But is Denis so invincible, how do we want to believe?

At this stage, the Top-8 participant will fight for the right hand, while Tsyplenkov pulled right-handed last July 22, 2016 at Armfight # 46 - Vendeta All Stars, almost 3 years before the first Top-8 fights. Yes, he overcame Michael Todd, even though the victory was very controversial, only a couple of fouls saved Dennis from a draw, in the last round Michael completely controlled the situation, he could not control only his elbow. The last convincing victory of Denis was at the A1 tournament on 2013, and the victory over Dave Chaffee was confident enough, in the same tournament, but already in 2014, although this victory cost Denis second place, because he didn’t have enough power for a fight with Andrey Pushkar.

So, we saw the perfect shape of Denis 5-6 years ago. Given this, it is quite reasonable to assume that in the Top-8 there are participants, besides Levan, who theoretically can compete with him. And under this condition, we can assume an unfavorable set of rivals for Denis.

First, he needs to lose the meeting with the contender. Of all the contenders, the most dangerous, despite the recent unsuccessful fights at the Vendeta All Stars, is Dmitry Trubin. After all, Dmitri won Michael Todd. Yes, Trubin lost the last 3 armfights, but he lost them to Dave Chaffey, who used toproll probably for the first time in his career, Levan Saginashvili, who also pulls toproll, and Andrey Pushkar, who, though attacking him with side pressure, still finished each round with Dmitry with dead wrist. Denis, although he has an incredibly strong wrist, will not be able to load Trubin’s wrist in the same way, due to a shorter lever and a different pulling style. The combination of these factors gives us a chance to assume the defeat of Tsyplenkov.

The next who will be able to gain the upper hand may be Gennady Kvikvinia, whom Evgeniy Prudnik can knock out into the B-group. To win, Gennady has the most explosive start, a very versatile style, the ability to move from toproll attack to a triceps strike and, equally important, he has sparring partner Levan Saginashvili. Denis often complained about the lack of suitable partners.

We recognize that until we can’t fully formulate a list of opponents and reasons that can leave Denis at the tail of the list. But it is likely that even the 7th place would be a real failure for Denis, how big and how unlikely such an outcome of events would be.