideas that i wish i could have done this or done that or you know splice this or did that and you know mix this together and um but yeah maybe i'll get there it dude interest me you're being too hard on yourself it interests me enough yeah the engagement on your videos is nuts i mean do you know what i mean by engagement like the comments the likes the yeah the fact that devin's making videos of your video it's it's nuts okay yeah yeah i hope i'm hoping it lasts but i don't think anyone healthy likes it like i'm not like chomping at the bit five minutes before the podcast starts going, oh, my God, I can't wait to do another podcast. I'm like, fuck, I'd rather be inside just fucking eating popcorn. Yeah, but you got all this stuff going on in your brain.

My brain thinks about hitting the chair and drinking a beer. I don't have all these things like, oh, I need to get this out. I need to tell the people this. I don't have all these things like, oh, I need to get this out. I need to tell the people this. Is there anyone who's been at Delta for 37 years? Oh, yeah. I'm pretty high.

I think I might even be on the first page of the – Uh-oh, your audio. Something happened to your audio again. Uh-oh. First page, check. Hello, check, check, check. Better. Better? Okay.

I was going to say that I think I might be on the first page of the seniority list for the 5,000 mechanics that Delta has. I'm that far up the seniority list, which is – yeah. But there's a few people still that are hanging around that are older than me. There's dudes that you – so you've been there 37 years. You're 57, so that's – you, so you've been there 37 years, you're 57. So that's, uh, you started when you were 20. There's dudes there that were there when you were 20. Like you'd be like, Hey Paul.

Yeah. How's your prostate? Right. I actually have, I actually work with a guy that's got maybe like two or three months on me. Um, and I think he's a couple of months younger than me. He's my, he's my lead on day shift so uh yeah no they exist i'm not i'm not quite the oldest of the old

he's your lead and he's a little younger than you because he's been there longer holy shit a month or two yeah um what's going on at southwest oh i don't know the full story but um i think it's just a i can get you fired right here let's talk this is what i've heard i don't know i i heard it was weather but i doubt if it really was weather i think i think it's whether or not people are coming back to work not that kind of weather yeah yeah i guess the real story probably is pilots that are upset that they have to get the vaccine. So that's the whole COVID thing coming around on the airlines. I think that's why Delta kind of decided not to mandate it.

They were afraid that they would they would suffer the same same conditions and have to cancel flights and not have enough crew members. But that's that's kind of what I think. I don't know that for sure. crew members, but that's, that's kind of what I think. I don't know that for sure. Did you have to take a survey when you were there? Like, Hey, um, like I know a lot of businesses gave all their employees surveys that said, Hey, would you rather everyone get vaccinated? Would you rather we just keep doing testing? Did you have to do that? Um, no, no. Um, and Delta didn't actually ever mandate it until of course the new mandate, because we have government contracts, uh, they were, they were mandate, because we have government contracts. They were allowing it to be an option, but they made it difficult for everybody. Everybody that hadn't been vaccinated had to wear a mask 24-7, whether you were on the airplane or off the

airplane. They added an extra $200 to the insurance for whatever reason. I don't know how they did that, but it was going to cost people that didn't get vaccinated more money for insurance. Which means you make less, right? Yeah, you make less. And then you had to go through the hassle of being tested every single week. So yeah, I wouldn't have been able to withstand all those hardships and obstacles. So, um, of course with my arm wrestling and being, you know, wanting to fly around as soon as possible. Um, I went and got vaccinated back in, in March, but, um, which one did you, which one did you get? I got the one and done. I got the Johnson and Johnson. I don't know if there's any, do you have anything happened? Do

you have a stroke? You get retarded?? Do you have a heart attack? Anything? Nothing super bad, just a headache and body aches. It took me a couple, three days. Of course, I always have body aches because I'm old, but it was enough that it was a little bit noticeable. I was like, okay, I'm a little off. Something's not right. Something tweaked me a little bit here, but nothing long-lasting. I think I'm over it now, I hope. You have two daughters?

Yes, correct. And they're married? Married. Great husbands. And four grandchildren now. I just had a new baby girl with my youngest. So I have one grandson and three granddaughters. Are you stoked?

Oh, yeah. No, I love them. They're, they're, they're way better than our kids. Way much more than I ever did our own kids. And that's, that's a sad and a shame, but I don't know. I, at the time I was so busy with arm wrestling and doing other things that I just never really had a chance to really enjoy my own kids. But, you know, the Ryan kids have been just fantastic. It's they're they're a hoot. Is your dad still around?

He's around. Yeah, he's up and he's retired. He lives in southern. I was going to say Arizona, but it's southern Utah. Hurrican, Hurrican, outside of the St. George. And do you ever see him? I don't talk to him very much. Last time I saw him was about a year ago. What's he doing up there? Is your brother up there? Just hanging out. No, my brother lives about 45, well, he used to live about an hour away from me. I guess he

sold his house just recently, so I don't know exactly where he's at right now. He's in the Valley somewhere. And you're still married. Yeah, I'm still married. Holy shit. Life's good. Yeah. Why don't people leave you alone?

Why are you still arm wrestling? It's crazy. First of all, I don't believe you when you say you retired in 2015. But I kind of want to take your word on it for the sake of making this interview easy, but I don't believe you. Yeah, no, well, it was aggravating for me. So I don't know if you follow me, but I ended up having shoulder surgery. My labrum was tore, so I took six anchors to re-secure it. It was probably when I had that done, it was probably just arthritis. The labrum was torn. i can remember the day that i tore it it was when i was my early 20s so i lived with it for 20 plus is that the softball

thing the softball throw yeah oh tell that story real quick yeah i mean this is a crazy i don't i don't hurt my arm or shoulder from arm wrestling i do it from getting talked into playing softball and going out to right field and the first ball is hit over my head to the fence. And I, you know, run back and, and, and grab this plumage softball and throw it as hard as I can in the infield. And just, I guess here, I mean, just awful noise. I knew that I did something. And yeah, I just lived with it for, for 20 plus years. And then,

and then decided that I needed to get it fixed because it was bothering me so much and just inflamed i where i couldn't sleep and uh got it fixed and it took two three years to recoup from that and what year was that what year was the surgery 2010 maybe 2009 2010 and fought back from that and just never got better it took a long time to get healed back up where I could even pull halfway decent again, and then just never got better. Always was bothering me. Always was inflamed, especially when I put pressure on it. So after 2015, I said, well, that's enough.

That's enough. I got to be able to sleep, and it's killing me. So I decided to stop, and it didn't get any better. So it wasn't really caused by the arm wrestling. Uh, and I've talked to, uh, shoulder doctors afterwards. They say, yeah, no, it wasn't your labor. I mean, it's just, you got, you know, they take an x-ray and they go, you just got 80 year old shoulders and you just got arthritis, uh, really bad. Um, so the arm wrestling is not going to hurt it. It's just going to be, you know, something you're going to have to deal with as far as being uncomfortable and the pain in that. So, um, yeah, but so like I said, after, after 2015, when I retired, it never really got any better.

My, it didn't, it didn't heal up or I could, you know, do anything any better or sleep any better. So, you know, five, six years later, I said, well, what the hell might as well, might as well enjoy arm wrestling again. It's not, uh doing nothing. And I was getting fat. I was drinking beer and getting really badly out of shape. So at least arm wrestling kind of pulls you in a little bit. It's not CrossFit, but it's something at least. What are you working out? Well, not official workout. Not something that you would consider a workout and you would laugh,

but, um, just arm wrestling. I mean, you know how I am. I just, just put one's last time you jump rope. Ooh, never. I've, uh, I've done, I've been doing pushups. I've been doing pushups. I've been doing sit-ups. What other lifts? What about one of those assault bikes? You got one of those? I've got a stationary bike that I bought three or four years ago. And, you know, Rene rides it every day.

