Tell us, please, how did you come to armwrestling?

I was Allen Fishers next door neighbor. I trained people in MMA and fitness on a 2.3 acre piece of land next to him. One day he saw me doing my rope course and invited me over. He arm wrestled with me and it discouraged me then his wife came out side and beat me a few times and I never wanted to arm wrestle again… I didn’t know at the time that the both had been in the sport for 30 plus years. But eventually Allen convinced me to train and a month later I placed at UAL 1st in Venice beach, CA, and 3rd place for armatures. Аfter that I was hooked...

I trained with Allen for about four years every day one on one... During that time I won a bunch of local titles and moved to Arizona where I trained with John Brzenk for a few weeks. Then I started my own gym owned that for a year and traveled to train with Allen 400 miles away as well trained with various athlete like Cobra Rhodes, I taught him martial arts and meditation. I’ve done martial arts for over 20 years and was a Buddhist monk for four years...

After Arizona I moved back to San Diego and trained one on one with Allen and his team for about two months. Then I got invited to a few event Travis Bagent was hosting, where I went undefeated until I pulled with Cobra... we battle but he eventually beat me because he was a more technical puller.

After doing a few events with them, I moved to Las Vegas. Started training with Lenny Lockhart, Eric Spoto, Ryan Constantino, Mike Cook and a few young guys. After all few of them focused on other things then I created the Las Vegas armwrestling team. At that time Igor Mazurenko came to Vegas, which was a blessing.

When he came to Vegas I spoke to him through a friend Oleg Kasakin. Igor tested me and I was hooked on learning a new way of perceiving the sport.

Allen trained me with the concept of pull whenever at every tournament. Igor took me through a refined training system, which fine-tuned all the info I picked up along the way from close friends like Allen Fisher, Cobra Rhodes and Travis Bagent. I was blessed and only now that my students meet these guys do I understand how lucky I was and still am to have these people so close to me. Igor has become like a step father assisting me in my training and with my abilities technically.

What do you think is your main achievement in sports?

I beaten many athletes. Yet they’ve beat me at some point. My biggest achievement thus far is multiple California state titles, Arizona state title, Utah state tittle, Nevada state title, Nevada state over champion left, Utah John Brzenk cup overall left hand champion, UAL 1st place and many more local titles. Yet pulling Allen’s right hand to the pin pad is by far the best feeling.

(to be continued)