First time I met him was in 2002 WAF Springfield in USA. I knew that he was organizing some pro events in Poland and Bulgaria with Assen Hadjitodorov but hadn’t met him before 2002. 8 men Armwrestling League events and Zloty Tur Tournament were taking my attention but I never thought it would get so much bigger with time. I was amazed when I first time heard of the Pal 75kg event in Bulgaria where great pullers Such as Gashevski, Karajaev, Fisher, Rundstrom, Borisenko, Bondaruk, Czutketarasvili attended. The way that event was put was giving the signals of the bright future of the Professional armwrestling. Then we started to see the videos of the Zloty events where mostly Eastern Europeans were competing. They were very attractive events that every top puller would want to participate.

Then I experienced the European Championships that Igor organised in 2004 Poland. It was already making the amateur armwrestling’s level up to the Professional events that he had been organising. The same year I remember myself being involved on Northeast Armwrestling Message Board for supporting a Dream Team from US to participate Zloty Event. It kind of changed the destiny of the armwrestling world as there was a two separate worlds of armwrestling. One was the monsters from Eastern Europe and the other was the Mother Land of the organised armwrestling with the Legendary names. So the whole world was so excited and curious about the outcome of such meeting. As far as I remember John Brzenk, Ron Bath, Travis Bagent, Matt Girdner, Chad Silvers, Michael Selerais and Christopher Myers were the names who participated 2004 Zloty event that Igor organised. It was an amazing events and a new beginning of the United Professional armwrestling world which unfortunately we have lost again in last a few years.

Igor’s most important service to armwrestling world was making Supermatches so popular in the sport. I remember him organising supermatches between Semerenko, Pushkar and Taras at the beginning. Then some supermatches with Rustam and some other light weights. These supermatches created a different view to determine the best armwrestler. Igor’s first supermatches events were 5 rounds as far as I remember then he thought it was a better idea to have matches with a tied scores as well and he made the supermatches 6 rounds. We should all except that Igor has changed the armwrestling in a positive way with his ideas. Most of his events were broadcasted by Polsat. All of the Europeans and Worlds that he has hosted were top level events. He has Professional crew with computer systems and video filming. He for sure knows how to promote armwrestling. I must admit that at the beginning I did not think that it was leading armwrestling to a positive direction but after 15 years it is obvious that he has done a lot for our sport.

A big part of John’s legendary career was made in Igor’s events, John and Igor for sure promoted eachother for near 10 years. We met Denis Cyplenkov in Igor’s events. We have seen Larratt, Bagent, Voevoda, Michael Todd, Trubin, Pushkar, Rustam, Zoloev, Hutchings, Kostadinov, Osmanli, Zhokh, Bresnan, Prudnyk and many other top pullers in Igor’s events for years and years.

As someone who has spent most of his life in armwrestling I would like to thank Igor for the great things that he has done for our sport!

 Engin Terzi