But, no, I don't ride it. I bought an electric bike. I got a Sur-On bike that I'll terrorize. Twist the throttle. Yeah, it's hard. You still got to hang on to the damn thing. I want to i want to i want to hear you say i want to hear you say something like really badass like i got an

electric bike but i never charge it and i just ride it i ride it up mountain sides i just push it around it's really tough to push around yeah it's a heavy sucker if it ran out of juice i'd be in trouble do you sweat every day i don't i't, I don't do anything cardio. I mean, it's if I, if I'm, well, I shouldn't say I don't sweat because if I, if I'm walking fast and get to the parking lot after work, I I'm breathing hard and maybe a little, little sweats coming out, but no, yeah. The cardio is just not my vocabulary and yeah. Yeah. It gets gets it's getting harder and harder to do anything anymore uh energy wise it's just just not there but at least the arm wrestling's there so i don't know um do you think what do you think is there any point in talking to you and trying to talk you

into that like like what if i said you should get an assault bike what if i could get the guy to send you one and you just rode it for 10 minutes. What is an assault bike? It has those handles on it. You go like this. It's this, you know? Okay. And you sit on it. You put your headphones on.

You watch some TV. And you just ride it for 10 minutes. Gotcha. And sweat pours off of you. Gotcha. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I think I would do better. Would it fuck your arm wrestling no but i think i would

i i would have to work into that something i would have to work into that slowly i think maybe electric assist bike would be better suited for me that i could pedal a little bit and then switch on the electricity when i wanted to kind of work into things slowly. John, you don't lift weights, and you never have lifted weights? I can't say never, but it's never been the source of my strength for arm wrestling. I've been working with bands

just because it's easy to do, and I have some free time at work, so I'll sneak off into the back room and try to do some shoulder work, shrugs, and know lists with the bands but yeah no no power has ever come from me lifting weights in your uh and basically so since you've been 20 years old to 57 if you lifted it would it was more just like for aesthetic reasons like hey i'll get some curls or i'll do some bench press for shitting giggles well i i've just tested

theories out like okay let, let's see. And I tell the story all the time where I arm wrestled and then went weight training for almost a year and gained 20 pounds and doubled my bench press and could curl. And I just didn't see any improvement on the arm wrestling table. It was just like, okay, that's just a lot of show muscle and I'm big and puffy. okay, that's just a lot of show muscle and a lot of I'm big and puffy. And sometimes I think I actually arm wrestle, you know, stupid because I thought I was stronger than I really was. I was almost just as strong, you know, just kind of cowboyish, you know, not big muscles, just, you know, just hard from arm wrestling.

So I went back to that. I like being a little guy anyway. I never like walking around, you know, without all that extra, extra bulk, extra weight. How much do you weigh right now? I'm up to 230 pounds. Oh, so days of one night wrestling 198 are over for you? Yeah. Well, it was always hard for me to, it was even hard for me back in the day to, to make 209, right? I was always kind of a natural 220. Um, I the day to to make 209 right i was always kind of a natural 220 um

i had to cut to make 209 but yeah now it would be really tough i've been actually trying to diet a little bit and of course with no cardio and no working out it makes it a lot tougher but my body just does not want to lose any any weight at all it just refuses to lose any scale weight go ahead i was i i can tell that i'm getting in shape a little bit better. The fat around my stomach and legs has gone away a little bit. So it's transforming itself into a little bit of muscle, but the scale stays the same. This guy, Dimitri, that I saw you pull, who is he? Is he good? He's an unknown that's really good. He's super, super underrated. He's very well known in Texas, but not really throughout the country. I think I asked him.

He's been in the United States now for three years. So I think he's actually from the area that Alexei Bovoda was from. Sochi? Okay. Sochi. So I'm not sure if he was Russian national champion. I think he took second or he was on the podium for second European championship. So very formidable, very good arm wrestler, but just not.

He doesn't get out very much to really prove himself. I don't know if you know Robbie Burnett, but he had a super match with Robbie Burnett the year prior in Texas and had a killer match with him and burnett uh the year prior in texas and had a killer match with him and and actually ended up beating the you know robbie in the series who pretty much beats would be probably 90 98 99 of the the arm wrestlers in the united states so how much did that dude weigh dimitri was uh he was the same weight as i was he came in around 230 235 so god in that video you guys don't look that big that's crazy yeah no he's he's super wide in the shoulders and uh not as thick as i had thought um that he would be his his forms didn't really look that intimidating

of course you know i've been around some big guys so everybody everybody kind of, when I see him in person, I think, okay, I seem bigger, you know. But no, he definitely packed a punch. He was a lot stronger than he looked. Great, great, great kid. Did you think you could beat him going into that match? And do you take matches that you, do you only take matches you know you can win? Did you wrestle someone you thought that you could win? No. In fact, I had no idea where I stood with Chance Shaw.

He was a heavyweight 300-pounder that I pulled at Travis' tournament. I had absolutely no idea. He had just beaten some of the heavyweights, Mike Alejo, Don Underwood, Jordan Sill, who I hadn't pulled for a couple, three years in a four-way supermatch. And I actually pulled Jordan before I got a chance to pull Chance.

And then Jordan just mopped the floor with me and killed me. At a practice? Yeah, at a practice. So I'm like, I'm way over my head. This was silly. But I had nothing to lose. It wasn't for a big cash prize or anything. They weren't giving any semi-tru and i guess so it was it was all good fun and i just

thought i'll put myself out there and make it a promotion and do a super match it'll help travis's tournament and um but i was able to pull it off i was red line i mean it was it was everything i had i was um yeah that after the first match i wish I had done a little bit of cardio because I was this close from having a heart attack. Really? I was breathing hard. I was like, I couldn't get enough air in me. I was like, oh, my God. Do you think that's, you think that,

so this guy Chance beat the guy that mopped you up at practice? Yeah. And then you went out there and you went, are you a Showtime guy? I have been that guy in the past. Like practice pulling is one thing because you kind of deliver it in slow. But tournament pullers, if you've got the speed factor, it becomes a factor. And in my younger years, I had that. becomes a factor. And I, in my younger years, I had that, um, I had that explosive, explosive hit, um, in movement to be able to knock people off where I wouldn't knock them off center,

you know, practicing. So, uh, but as I've gotten older, that's, that's, that weapon has gone away. So I have to rely on more, more strategy and more strength, and sometimes I have to wait stuff out and end up pulling from bad positions like you saw me pull with Dimitri. It's not pretty. Ten years ago, I would have never let myself get to that spot. I would have been hitting hard, aggressive, and got the offensive position. Is it that you don't – is it that it went away or that everyone's just faster than you now

or is it went away because your body's like hey if you do that you're going to get hurt um it's probably a little well i don't think anybody's gotten any faster i think i was i was sorry by getting faster i mean that you got slower i got slower yeah i just or is it just gone i i think age i think just age messes with the nervous system. The twitch just isn't, isn't the same. I mean, if I lined up to try to run the a hundred yard, you know, a hundred meter dash, I wouldn't be running it in the middle 11s anymore. Like I was in high school. I'd be, you know, somewhere in the 13th, 12th, 13th, 12th, 12th, 13th, 12th,

second range. And I don't know, even in the greatest shape and being strong again, I don't know if the, if the, if the twitch would be there to be able to ever do what I was able to do as a kid. I don't mean boxers. I don't think they hit their prime in their late 20s, right, 30s. It's not something they can do like arm wrestlers into their 40s and 50s. So, yeah, but speed is a big factor. I mean, power is not only strength, but speed.

