For several months, victory after victory, Devon Larratt has been able to make us believe in his chances of beating the titan Levan Saginashvili at the East VS West 12. At 1 a.m. this Sunday, April 21, 2024, never has an arm wrestling match had as much excitement as this one in the history of this sport.
Had Devon bridged the power gap that separated the two men when they first met in 2022? Had Levan Saginashvili recovered from his right wrist injury? More than ever, there was room for doubt.
Table of contents
The match
The two opponents took to the stage as focused as ever. No trash talk from Devon Larratt during the match. You could feel the tension and, above all, the stakes involved in this duel in the eyes of both athletes.
In the 1st round, the match promised to be close. Even though Levan had control in the center of the table, we saw Levan Saginashvili forced to use the press technique to put Devon Larratt in the position of the Kings move. A second foul given to Devon allowed Levan to win this first round.
The following rounds were totally dominated by Levan in top roll. The 60kg and the difference in power which separate the two opponents will have got the better of Devon who will not have had many options to reverse the trend.
Watch the match between Devon Larratt and Levan Saginashvili.
Post-match comments
Devon Larratt
He's incredible. It's going to be very difficult to beat him. I wasn't lying when I said I was at my best. To beat him, you'll need a well-trained Alex Kurdecha or a well-trained Vitaly Laletin. The ceiling is very high.
The problem is that he's strong everywhere. You can take advantage of him on one point, but he has a lot of back-up solutions. My aim was to break his wrist and I felt I could do something about it, but he's got too many alternatives, he's got too many options.
But I had a good setup position. I don't think I could have had a better strap-on position. It's just a different level of power, really.
I hate letting people down. I know a lot of people support me and help me. I wanted to win not only for myself but for all those people. I did everything I could do, really.
There's not much more I can do to be better in this category. I think it's really time for me to move down to the 115kg and 105kg categories. There are monsters in those categories.
Levan Saginashvili
I'm really happy. I want to thank Devon, he's an incredible athlete, he continues to stay on top.
I'll have to watch the replay of round 1 to see what happened. But my wrist wasn't at 100% at the time so I had to use the flop press. After the first round, I felt my wrist had warmed up and it felt better.
Devon's pronation strength has really improved, he's very strong. However, I think using the flop press against him made him lose a lot of power.
It was risky to do this match with Devon because of my wrist, but I won. I'm very happy.
Today I beat the strongest guy. I'll have to beat other very strong athletes in the future, so I'm going to train very hard to stay number 1.
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