This year's A1 was great as every other year before, with great athletes in every class.

The changes with the weight classes made some differences with the participants esspecially in light categories but the heavyweight class was stacked as always with the exception of Denis Cyplenkov. Since the categories started from 65kg class it was expected Oleg Cherkasov to win the category with left arm but we expected Jambul Vibliani who is the current right hand Eueropean Champion to be there as well. Jambul did not show up and Cherkasov won the category with both hands.

In 80kg left hand class Oleg Zhokh won easily as expected and Atsamaz Urtaev took 2. place as he did behind Zhokh in 2013&2014 WAFs and EAC events. With right hand Zoloev won without problems while the young & skinny looking Georgij Tautiev amazed everyone with his talent and strength. This young guy beat some of the best athletes in the world without much problems and to me it was very surprising. He has very tall arms , he drops his front wrist and generates and incredible pronation movement with lightinng speed. I am guessing him to have a very powerful wrist strength but that is for sure that his hand control is amazing.

In 95kg left hand class Murat Karaev won the event. 90kg current European champion Prudnyk took 7. place while Spartak Zoloev who was 2. at Europeans in same class was also second placer here.

Right hand +95kg was very interesting, Spartak Zoloev comfortably beat Todd Hutchings and i was kind of shocked by seeing the video. After that i also saw how Murat Karev troubled Todd with his speed but elbow fouled both times that he pinned Hutchings (I think once it was foul to both sides and it wasnt called to neither athletes). Finally Todd caught Karaev and beat him. In the final Todd did not sleep this time and was fast enough to catch Spartak.

Before the finals Bob Brown wrote on my forum that "The final fight will be different" and i realised that he was right once Hutchings stopped Spartak. Todd Hutchings is one of the best endured athletes that i have ever seen and once he stopped the fight against Spartak it was not so hard to guess that he was going to win the fight and even the next fight because the game was already turned to an endurance battle. Todd did not win so easy but he never was in a risque to lose either of the final fightes.

In +95kg Ferit won with right hand very easily over a young and talented guy Dmitry Sılaev and WAF Champions Tokarev, Semerenko and Genady. Ferit did not pull the open class with right hand because of his elbow injury but IMO he would have taken second place to Pushkar if he would have pulled.I think this way because Chaffee did not seem to be in a great condition as Slaev troubled him a bit even though Slaev pull the +95kg class before the open class and Ferit beat him easily. +95kg left hand category was dominated by Pushkar.

Open class with left hand was not interesting as Pushkar was too much for his opponents except one fight Ferit was able to catch him for some seconds very near to the pin pad. Oleg has beaten Ferit at last year'a A1 and Ferit wanted to pull him again this year. Ferit just destroyed Oleg in all 3 fightes and took 2. place to Pushkar. Open class with right arm was expected to be the most exciting category, we all were waiting for the battle between Pushkar and Dave. By the most Dave was the favorite of this fight but Pushkar has easily won the fightes. I read that Dave wrote about pulling Tokarev, Slaev and another guy before pulling Pushkar but those guys pulled +95kg category before they pulled Dave and they are no where near Pushkar's level.

I mean Pushkar would beat them one after another until they all beg Pushkar to stop beating them so badly. So for me the reason that Pushkar easily beat Dave were 1- Pushkar is powerful 2- Dave's wrist did not seem to be healhty.

Engin Terzi