I mean, you know that, of course, with the CrossFit. It's a big part of the equation. And so what are you doing to mitigate that? Making sure you get a better grip, move, position, cheat? Yeah, I just have to have the thing that I never had as I got never had to use when I was younger. I mean, I have to have endurance, you know, and even in my. Didn't we already go over that? We did. Yeah. Well, I've I've evolved into I mean, I don't have the cardio, but I have had to just fight from, you know, and gut it out and have endurance.

And and that was never my my thing. And I never had to really even think about that because i was so um hard-hitting and explosive i if the match lasted more than a second i was like travis uh you know i'd give up you know i was like oh okay that didn't you know if my if my silver bullet didn't work then i'm you know i'm gonna lay down but now i've evolved into a guy that's trying to absorb the hard hits and try to work from there and work the angles and change gears and change the muscle groups here and there and try to be sneaky, so to speak. Is it easier losing at 57 than 35 or 25? Or is the ego and the pride all still intact?

Uh-oh, lost your audio. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm going to end up losing a lot as I even get older at 58 and 59 and 60. And I think most people have already written me off and expected me to lose and are surprised that I've been able to even make the kind of comeback that I've made. Um, so. Are you surprised?

I don't feel any pressure. Um, yeah, I'm just kind of surprised. Yeah. But I, I know there'll be a point where I'll debate whether or not I want to continue again just because, you know, I will reach a point where I think I've reached my peak, you know, the plateau as far as I'm going to go. And now what do I do? You know, all I'm going to do is keep hurting and getting worse. So but it's been fun to just try to retest the new group and see where I could where I could get in this last four or five months. We'll see where it goes. Maybe I'll test some of the big names, and then we'll reassess and figure it out. But, yeah, obviously I can't go forever. I mean, yeah, 57 is – it's been a little tricky, but.

It's been a little tricky, but... So I'm 49 and you're 57. I should not tell this story. When I met you, I thought you were old as shit. And I thought, I wonder how old this guy is going to have to get before he gets weak enough so I could beat him. And when I met you, I mean, I still only weigh 100 and... I probably weigh 155 pounds. And probably when I met you, I weighed 147 pounds.

But you could still do a lot more muscle ups than I can. And I cannot fucking believe. So now I look at you and I'm like, oh, we're like we're almost peers in five years. I'm going to be older than you. I'm somehow going to pass you up. I can't believe how young you're staying. And now I'm going to have to wait till you're dead. hope you die before me i'm gonna open your coffin i'm not lying i'm gonna fucking just be like i'm gonna take a picture of my myself beating your corpse

just your your your i'm gonna get your wrist broken back yeah no the the tendons and that they they don't go away i mean it's funny old guys that um you know it's it is a strict sport but it's more to it obviously more to it than just muscle strength you know it's it's some long-lasting stuff that's going on there i don't know ligaments tendons or what it what it is but strong joints i don't know is it is it someone in the comments just said um uh spencer gan i don't know who that is but uh sevan is really behaving himself with on the show that's true i am i can get pretty crazy i am i have a i i am behaving myself is it this thing i used to always see you rub this but you guys i used to hang out with john

a lot and john a lot and by a lot there was like i don't know four or five years where i feel like i saw him at least once a month so like we know each other too um do you still do that a lot rub that thing i i funny you should mention i that's been healed and good um that that little time frame that you knew me when that was an issue, it's that golfer's elbow. That's actually the elbow that I broke off the end of my arm when I was 13 years old arm wrestling a buddy of my dad. So it's an old, old injury that most arm wrestlers have is that stressed, tender tendon that connects that inner, I don't know the the medical term but it's a golfer's elbow um but no it's uh i you know pulling with a broken wrist like i did with dimitri in texas

this last week i'd really put a big strain on that and it's i got a little stinger back there again but um explain to people what that means to pull with a broken wrist um and most of most of the time i don't know where the camera is most of the time you want to have your wrist like bowed or cupped like this but if you've had your wrist compromised where it's opened up like this you're really stretching the forearm muscles a lot more and um yeah then to pull sideways when your hands open like that is is even that much more of a strain on those those inner elbow tendons. Does the second that guy, Dimitri, feels your wrist go like this,

does he think he's going to win? Like anytime you feel that happen, are you like, oh, I'm fucking, this bitch is going down. That's what most people think, exactly what's going through their brains. That's normally what goes through my brain, is this bitch is going down. Yeah, no, it's a huge advantage. And if you can achieve that um most

people will concede and and and and understand and realize that there are fighters out there i mean you got the michael todd's and there there are some there's some fighters out there that i always like to to compare the there's there's arm wrestlers just like there are runners there are arm wrestlers that are 100 yard dash dash runners, 50-yard dash runners, super speed, super explosive. And then there's guys that are the quarter milers or the milers. And if they can get the race into that area, even if they're in horrible position, they've got chances to win. So there are guys that will fight from just absolute horrible positions if the sprinter can't finish them quickly. But yeah, most of the time,

if you get that kind of leverage position on your opponent, you're golden. You're going to be good. Okay, Spencer, get ready. You ready? This is for you. So arm wrestling with your wrist back is like having sex with a limp dick. Like that, Spencer?

That's for you. It's a losing position, but if you keep working it's it's it's so much more um could happen satisfying to win though with it back right after you win the first match how i'm trying to think what exercises there are like bar dips like you do you like you crush like 30 bar dips and you're like i'm the shit and like you 31's hard and you're like uh-oh it's over you know what i mean there um there's movements like that muscle ups are like that oh i got these first six it's. It's like nothing. Then, oh, I'm done. The lactic acid builds in there and you're over. Yeah.

Yeah. And for arm wrestlers, it's normally the forearm. And that's why most great arm wrestlers have this massive, not only massive hand, strong hand and wrist, but massive vascular cardio, you know, forearms. Because once that goes numb, then none of the upper arm stuff matters. I mean, you're going down. Hand and wrist go. I mean, not even the hand and wrist, but the forearm goes numb, you're gone. So it's, yeah, no, lactic acid is a factor.

The good arm wrestlers learn how to change the pressures and, and, and relax and not, you know, put hard pressure, be offensive and then go defense and then turn it and pronate a little better. Um, and, and, and just change things up a little bit enough where that lactic acid doesn't go to the point where you do, like you say, you're like, Oh shit, that's it. I'm over done. Can't do one more. So like that guy, Spencer, it's the best of five, right?

Spencer. Sorry, Dimitri. Sorry. Oh, Dimitri. Yeah, it was the best of five. So I just had to win three, the first three. So when you win the first one, isn't if you lose the first one, you're just like, shit. Yeah.

Well, sometimes it works out okay. Like my brain, i haven't been as calculating as i i used to be um so i go into the first match with the confidence the dimitri one i'll tell you the story so i i went in thinking my hand and wrist was a and i was going to be able to control the match i knew he was a top roller he was going to pull back but i wanted to just make you know test and see that i could will you explain to people really quick what a top roller is sorry well there's different types of top rollers there's a low risk top roller that you can kind of pronate into your opponent's hand and basically what

you're doing is compromising their hand and wrist putting your hand in an upward sky to the sky position um opening their arm up to make it easier for you to take them sideways. So that's the top row. And there's different ways to achieve that. You knew basically his goal was not, he wasn't going to attack your arm. He was going to break your wrist back first. Going backwards, right. High knuckle top row, yeah. Okay.

