The confrontation between Rustam Babaiev and Evgeny Prudnik can bring both protracted wrestling and quick wins at the start. It is impossible to predict unambiguously the dynamics of the armfight, because the athletes had previously met only on the grid, but not in six fights in a row against each other.

The maximum number of fights in a row between these fighters was only two at the 2013 European Championships, where Babaiev and Prudnik met in the final of their category. Rustam Babaiev reached the final without defeats, and Evgeniy Prudnik had one defeat from Babaiev. Then Evgeniy managed to interrupt the series of victories of Rustam at the World and European Championships. These fights decorated the European Championship of that year as the most spectacular.

The main task on which Prudnik concentrated was to hold Rustam’s hand at the start, and then pull depending on the situation. Since few people managed to do this, Evgeniy didn’t know if he would succeed, but a pleasant surprise was waiting for him - he could “catch” Babaev’s lightning start and half the work was done. After that, he needed only to keep Babaiev in a hook.

But Rustam, as an experienced fighter, was able to switch to the fight on toproll in time, which was a surprise for Evgeniy. However, the duel was interrupted by a foul obtained by Prudnik. When he resumed, taking into account the new tactics of Rustam, Evgeniy did not let him pull toproll again, and won.

But there remained the second match, which was to determine the champion of the category. And then there was a surprise - Evgeniy used a tactical method of Rustam, opening his wrist with toproll. Then the script of the first duel was repeated, but Babaiev got foul. After the duel continued, Evgeniy again took advantage of the tactics of toproll, which brought him victory and first place in the class.

I wonder what could happen if these two rivals instead of two fights in a row would have six? Could Evgeniy be able to continue his series of victories or would Rustam still be able to find a new winning tactic? And the most interesting question is would this situation happen again, if the draw puts them in a pair on Top-8?

A lot of time has passed since those fights, and both athletes managed to show themselves in different fights as universal pullers who know how to quickly change strategy based on the situation. Therefore, it would be very interesting to observe the continuation of their confrontation in the Top-8 armfight.