You've been in USA for three months. What are you doing there?
As you know, I founded PAL USA in 2011, and WAC in 2013. The co-founder of this company is the well-known sports manager from PSP Sport, Tomasz Rachwał. The idea of organizing large armwrestlin events has followed me around for many years. My first attempt to install myself in the USA happened back in 2005. The's when I first went to the Arnold Classic. I kept going to the USA in the years 2005 – 2008, to search for business partners and start organizing tournaments. In 2009 we have managed to organize a Vendetta in the TapouT Training Center in Las Vegas. Two fights took place there, with Brzenk, Todd, Tsyplenkov and Oncescu. The event had a large impact on the world of armwrestling, so we wanted to continue organizing it. Unfortunately, our then partners decided to end the partnership.
What happened?
Organization of events takes a lot of time and money. No everyone wants to invest, but many want to make profit. That's what happened then, our partners didn't want to participate in the costs, and we couldn't shoulder the whole bulk of costs. That's when I got the idea to move to USA, to continue working with the fighters and partners at location, or search for them. In 2011 I founded PAL and started preparing to organize a couple of tournaments under the name. In 2012 we organized “Vendetta in Vegas”, with world-renown stars. There was Michael Todd, Jerry Cadorette, Richard Lupkes, Pushkar, Zoloyev and Liliev. They demonstrated world – class armwrestling. Then we organized the next tournament in June, armfight 42, but that was too little and I just decided it didn't make any marketing sense.
Why?
The point of all that was to interest TV stations and promote armwrestling in the USA. It hadn't worked. Only small cable TV stations got interested, and to really promote armwrestling in the whole USA, a separate TV cell was needed. That's what was missing. In 2013, 24th February, in the Qubus hotel in Gdansk, a meeting took place with Tomasz Rachwał. He told us that he wants to join the organization of tournaments and help create the new format, as one of USA partners. This is also the designated birthday of TOP 16.
At 10th October 2013, WAC was founded in Las Vegas. The office started its operations, working with sponsors, TV and Mazurenko Armwrestling Promotions in Gdynia, forming a group to work on the “Real Armwrestling” show. We wanted to have a new show before we started TOP 16, to promote our fighters. And we got it.
But TOP 16 seems to have gone off the radar a little...
In a machine as big as TOP 16 there must be some glitches. Deadlines were not kept. This was also the time when I solf FitMax and was left with only my armwrestling brand. So in 2014 I decided to move to USA, to take control of things. I hope to move things along much faster now.
What stage are you in now?
We have managed to recruit top MMA managers and get in contact with leading TV stations in the USA. We have decided on TV formats, we will continue our work with “Vendetta in Vegas”. We are working on technical documentation and continuing to work on TOP 16. Two other projects were born along the way - “Real Armwrestling” and Professionals' World Cup, which we plan to do in Poland this year, but we also want the Nemiroff World Cup format to run in the USA.
Any surprises in store?
Yes, in April we will have a “Vendetta in Vegas”, in which three pairs will fight. More details to come soon.
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