And I wanted to have enough cupping pressure, enough hand strength to basically reel that in, to crush that back pressure with just hand strength. And by doing so, and by having the confidence to be able to do that, I didn't rise with him and have the same back pressure to go into a little finger war and slip and go into straps and try to do the same thing. I was thinking to myself, okay, I'm strong. I'm super strong. Wrist is going to be strong enough. Cup's going to be strong enough. I'm just going to crush this guy into my position, into a hook and negate his back pressure top roll, which that was my plan, but it didn't work out. So he was able to straighten my hand and wrist out because I was trying to achieve that. And I had to fight with a wrist that was somewhat opened and

compromised. But he didn't have the arm strength to finish me off, which most good arm wrestlers, well, he's a good arm wrestler, but someone a little stronger would have finished me in that compromised position. But if I would have been smart and if he was strong enough to beat me quickly like that, it might have worked out better for me because the second match I would have set up with a little higher grip. I would have positioned my fingers a little higher and used back pressure. But because I did still fight from that bad position,

it pretty much doomed my fate for the rest of the day, the next two matches, because my hand and wrist and forearm were so pumped and numb from trying to pull from that bad position. So in a supermatch format, sometimes that, you know, trying to gut it out for the first match instead of just letting it go ends up being, you know, more harmful than smart. If I'm mischaracterizing you, let me know.

Back in the day when I would watch you, you would test yourself. You would know you could beat someone in, let's say, a hook, so you would purposely top roll them if you knew. Are you still fooling around like that? A little bit. I haven't been able to do that as much because Devin Lorette's developed this thing called the arm bets now, and people can stake on the arm wrestlers. So I feel kind of an obligation to really attack and go after and not be curious and screw around and possibly lose a match for people that are betting their hard-earned

money on me. So I've been feeling that pressure a little bit more going into the matches where in the past, I would go in thinking, okay, I can lose one I you know I want to test this and I think this might be the easy approach and if it if it doesn't work out then then I go and you know go to plan b or c but now I end up approaching the match with the a game like I'm just doing the a game and you know do or die with the a game but yeah no it's I don't know I don't know like I'm just doing the A game and do or die with the A game. But yeah, I don't know if I'm a better arm wrestler or because of that cushion isn't there anymore, that I'm just not my calm, collected, relaxed self that's a little bit more open-minded. I find myself, especially with the Chance Shaw match,

I find myself almost like in a panic zone that after the first match I walked away and went like, what the hell? I almost blacked out. I mean, I just don't know what even happened. I was in a rage. And that's not normally like me. I'm normally like super like, you know, breathe, talk to the guy, you know, calm, the guy you know calm and just always very controlling and um yeah so you know that hasn't been the case recently

um maybe you're liking it more because it's challenging for you again yeah i think so yeah yeah but as long as and you've taken the pressure off yourself maybe yeah. Yeah. But I still don't like to lose, so I still put the pressure on myself to do the best I can do. So I don't know. Yeah, especially because I'm thinking that I want to climb that hill. I don't want to get beat by somebody and then not be offering any future bigger matches. I've got to keep the streak going.

I just put in your Instagram account at the bottom. My producer told me to do that at the beginning of the show, and I screwed it up for you. See that? Oh, no. I was actually thinking about going live like a half hour, 15 minutes before we went and saying something like, okay, I'm planning on going live. But I had no idea what this was or how to even link it or do any of that stuff yet. I'm still so bad at that. Someone told me they're like, hey, tell Devin Lorette you're going to go live with John Brzezink.

He's got 400,000 subscribers. It'll be your biggest show ever. Young, you're not going to like the answer to this question. I keep thinking about answering it, but you guys are not going to like the answer. You ready? John, how do you warm up? Yeah, well, you know I don't. Any extra blood flow.

Any extra blood flow. You guys, you guys, why am I asking these questions? It's harmful to your endurance. I mean, you only have a limited amount of endurance, and if you add a little extra blood flow in any of those areas, that lactic acid, in my view, comes on quicker. No foreplay for John. Just straight to it.

Just straight to it. I mean, try to try to you know and have a bag of ice maybe you know try to cool it down even don't don't don't try to heat it up don't warm it up you cool it down always try to cool it down i don't get it he's 57 and he doesn't warm up it's i knew he was going to answer it like that yeah but our mustang is we're not moving weight so it's like a static hold i i guess you guys got to answer it like that. Yeah, but in arm wrestling, we're not moving weight, so it's like a static hold. I guess you guys got to do stuff like that in CrossFit, right? They got to be doing crazy just isometric holds, right?

Like hanging holds forever. Do they do anything like that? They're always moving something. I think it's different. Did it do like the cross or anything like that what's the crossing where they hold out the iron cross and gymnastics man i just stuff like that i um i'll be at jiu-jitsu with my kid my kid will be like hey i have to go to the bathroom so i'll like i'll just stand up and just go running across the studio to meet him at the bathroom because i want to get it done quick

so he doesn't miss any class and daddy that hurts me because i'm not warm and i just get up and go into a fast jog oh your audio is fucked up again john oh shoot that's just damn i'm actually using this the the mic and headset you sent me A couple three years ago This little thing I sent to you? Yeah remember you were so kind To send me the thing you said you never used

This Shanghai or Schenheiser Oh Schenheiser Oh shit I sent you some good shit Some little noise cancanceling things. Oh. What the? Send that back to me.

I don't got a job anymore. You need it back? No. I think this is the first time I've actually used it. I'm trying to. What a hunk of junk. Yeah. It works pretty good, I think.

I don't know. It's got all these modes and buttons of noise canceling and echo. When your mouth is close to that mic, it's awesome. It works good. It needs to be over here, huh? Yeah. It's probably better than the iPhone mic. I bought this for the computer, this Rode thing.

Oh, that's nice. Yeah. It works a little better. John, you were always very frugal, but you were also always very generous. It was a weird combination. Most frugal people aren't as generous as you. Are you still frugal and generous? Yes, I'm an introvert minimalist.

That's what my friends classify me as. What friends? What are you talking about? Bob, who's your friend? No, I don't have any very long lasting friends it's just short friends and then they and they all come with the same they all vote introvert minimalist i'm out of here minimalist yep um how's bob but i think i drive them away uh bob i don't uh i've talked to bob every maybe once every couple three weeks month or so um he's

doing well i think he's still enjoying Utah. I mean, he's doing a little bit with the YouTube. I don't know if you've watched any of his stuff. He's doing instructional stuff, which he's better at coaching than I ever was. He's not the people person he was in talking and coaching like that. He must have hated it that you moved. I think he got by okay. He's got a big group.

Utah's a big arm wrestling group now. I think he's had practices at 30, 40 people showing up at practices. Yeah, he really liked you, though. He really likes you, though. I think he spends almost five, six months out of the year now during the wintertime down in scenic Arizona. So he gets the hell out of the Salt Lake area during the wintertime. Life's good.

Yeah. Yeah, he's got a bunch of property and a bunch of different little homes down there. And what happened to Kevin? Is Kevin still around? Kevin's, he's still around. He's had some medical issues. He ended up, uh, as I understand it, he fell on some ice and hit his head hard and had a stroke or two from that and then complications from that. And this just happened a couple, three years ago,

but, um, yeah, no, he's super, you know, he's a cowboy. He's super, super strong, super healthy in that respect. But, yeah, he got into a little kind of freakish accident that's kind of set him back a little bit. Oh, fuck. That sucks. I wish I wouldn't have asked. Okay, I'm going to reach out to him. Damn, those were, man, you had good people around you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were such good people. So what's this next thing that you're up to? Are you going somewhere? But, Oh, by the way, someone asked if you're Polish, that is a Polish name, right? It is a Polish name. Yep. And both your mom and your dad are Polish. My mom's side was German. She hated to admit that she was German, but she was German through and through, my mom.

