Following his defeat against Levan Saginashvili last April, Devon Larratt announced his intention to change weight category, aiming for titles in the 105 kg and 115 kg categories, believing that the super heavyweight title was now out of reach. Since then he has undertaken a significant weight loss in order to reach 105kg. However, losing weight is often accompanied by loss of muscle, a reality that could well affect future performance.
A less convincing recovery than expected
Devon Larratt recently made a return to competition when facing Chance Shaw at East vs West 14, a duel which revealed him to have a significant decrease in his strength compared to his previous matches. Faced with this reality, Larratt admitted to having returned to training more seriously in view of the challenges to come, notably with his famous “single lifts”.
While he regularly lifted between 165 and 170 lbs (around 75 kg) for his fight against Levan, he admits to having gone down to 100 lbs (around 45 kg) since his recovery. Enough to make him doubt his chances of beating Oleg Petrenko on November 2 at East vs West 15 ?
Todd Hutchings' message
Todd Hutchings recently posted on Facebook part of his conversation with Devon Larratt which suggests that the latter asked him to face Oleg Petrenko in his place.
In the conversation we can see that Todd responds to Devon Larratt: “No it’s good for me. I have already accepted another opponent. Go ahead and fight Petrenko. I will face him at the next event for the title”, hinting that he thinks Devon may well fail against Petrenko.
Oleg Petrenko, for his part, reacted by saying: “I see that Devon is trying to convince Todd Hutchings to face me first. He seems to think he's not ready for me. »
Devon Larratt's answer
Devon Larratt quickly returned to this post from Todd Hutchings in one of these videos on his Youtube channel. He explained that he simply asked Todd if he wanted to face Oleg Petrenko out of respect for his recent performances. Larratt also pointed out that, following this post, people started saying "Oh Devon is afraid to face Oleg Petrenko", which he finds completely absurd.
Conclusion
Is this exchange with Todd Hutchings a true admission of weakness on the part of Devon Larratt, or was it simply a sincere request?
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