Igor Mazurenko:

"To start, I would say the main thing: those who hope that the “Zloty Tur” will slide down to the level of an ordinary tournament will already be very disappointed in the beginning of autumn. Yes, PAL has a completely new strategy, but I will not disclose all the cards - everything has its time. All I can say: in the beginning of autumn, professional arm wrestling will reach a new level. If we talk about the prospects of the Zloty Tur, it is very important to understand the essence, nature of this tournament or rather - event, to know its history. The Professional World Cup is not just something just invented by me. This is an event that took off organically, I emphasize, organically from a small Tournament in 2000, with participants from 2 countries (5 Ukrainians and 25 Polish guys), to the real convention of champions, a sports festival with two competition formats and participants from more than 23 countries. 

Zloty Tur was born on February 20, 2000. As I said, only 30 people took part in it. In 3 years, this event already had 2 names - "Zloty Tur” International Tournament - "Casinos Poland” Professional World Cup. The first brand we saved for the history, the second was after the brand of the main sponsor of the tournament at that time. Later the tournament became known as the “Nemiroff" Professional World Cup, but inside the organization, we always designated this event with two names, for example, "Zloty Tur" №4 - World Cup №1. Back then we already knew that professional armwrestling will move its own way and therefore it’s very important to remember our roots. 

In 2004, at the 5th "Zloty Tur” and at the first “Nemiroff” World Cup, it became clear to us that the World Cup format was doomed to popularity and a long life. That time the Cup was attended by: John Brzenk, Travis Bagent, Michael Solaris, Alexei Voevoda, Alexei Semerenko, Taras Ivakin and many others. It was thanks to that tournament that the cult "Pulling John" movie produced and directed by Sevan Matosyan was made. Many scenes of the film were shot at that event and during the armfights at the same time. 

If we talk about armfight, the first armfight took place in June 2003. I came up with this format of the match and we decided to hold it on the main square of Gdansk, Poland during the Dominican Fair. The first Armfight gathered about 4000 spectators and its participants were an athlete from Poland Martin Kreft and Vasily Kuznetsov, known to many today, who was then the chairman of the arm wrestling federation of St. Petersburg, Russia. I repeat - the event attracted about 4,000 spectators, and the winner of the Armfight Martin Kreft was taken off the stage in the audience’s arms. As the organizer of the tournament, I realized that the "Armfight" format of fights will live and have a great popularity. 

All of the above, in my opinion, proves that the “Zloty Tur” and the “Armfight” have very strong roots, mainly in the hearts of our athletes, coaches and fans of arm wrestling. 

Therefore, these events have only a brilliant future. My main task, the task of my team is to help this body grow and help everyone who is in love with our sport to benefit from it. 

In the process of growth, we went through different stages. There were new ideas that were crushed by reality. For example, in 2013, when the PAL team decided to organize the “Top-16” Armfight tournament, many also met this idea with enthusiasm. But, after a year, we had to stop this project, as we could not get enough "stars", able to compete at one level for 1-16 places. Too big was the gap between the 1st place level and 16th. 

But, as I said before, the World Cup and Armfight, thanks to their organic nature, managed to acquire their own vital impulse and we, as organizers, already getting feedback on perspective development directions. So, in 2017, when, at first glance, for almost random organizational reasons, it was decided to combine the “Vendetta All Stars” armfights and the World Cup, we unexpectedly got a new algorithm of the arm-wrestling event, which immediately won the hearts of arm-wrestling community around the world. 

Tournament grid, in which, like diamonds in the frame, the Stars armfights were built in, literally acquired a new magical brilliance. This is said by many participants and spectators of the Zloty Tur today.

As for “stars departure to armfights”, in order to calm and perhaps a little cheer on those who are worried about this, I will have to slightly disclose our vision of the nearest future. To begin with, let's look at the facts. 

First. Today in professional arm wrestling, in fact, there is only one objective rating of athletes - the results of the “Zloty Tur”. Yes, there are other ratings, but since their absolute majority is based on the subjective opinion of the authors, they will always be subject to challenge. In addition, they lack the main thing that should be the basis of the rating - the standards. In simple words, an athlete can hold any number of fights with any opponents and with any result, but his victories and defeats can not be correctly taken into account in the rating if he and other members of the rating competed by different rules, at different tables and there matches were judged by the referees not having common approaches to the situations on the table. Therefore, the Zloty Tur, which has adopted and maintained common standards and rules for many years, in my humble opinion, is the only objective rating. And it does not matter whether the athlete has won the prize place or not. Taking part in the Zloty Tur, he gets into an objective professional world rating. 

The second. For many years, the top positions of the world professional armwrestling were taken by 10-15 strongest athletes of the world. Because of the abyss that laid between them and the rest of the athletes, it was almost impossible to make it to the top, and the results of the World Cup were almost predictable. This problem was partially removed by the armfights, but since they did not change the results of the Zloty Tur, their results were reflected only in subjective ratings. 

And, finally, the third. The value of our sport in the world. The fame of arm wrestling has grown dramatically in recent years, largely thanks to PAL and other similar organizations and promoters who donated their own money in popularizing our favorite sport. But, please note, I used the word “donated" rather than "invested" because the capitalization of armwrestling, admittedly, is far from large today. And there are several reasons for this. The first is the lack of an arm-wrestling industry as such. Industry is a system where there are tools for earning money by its participants - from the athlete and his coach, to the promoter and the investor. The industry is a clear structure, a machine that works and develops, yielding income to all its participants depending on the degree of participation. The armwrestling industry is what we all have to build.

So, going back to the “Zloty Tur” Professional World Cup 2018, I can say the following. This year it will be the most important event in the life of all its participants. Many people probably noticed how early we launched a campaign to promote Vendetta All Stars and the World Cup. The fact is that these events will be a record not only for the Star status of their participants and for the cost of live broadcast on Armbets.tv. They will also become record-sized in terms of investment in their organization. In addition to traditional organizational procedures, this year PAL invests in a unique platform that not only solves all the above-mentioned problems of armwrestling, but also provides every athlete who sees himself in professional arm-wrestling a place in a reliable international professional rating. As for armwrestling fans, the platform will give them the opportunity to receive a reward for efforts to promote your favorite sport. This year will be a huge step forward and, I will say frankly, those who come to the Zloty Tur this year will get advantages which they could not even dream about. You probably already heard about the launch of the PAL reference program, which allows everyone to benefit from the sales of live broadcasts of Vendetta All Stars and the World Cup. This is only the 10th part of what we plan to do before the World Cup. And finally, I wish everyone to make the right decisions in their sports career and buy air tickets in advance. Have a nice day!"