And then my dad's side's father was Polish, and his wife was Lithuanian, I think. Is your dad first generation? No, no. Your people have been here forever? Yeah. Do you know when the first generation? No. Your people have been here forever? Yeah. Do you know when the first generation was? I think my grandpa was adopted

in... I don't know. I think... I don't know the full story. So yeah, I shouldn't comment. Yeah, you could make it up then. That's interesting because my grandma was adopted too on my mom's side. Shit was crazy back then, huh i mean it's it's i guess what would my grandpa be my dad's 80s he'd be a for sure 100 110 years ago doesn't seem that long ago but yeah they're really 1900s i guess yeah dude if you dude if you were born in 1900 you lived through world war one and

world war ii yeah yeah i cannot believe how easy we have it and how hard people are making it these pussies yeah it's it's the world has definitely changed and you know just even looking back and when i was in high school in the 80s it's it's the world has definitely changed and you know just even looking back and when i was in high school in the 80s it's like holy cow things have changed like i forget that we didn't have this and didn't have that cell phone it didn't have these cameras it didn't have i mean these cars that we drove around and without seat belts how did we even survive oh my god i didn't have the carbon fiber baby cart. So what are you doing now?

Are you prepared? Is there some goal you're preparing for now? And is it crazy? Why can't you go back down to 209 or something? I get anxious. Are you going to have 300-pound guys pulling on your arm who are from some sort of Russian? Yeah. I think for me right i think it's just i think for me right now it's easier for me to pull the heavyweights um it it would be more difficult

for me to lose weight to get back to to even 220 209 than it would be just to say screw it i'm just gonna pull whoever i mean the heavyweight i've never really had a huge problem dealing with the super big guys because my hand was always kind of unusually big and strong to deal with the size that most people would have a problem dealing with. So, yeah, you know, the smaller guys, I think, are even more dangerous than the big guys in some respects because they're harder hitting, faster, quicker. Just, yeah. And, and the weight loss just isn't happening for me. You'll see when you get in your, you stop doing the CrossFit every day and you get in your fifties and sixties, you'll get a little, hopefully you'll get a little gut. Oh, I have, I have a couple of guts,

but are you going to have to pull like some of these guys I see on the internet? No, I think I could. Like Leviathan? What's that giant guy's name? The Leviathan? Levon. Levon. Yeah, no, I have no desire.

I would like to just pull with him just to see if I could do anything or stop or hang on in any kind of position. Or just to shake his hand and say hi. Yeah, I did shake his hand a little and meet him in China, but we never got on the table. We never really got a chance to pull around a little bit. But no, I have no...

I don't want to say desire. I have no misconceptions of being able to compete against the likes of him or Michael Todd for that matter. But we'll see. I can pick and choose. Hopefully I'll be able to pick and choose. How much does that guy weigh? What's the biggest guys? Are they weighing 350?

There's still nobody as big as Cleve Dean was. You remember Cleve? Yeah. 600, 700 pounds, I think at his peak. So no one has, no one's been as big as Cleve. I would say, LeVon, if I was going to guess, maybe he's a 400-pounder. High 300s. Yeah, a big dude. And he's strong. And he's young. I don't think

he possesses the speed that Alexei did. He's not the Herschel Walker of Russia, but he's still a big dude. He's hard for anybody to get a hold of. He can't apply full power on. So what is this thing that you're doing? Where are you doing it?

When are you doing it? And who's going to be in your bracket? Well, this next tournament, I'm just pulling a super match with kind of the contender, so maybe second rate in line to pull Rob Vigent for the title of WL. His name's Paul Lynn. So he's probably second best, third best in the country at the 209 weight category. So we'll see how that works out here. So I'll probably outweigh him by, I don't know, maybe 10 pounds. I think he said he was going to try to gain weight to get up to 220. So we'll see how that works out. And then I'm going to pull some of my old Russian friends, Haji Zolov from Russia, and he's gaining weight. He's getting

older and he used to be 80-ish kilos. Now he's reaching 90-95 kilos. That'll be another good match for me. He just recently beat Todd Hutchins, who's still a monster in the United States. One of the toughest, even super heavyweights we have here in the States. He ended up top-rolling him. I think that's a good match for me. I think we're somewhat equal in the strengths and the areas. I'm planning on going back to Norway to pull Ingen Terzi. I don't know if you remember Ingen. What?

Little Ingen. Yeah, little Ingen's big Ingen now. And he's a formidable 95. I don't know if he'll reach 100 kilos, but we're going to have a little super match, fun super match in Norway in March. When's the last time you've seen Ingen? It was in Istanbul.

It seems like a couple years ago, but I've been retired for six years now, so it's probably more like 10 years. Someone in the comments is really hanging on to the fact that you called Paul Lynn second rate. I don't think he meant it like that. Second rank in the country. Yeah. Someone's correct. And he said rank. If that's what it, if that's what it came across, no, that's not what I meant. No, he's a, yeah, no, he's a like rank second in the country next to Rob vision.

He's so he's top, top guy. Yeah. Okay. He's not a second rank by any means. I noticed you had to make a video, um, walking back, not even walking back.

Basically, you said something on YouTube and you're, you're seeing just how rabbit, how, what's the word? Despicable people are on the internet. Like you, you said something, and I guess people mistook it as you were calling people out. So you made a video saying, Hey guys, everyone chill.

Well, it was, it was targeted at one person. And basically Rob was saying something that, that, you know, what, you know, basically who was saying something that that you know what you know basically who am i to be you know be calling all these guys out and i had rob on his hit list which was the farthest thing from the truth i've been just wanting super matches and if a promoter comes and approaches me with a good deal and you know good compensation for a for a formidable opponent and a good super match, I'm willing and ready and able to do it. A friend of Rob's reached out to me and said, hey, would you like to pull Rob? Well, tell me when, where, and what we're talking about. Yeah, for sure, I'll pull him. I guess Rob didn't get the memo and he

thought that I was going right to the top of the... He said something about He thought that I was going right to the top of the – how do you put it? He said something about – his analogy was the hurdles, I guess, that I was jumping the highest hurdle first and didn't go through all the early hurdles or something. I was like, no, dude, that's not the way it is at all. I mean, I was approaching, you know, for the match. I wasn't out seeking Rob or, you know, the top, top guy, which. That guy's been around for a while. That guy came into the sport.

I think when I, when right around, when I came in, somebody told me that he has just been in since like 2004 or five, which sounds about right. I don't know how old Rob is. I'm going to guess kind of mid thirties. So he was a kid when I was following the sport, and he was wild. He was almost like a Tom Nelson type. Yeah, maybe. Is Tom Nelson still around?

Good comparison. Yeah. In fact, I think he just pulled about a month ago against a guy named Derek Smith. I don't know if you know Derek. Big guy. I don't. Kid. Yeah, super young.

But he's tons of potential. He's like guy i don't he kid yeah super young but he's um tons of potential he's like i don't know i was gonna say he's like seven foot but he's probably like six seven six eight i mean he's a big big frame big big kid three three hundred plus pounds for sure um and young so tom was awesome he always brought the energy yeah no he yeah and and and what about um Yeah. No. He, yeah. And what about Kenny Hughes?

Did you ever see him? I think, no. I don't see, I haven't been to California and seen the California group. It's not like it used to be where, you know, it was hop, skip, and jump to go to California and arm wrestling in a bunch of different tournaments that Primaris were putting on. It just hasn't happened in a while. But I think Kenny got in really good shape uh a few years back but i don't know i don't know what his condition is now i mean like super super shape like super lean

stop drinking oh shit good on him yeah yeah but i don't know i don't know how how long that that lasted yeah when i last i saw him he was he was i I saw him, he was, he was, I really liked him. I really, really, but he was a train wreck. Party animal. Yeah. Fuck.

