Normally the prediction of this match should be very simple but Ermes Gasparini is a very dangerous puller whose hand strength & control is amazing. The pound for pound strength level and quality in the middleweight world is higher than the heavyweight world. That is why we saw Dmitry Trubin placing below Khadzhimurat Zoloev and Rustam Babaev in a professional competetion some weeks ago. Of course it is not possible to predict Gasparini vs Todd Armfight by the results of another tournament but it gives us some ideas about the close levels of middle and heavyweight armwrestling world. We all know that Trubin and Todd are head to head athletes and neither of them is a pure strength puller who dominants the opponents like Pushkar does. Both Trubin and Todd can be considered technical pullers with high level strength. Once the technical involvement is above the strength it is more possible a middle weight to cause problems to these heavyweight guys as the technical abilities of these lighter guys are higher than the heavyweight guys.

Of course the way that Michael Todd pulls is not easy to be defeated in a technical way and also requires so much horse power. So it is very hard a middle weightpuller to defeat Michael Todd. So far we have seen one very effective way of pulling to defeat Michael Todd. Devon Larratt, John Brzenk and Dmitry Trubin have used this effective style successfully and defeat Michael Todd. It was to start with blocking Michael offense and then climbing high without any offensive pressure, then hit to bring Michael’s arm in losing position and finish with a shoulder press.

I have not seen all the technical abilities of Ermes Gasparini but for sure I do not remember myself seeing Ermes pulling in such way that others used to defeat Michael Todd. Of course that Ermes had an amazing hand and pronator strength with great combination but not sure if that by itself will be enough to defeat Todd. Michael is used to pulling against the pullers who are pulling with known techniques but how experienced Ermes is about pulling someone like Michael Todd? Even if he gets the hand control will he have enough of horse power to finish his opponent? And if he can do this will he be able to do 4 rounds to win the Armfight?

My opinion is that Michael is going to win this Armfight either 5-1 or 6-0 but I would love to be proven wrong. I wish the best of luck to both athletes!

Engin Terzi