I have been involved in armwrestling for more than 20 years at World level. It has been a big part of my life and i love this sport. I say these because people who knows me also knows that i love and care about armwrestling and it’s future. Professional part of our sport developped in North America till the 90s, then Russians organised the Golden Bear events for many years while Americans continued to be the homeland of the Professional armwrestling. WWC, Yukon Jacks, Harley Pulls have been the great pro events in my career. Then Nemiroff events emerged in Europe along with Senec Hand. For many years Nemiroff was considered to be the very best Professional event in the world. John Brzenk came and faced against the best pullers of the Europe such as Pushkar, Semerenko, Cyplenkov, Ferit, Taras, Rustam, Voevoda and many others. Most of the times it sounded like a Rocky 4 story except John was a real hero.

Today it looks like we are going to a confusing direction. From one side it makes me happy to see that some of the athletes are having good opportunities with financial satisfaction, and from other side it is making me unhappy to see the pro armwrestling world being divided. There are some big organisations that organise big events yet they do not allow the athletes to pull freely wherever they want to pull.

I have been doing the world rankings for so many years and i have had hard times to do the rankings because of the best athletes not having opportunity to pull eachother. Today there is enough Money for athletes to show up but they are not allowed to pull other than the organisations that they have contract. So if this continues to be this way then we may never be able to see for example Voevoda vs Dave Chaffee, or Michael Todd vs Denis Cyplenkov, or Pushkar vs Devon Larratt, or Prudnyk vs Todd Hutchings from now on. From the fan point of view this is not something to be happy with. It may be a good thing for some of the athletes but not for the athletes who claim to be the very best in the world as we will never know who the best armwrestler in the world.

There are already 2 big pro organisations in US and as far as i know currently PAL is planning to organise pro events in US as well. It will be a pity if we dont get to see the EAST vs WEST challenges anymore esspecially now when Alexy Voevoda is getting ready for a comeback and Ferit is planning to retire from amateur armwrestling to pull only pro events.

So a cold war is waiting for armwrestling world and i am not sure if i will enjoy this cold war. After the Golden Bear events we didnt get to see a serious EAST vs WEST meeting till 2004 Nemiroff Event and i really hope that such a long brake will never happen again.

Engin Terzi