But I liked him. Yeah. But, but aren't you working for some, you mentioned these matches with Zolov and Ingen Terzi, but isn't there something else that you're, that I saw on the internet that you're doing that, that Igor's putting on like an eight're doing that, that, um,

Igor's putting on like an eight man. Oh, that was the top eight. So I was approached by Igor in China. Uh, it's been almost, was it two years since it'll be two years? Uh, it was two years in September. So, uh, before COVID and, uh, his, his plan was to do, uh, three rounds, uh, the top eight guys at the 95 kilo class. And each round, there would be three matches in each round. And then the winners would pull the winners and the losers would pull the losers. And we would go to a final, you know, first through eighth place.

So three different rounds at three different locations of these top eight guys. Well, that all kind of fell through. And he's trying to piece it together. You know, COVID's been a mess for everybody. And it ended up turning into him wanting just to do like a super match for round one. And I still didn't know. He didn't have a time and date. And it's been two years since, um, it's was proposed.

And finally about a month or so ago, because I have all these other matches that are coming up, I just said, Hey guys, you know, it's just not, I'm not going to be hanging onto that hope and that contract of doing top eight. Um, it doesn't, nothing seems to be, you know, getting concrete and then stone and nothing's for certain it's not the same plan that you guys had and um if you want to do a super match with me you know reach out and i'll be happy to say you know consider it and and obviously no reason not to

do it but it's it was it was silly to hang on to a hope of this idea that just wasn't, wasn't coming true. So, but anyway, yeah. So if you beat Paul Lynn, there's going to be a shitload of hype between about between you and Rob. It's going to get nasty. Oh yeah.

No, that would be the next, next match. But of course, you know, well, other than Todd Hutchins, uh,

Rob is, Rob is probably the best, uh, 95 or 100 kilo guy in the country, in the United States, in North America. And I'd want to do it. I would love to arm wrestle him again on the WAL stage. I don't know if you've seen any of the WAL stuff. A little bit, just on YouTube. Yeah, different approach and a little grittier, a little bit, you know, the I like it just close to the audience. Yeah, I do too. I thought it was,

I thought it was done really well. And he's a, he's the hammer holder, the champion of the WAL, which is, I think the last event was run almost two years ago. So if that ramps back up and they end up starting to do something like that again, and I'm in a position and, and can make the weight and light enough and they end up starting to do something like that again. And I'm in a position and can make the weight and light enough. And they would offer it to me. I would definitely like to do it on that stage with Rob. I have a friend who's been at the Marriott for.

Shit, I don't know if it's 20 or 25 years. I can't remember, but he just got this card from them. And basically he can stay at any marriott anywhere in the world for free he's worked there that long oh wow nice you're supposed to be like what what what'd you say i want to hear you i want to hear you one up but i want to be like well when i was 25 years at delta they gave me my own boeing 747 like what what did you in 37 years, you must've get like something. Oh yeah.

It just depends on what state the airline industry is in at the time. You gotta be kind of lucky when, when you're, when you hit those milestones, because if you're, if it's after COVID and things are tight, you don't get any, any gift baskets. Can you still fly? I mean, do you fly for free anywhere you want to go? Yeah, yeah. That's a perk for all the employees of Delta Airlines.

So, yeah, I don't get any special treatment. You don't? Yeah, no, it's just what it is. You don't have your own plane? No, I don't get upgraded to first class. I got to sit in the back and barely survive on one Coke and then a bag of peanuts. And do you wear – I heard him say it, guys. Don't anyone act like I didn't hear him say it.

I heard him say it. You said the C word. Can't stand the C word. The C word? Oh, Coach. No, Coke. Yeah, I don't like that one either. I don't like either of those.

Do you still have to dress up i remember like one time you got me like a you don't have to do that yeah no that's a long gone we don't have to do that anymore everything's gone to shit we we expect nothing from anyone anymore the bar's set so low yeah man hey if your granddaughters want if good, I have three boys that are going to be just. All right. Are available. I'm just telling you. You're bringing up right.

They're little monsters. Oh, my God. Athletic dynamos. They're going to play music. They're going to dance and they're going to be able to choke someone out. Yeah. I see they're doing the jujitsu now or the karate or I don't know. All of it.

All that. They're not going to get to be a pussy like their dad um are there any boy this one's going to really piss and shave some people are there any strong women tomorrow tomorrow i'm having stephy cohen on my podcast she is strong right i think she has a you know who that is no she has 25 power lifting world records she's something very special um she just started getting into boxing she i want to say she has like a 540 pound deadlift at 114 pounds something fucking nuts like that right it's 4.4 times her body weight right and she's pretty normal looking i mean i mean she's a she's a jew so i mean she's got all that fucking 10 000 years of dynasty behind her of hard-working fucking go-getters smart as shit she's a venezuelan jew i think there's a

getting i'll find out tomorrow but i'm guessing her parents were running from the Nazis, right? And they ended up in South America. But when I think about that, like on one hand, her deadlift is the same as Matt Fraser, the fittest man, five-time fittest man in the world. I think his deadlift max is 542 at 200 pounds. But she's not strong compared to the strongest deadlifter in the world. That guy fucking deadlifts 1,000 pounds, strongest deadlifter in the world that guy fucking deadlifts a thousand pounds right thor guy and the eddie hall guy have you ever gripped up with a woman and you're like oh man this woman's strong yes you have but but there's

there i mean you speak of eddie hall and and half thor and i mean the guy they're they dabble they know of arm wrestling that they're that doesn't cross over you know of course of course but i'm not sorry so sorry i'm not suggesting i'm not suggesting that i wasn't alluding to that what i'm just alluding to is is like in that sport we see the strongest woman is so fucking strong but she's only 50 percent as strong as the strongest man so when you have you ever gripped up with the like and i saw what made me think of this question is i saw that um uh woman um i think i met her a few times she's been around forever uh beautiful woman sarah bachman is that

sarah bachman yeah so she's i see she's got a bunch of youtube videos with stephy cohen and they're training together is sarah bachman strong have you gripped up with her super strong okay yeah she is super strong not the strongest like gabby from venezuela is you know like like for really the arm wrestling strong chicks from venezuela too yes so the the venezuela or brazil i can't remember which country she's from i'm guessing brazil. That would be so bad. Oh, is it Brazil? Yeah, Gabby. Her last name is Venezuela or something like that. Okay, I'll look her up. Someone will write it in the comments.

Who's Gabby? John's 57. Cut him some slack, people. Yeah, but I've seen her pull, and I think she would beat probably most of the guy flyweights that are probably close to her weight. I mean, so, so yes women can be pound for pound i think close damn okay well that's interesting i think gabby is from brazil

brazil yeah vas consuelos that's what screwed me up. Isn't Consuelos sleepy? I don't know. Gabby, oh yeah, it's piling in. Oh shit, someone said Gary Roberts beat Gabby. No way. There's no way. I'm calling bullshit on that.

How is Gary? Do you ever see Gary? I saw Gary last year he did like an interview with me when i was in texas for uh that match in uh watsahatchee texas last year yeah no he seems to be doing well i don't know i think he's back into uh uh piling up uh the footage of the old arm tv stuff and and putting it back on youtube so oh good I'm sure he's got enough footage to keep him busy for the next 10, 20 years of his life. So I have, I have my life on this, I have these 200 terabyte hard drives. That's massive. And I basically, I thought I had all

my footage on it from basically my whole life. And I have like one, and then I have another one that's backed up. But when I type in your name name there's no arm wrestling footage in there so so i have i think i see i think when debbie or debbie the fuck's her name uh bessie i think when bessie and navid were i'm 49 i'm 49 bessie and navid i think I sent them everything. Okay. But maybe I didn't. Maybe I just sent them.

But I have some boxes here with hard drives on them. Because you were a huge arm wrestling groupie for 10 years. You told me 500 hours or 1,000 hours of footage you had. Yes, yes. More maybe. More. You would go to every single tournament and just do like gary roberts just film film film film yeah yeah so so there must be there must be in one of these boxes back

here so i just have to dig through it but it would be cool to get you some of that and let you run it on your youtube and commentate on it or talk about it or yeah it'd be just nice to see some of the young behind the scenes stuff that we, that you shot. So none of that shit in, in, in, uh, North shore is going on. None of that Tahoe at the Biltmore and all that stuff's just, I don't know if Leonard and Denise still do that stuff. I think I occasionally hear it's not, it wasn't, it's not like it was where, you know, you could go and win two or three or four classes and win a couple thousand

dollars. I think they do like cash boxes. Now you gotta win, win your class to win a ticket, to win a chance to make some money. So it's not as lucrative as it used to be. But I think they still do some of that stuff, though. Are you going to be this match with Paul Lynn? When did you say it was, next month? It's in the week and a half, so the 23rd. Of October?

Yep. October 23rd of october yep october 23rd and um are you going to be filming that with your iphone again and streaming it to your youtube channel i i will if travis decides or doesn't get anybody to do he he had talked about doing like a little pay-per-view thing i don't know if that's even possible um i know a few people that have talked about trying to do it and i don't know if it's ever worked out for anybody because everybody there is going to have a phone and access to the free internet and can stream and do the live thing so um it would probably be wise for me to to give somebody my phone and try to do a little bit of footage please do that i'm gonna actually go to your um what do i go to john zinc youtube i didn't do this earlier best of john versink youtube no that's not you no that's probably just a video it's my name though is my channel i i don't know if i can ever

change that in the future or something fancy but i think probably i'll just keep the name damn how do i find this basically i want to subscribe to it you have to you should stream it for sure again how did devin know you were going to do that uh devin how did devin know oh devin commenting on it um yeah i think i think i just announced that i was going to do it or try to do it yeah and i do john that video has 145 000 views when i watched it yeah that's that's fucking nuts okay so i just subscribed your channel yeah that seems to be a more popular thing than me doing the little little vloggy things of of interviewing people and talking about this that and the other so i haven't quite figured

out what the what the public needs and as far as entertainment but definitely the arm wrestling match is is high up there dude it's crazy so it has 1100 comments last time i checked it had 400 comments and it was 70 000 views so your station has 26 000 subscribers let me see how many my station has i last time i checked it had 9 000 okay well i'm just gonna i can't see where it says it but it's got to be 9 000 still nuts huh and devon's got 400 000 400 000 people how's that possible i don't know how that's possible he's crossed over to a lot of high-profile guys, though, Juju and Larry Wills. I don't know if you saw the fight. He did the boxing thing with Hafthor.

I did see that. So, I mean, he's mixing it up with some big heavy hitters. So, yeah. Have you talked to him since that match with Hafthor? Yeah. I've talked to him a few different times. Did he say he was freaking out? I think he knew in his heart he was going in as a big, big underdog.

But he seemed genuinely excited about doing it. He wanted to do it, but I think he knew deep down he was going to get his ass kicked. to do it but he knew i think he knew deep down he was gonna get his ass kicked so but you know there's there's a few other guys that i would have chose uh i mean devin's a obviously you know he's a killer killer you know tough brave i mean fearless i'm brave but um there's a few guys that i would have would have probably chose to do become a boxer in five weeks and then slow Devin. Who? Who would you have chosen? Oh, Alexi. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that would have been... Arson. I don't know. Even Michael Todd seems to be pretty... Oh, yeah. Michael Todd's crazy athletic. Michael Todd's, I think, a dangerous person. Yeah.

Like if you tried to rob him in a liquor store, it'd be very bad. Very, very bad. Yeah. He's kind of that whole jumping on the arm wrestling table and all that shit. Yeah, he's got some spring. He's definitely got some spring in his step. Yeah. In Vovoda, I mean, I think he turned into a politician, didn't he?

Yeah, I think so. I don't know exactly what he does because I don't understand Russian, but it seems like he's got an important position. He's shuffling some expensive papers. And I see, where did I see? I saw a picture of Cobra somewhere really cool lately like on a movie set or with someone

with some famous people do you ever see him occasionally I was in Moldova a couple three years ago with him he was part of a project that they were doing in that country for arm wrestling I seen him just recently.

I guess he was down in Florida working with Marvin. Oh, yeah. Don't ask me about any of that. I know nothing. I don't want to know anything. So I called Devin just to congratulate him on the genius of filming a TV set while you're filming live. I mean, I just cannot. It's like one of the smartest things I've ever seen done.

And I'm like, where are you? He said, I'm in Florida. And I'm like, oh, yeah. What are you doing there? He's all, well, I'm in a hotel room. And he starts naming off all these people. And one of them is Travis. I'm like, uh-oh.

I'm like, are you there arm wrestlers i have no fucking idea dude he's all the whole thing's gone to shit did they ever arm wrestle no no he didn't arm wrestle michael todd was on there he didn't arm wrestle travis in arm wrestle he was just trying to work and help with the show but um yeah we'll see i guess i mean it just a typical last minute big production thing that's been sold to somebody that knew somebody that, you know. Yeah, it all seems really just weird to me. I don't understand it.

But nobody knew about the tournament until one week before the tournament actually happened. And, of course, big money was announced. Why didn't you go down there to get it? The top, top guy. For one big money was announced. And so it. Why didn't you go down there to get it? The top, top guy. For one, I was hurting. And second, I, you know, I'm pretty skeptical.

And so, you know, yeah. Are you sunburned? I got burnt to a crisp the last two days. I was actually doing pretty well. Summer's finally over here in Arizona.zona and i went for a six hour drive in the convertible up to a mountaintop down in the tucson mount lemon we'd pick a drive up there and of course i'm a dumbass i don't worry use any sunscreen and then i spent all day yesterday on the boat so yeah i'm pretty well fried are you still riding motorcycles i haven't rode my

motorcycle that much this uh this summer because it's hot as hell in the summer. But I'll start riding it again here. It's the weather starting to finally cool down. But, yeah, no, I still have it. My 2013 Street Glide. Helmet? No. No helmet law here.

So we don't have to wear a helmet. No helmet. I choose not to, yeah. Can't believe Renee lets you do that. Dangerous. Well, she doesn't wear a helmet either, so. She rides? Well, she rides on the back.

Oh, right. I guess your kids are all grown up. Yeah. I haven't been on. Don't have to take care of anybody if things go to shit. I have a whole garage full of motorcycles. I haven't been on a motorcycle and like dirt bike motorcycle everything harleys hondas scooters dude i had a crazy i had a

crazy collection of motorcycles like the gsxr 1000 rr i had fucking harleys and sports bikes and it was sport bikes yeah it was nuts yeah i don't know if i'm i don't have the whereabouts and the alertness to ride a sport bike i i that would be dangerous for me at this point in my life um in fact we saw one uh smashed on the side of the mountain they you know they were trying to run the hills going down Mount Lemon and didn't quite make one corner, and he was splattered on the side of the hillside. I basically rode it once. I rode it to Santa Barbara, which is 320 miles south of me at about 70 miles an hour the whole way. And then the next morning, I rode it back. I never went under 100.

Yeah. Yeah. an hour the whole way and then the next morning i rode it back it i never went under 100 yeah yeah just that thing just sticks to the road power yeah it is nuts and i and i actually it's i think it's the only bike i fell off of yeah you thought i felt i i pulled out of my house and i'm like oh i forgot my gloves and i just turned around and i just just fucking t-boned it right so yeah that's well that's not too bad no no i was going up a canyon road i had renee on the back and just an extra weight of her being on the back me getting on it in the horsepower um it lifted that front front end up and i thought oh hell here we go and i was trying to negotiate a corner while it's doing that i'm like oh this ain't good did you make it yeah i made it i brought it back down but it scared me it startled me like oh shit what the hell how about renee yeah no she hung on

she's a trooper she's she's fallen off my motorcycle a couple times where i've i've actually did like you say just you know turn on the harley and kind of get chug chug and does one of those. You hurriedly look around and make sure no one's seen you do it and try to get it back up right. Have you ever been on a motorcycle trip where someone just drops the bike repeatedly? I went on this trip once and there was a girl on the trip and she dropped it like that's how what she did. She just got off and dropped her Harley. It was seriously, it was crazy at one point we were asking the cop for directions on this dirt road it was kind of gravel road we got off on some weird spot and we pull up next to him and everyone like

stops and gets off to talk to him and she gets off her bike and forgets to put her kickstand down the fucking bike and she acts like it's nothing all right short legs maybe just good yeah she's tiny tiny yeah well renee would have that same problem then you ever been with someone like that who just drops their bike to park it um i've i've hung out with some people that have dropped their bike a few different times and it's normally after a few beers and you know they don't have you know or they're back into a curb and it's kind of an awkward you know high low position is this normally what gets them you know they don't have you know or they're back into a curb and it's kind of an awkward you know high low position is this norm normally what gets them you know yeah it's not level ground so that's the only place i i dropped i dropped the bike also the africa twin it's huge um it's a honda i don't know if you know what it is sports bike but i backed it up

into a parking spot on a curb on a street right fucking fell over and then i wasn't strong and i wasn't strong enough to pick it up i didn't have the technique so a guy in a fucking prius stops and gets out in his three-piece suits and helps me lift it up it was it was bad i had a i've never had a full erection since that day. I had a Yamaha 1600 Road King, Road Star, Road something like that. And it was just new to me. And I had pulled up to the – it was back when I actually was going to the gym. It was one of those gyms that had all the glass so you could see your reflection. And I pulled up at the parking lot. And I was admiring my bike and went to get off it while I was still looking at it and yeah i didn't i forgot to put the kickstand

over it went like someone wrote someone wrote in the comments travis got kicked out did travis get kicked out of the tournament that's what i had heard and i called him the next morning and it was completely false, untrue. He had gotten into some confrontations with some guys about this, that, and the other. I won't go into detail of it, but, no, he didn't get kicked out. It was in regards to that he was upset that the tournament didn't happen?

Was it in regards to that? You would think Travis is used to that. He's pretty tight with Marvin. Yeah, I think he just ended up getting upset. I think whoever planned it planned the actual stage of the tournament next to, I think, a Zumba class. And they were rocking their Zumba music the whole time. So he couldn't do his skit, his announcing and all his hype and stuff. So it was just frustrating for him.

Is he still arm wrestling? He's been kind of, he's still in the arm wrestling industry. He still does promotions and works for different people and, and puts on tournaments, but he hasn't really been super active as far as a competitor. Why is that? Is he hurt? I just don't think there's been any really big money tournaments to really entice him.

I think probably the last big money tournament was probably, well, when I quit, 2015. I think the next year, 2016, they had half the prize money, and I think he ended up winning that. That's probably the last time he's pulled in a big tournament. But he's gotten in shape to pull some big guys, big names in Europe.

And I know through that match in Moldova, he got really big and strong left-handed. Did he win? Yeah. It was just against one guy, some Georgian, super heavyweight, but yeah. No, he's still very capable. If the money was out there, if the purse was big enough,

I think Travis would be right there in the running with the best of them, for sure. Someone else wrote, Travis gripped up with Devin real quick on left hand this weekend and had nothing. I did see that. There was a video of that? Yeah.

Devin's a big, strong guy right now so yeah but i i know travis said he was going to start getting in shape he's getting ready i don't know when the match is supposed to happen but he's he's slated to pull cody merit who is probably well he's a world champion right now super heavyweight i mean in the waft worlds and uh so he's he's the best there is uh left-handed heavyweight super heavyweight i mean in the waft worlds and uh so he's he's the best there is uh left-handed heavyweight super heavyweight so that name sounds familiar he's been around forever yeah guy i pulled with for many many years bob bob brown's group you know he lives up in uh actually north of where my oldest daughter lives in north ogden up in star valley utah

you don't remember Cody Merritt. Definitely know the name. I can't put a picture of his face. How about Robbie Topey? Do you remember him? Oh, yeah. No. Yeah.

Big guy. Strong guy. I haven't seen him probably 15 years. I mean, I used to see him at the Reno tournaments every year. Yeah. It's been a while. I think he pulled... Actually, I think Robbie Topey was the one that actually hurt Cody's left arm. They had

a super match. Or maybe it was his right arm. I can't remember what he hurt. It was left and right. I'm not sure. But he ended up having a match with Robbie Topey and he ended up injuring himself robbie's arms are ridiculous yeah no he's he's gotten huge he's a monster i think he's a sheriff i follow him on instagram i think he's been promoted to share like the head sheriff the sheriff of his town he seems like a cool dude i always liked him he was very soft-spoken. Someone says, why doesn't John pronounce

his last name in Polish? Oh. Nobody in America would put the R-Z together. It's too weird. How do you pronounce it? Brzenk.

John Brzenk. I think Brzenk's good. There's no Br, it's Brzenk. Berzank. Berzank. John Berzank. I think Berzank's good. There's no Ber, there's Berzank. Berzank. Berzank. Berzank. So, Berzank is better. Do you work tomorrow morning?

I do. Still working. What time? Monday through Friday. I get up around 4.30. I'm out the door at a little after 5. Start at 6. Why did you agree to do this podcast

so late? It's got to be 10-14. You're going to be up working in 6 hours? What time is it? It's early still yet. I'm on your time. It's 9-14. Arizona doesn't do daylight savings, so we become Pacific Time. Uh-oh, your mic. Yeah. Pacific Time.

We're Pacific Time. We're the same time as you. What time are you? You got a nine 14. Oh, that's all. That's all it is. Nine 14 here too. Still early. What time do you normally go to bed?

Uh, eight, eight 30. No, I could, I can stay up. Sometimes I can stay up until nine. Your wife lets you,

um, do you want to do this again? Um, absolutely. It's always good talking to you. When can we do'm trying to i would like to somehow let's do it after you pull this paul lynn guy okay and when there's no fucking echo i'm so sorry i'll fix this problem and then maybe we can walk yeah i'm getting no echo on my side at all so whatever you're feeling or here is all on that side because i don't hear it at all okay good and then i just

hope it's not in the recording because people will bitch to know it and then maybe we can play the matches in a third screen like something like oh it's not letting me do it we can do a format to where there's a third screen basically okay and then we can just talk about the match we can have someone pause it and you can be like okay this is when my wrist got broken back or this is when his wrist got broken back or you'll notice here there's someone in the background yelling at me you know that that's a guy owes me a thousand bucks or you know yeah that's a guy who owes me $1,000 or, you know. Yeah, no, I'm game. Let's do it.

We'll do a walkthrough of it and see how it goes. All right. Sounds good. What time is it? How long do you normally do these things? You're like Iron Man. What is it, an hour and 46 minutes? I can't even read it without my glass hat.

Yeah, an hour and 45 minutes. I usually only do 90 minutes because i have to pee but today for some reason i don't have to pee okay cool i have my bladder's the size of a walnut someone told me no no a well-hung field mouse uh are you sure it's not the prostate oh yeah i had that checked unfortunately it's good i checked by by two dudes yeah i, I get the PSA test. They don't do the wiggle for me. My doctor's pretty cool in that respect. Like, all right, whatever.

Blood test will work? Okay, good. Fuck. Just talked about this the other night, but the guy does the check on me. He's like, let's have an expert check it. I'm like, motherfucker. How about the first guy who sticks his finger in my ass?