The Current State of the Armwrestling World 

100% agreed. The sport currently relies WAY too much on Devon Larratt. Is kinda sad to say, but I've been thinking that most AW fans are not really AW fans, they are Devon fans. It's a shame because we have matches like Tarasaitis vs Procopciuc, Ermes vs Levan, Morozov vs Kurdecha, Vitaly vs Dave, Irakli vs Ongarbaev, Samushia vs Aidarkhan etc. And they seem to barely be commentated upon outside the hardcore fanbase. I also wanted to point out that most categories outside of superheavyweight are criminally underrated too; I mean Mindaugas Tarasaitis is one of the most polarizing characters of the sport (I personally love him) but he's completely ignored by most just because he happens to compete at 75kg (One of the best weight classes IMO, but maybe I'm biased as that is my weight class). However I wouldn't be so pessimistic. I've noticed in the last year or so that AW is growing a lot in the spanish speaking sphere, for example; of course most people still only care about Devon Larratt, but videos about other athletes and about the sport itself are becoming increasingly more popular, slowly but surely. It is also important to point out that a lot of this problems come from the fact that most AW athletes don't speak english. To this day the only armwrestlers that can sort of compete with Devon in terms of popularity and ppv sales are Levan, Denis and Ermes in that order. In conclusion, I think the sport is definitely growing, it's just not as rapidly as EvW10 or EvW12 may got us thinking.

Armwrestlers are notoriously bad at self promotion. How can the wider audience engage with an obscure sport if the participants aren't marketing themselves?

It’s interesting that you made a video about this. I too felt like Devon is the main reason for making people so hyped up for these matches. Every time Devon loses, things start to become dull and the public interest definitely seems to go down. The hardcore armwrestlers will continue following and supporting these events, but a LOT of people are only interested when Devon is involved.

Some love him, some love to hate him, either way he's made the sport more popular. The good thing is that there are young athletes promoting themselves on social media. They don't have to copy his persona, just be themselves and talk with the fans

Devon is not just an armwrestler; he is the face of armwrestling. It makes sense that the statistics reflect this, and it's concerning to consider that the sport's future may rely heavily on a single athlete.

You raise an interesting point. I also touched on this in a live commentary chat. Is it really armwrestling growing a lot, or is the Devon Larratt brand growing a lot? Very simple example: after EvW10, I thought armwrestling reached the next level. The crowd was amazing, the stage was epic etc. I thought "This is it! Our sport leveled up! I cant wait until the general public discovers our unique sport" Then EvW11 gets announced, I am INCREDIBLE excited for this event. The card looks awesome; I cant wait to see it... And then the livestream starts and the seats are empty. No interest. No hype. Nobody actually seems to care. Even the VIP sponsors at the stage looked like robots. I was confused, disappointed. I was thinking "didnt they see how awesome our sport is at EvW10? Why is there no interest in this card?" I realized, without Devon/Levan, it's just not there anymore for the general audience. I am afraid that the next event without Devon/Levan will be like EvW11 again. The closest thing we have is Ermes I would say. Im sorry but ALL elite athletes need to learn english and show themselves to the world (dont confuse it with having an artificial personality or trashtalking). Otherwise we will have to rely on Devon forever...

The sport atleast in Australia has grown alot the past few years. A few years ago we had like 10 members at our club and would average 3 or 4 people per session. Now we have 50 to 70 members and 20 to 30 people on average turning up each week. It got to the point we had to hire a conference centre every week and get 8 tables. Also a few years ago i would never get people coming up to me and asking me if i was an armwrestler. Now a couple times a week i have someone ask if im an armwrestler

"Strength" sports in general have this problem. Low pay in combination with super unhealthy practices it requires to be at the top. Happened with strongmen. There was a huge hype around the sport 5-6 years ago when Thor, Eddie and Shaw were competing. Nowadays nobody knows who is current WSM winner. The guy has 180k subs on youtube. Larrat and Levan have 900k+ for example.

Thanks for promoting armwrestling in S.E.Asia!!

What WAL got really right is showing armwrestling in a way that was exciting where people could connect to personalities, and many personalities were interesting, so even breaks were fun. That’s why guys like Mask and maybe RVJ might not be in their absolute primes anymore but still move the needle, relatively speaking.

Always love your content man. Miss you 💪🏻

I personally like Devon a lot. Still, I got into Armwrestling by playing in high school way before I knew it was an actual sport. Then I discovered the Perfect Storm John Brzenk and how he beautifully executed every single move and transition posible against many competitors, that’s when I started falling in love with the sport. Of course I discovered all the famous athletes: Pushkar, Devon, Denis, Babayev, Hutchings(My favorite), and many others. I like watching Armwrestling but I personally prefer competing myself even though I’m still a newbie. The only way the sport will continue to grow is with people that like competing. And the smartest way to go about more competition is with more elimination tournaments instead of supermatches. Super matches are great to show us who is better at the moment between 2 arm wrestlers, but tournaments add way more intensity and variety to the sport because it doesn’t give athletes a clue of what they will get to fight against and how to adapt. Just my humble honest opinion

Look at the regular matches, not highlights. They have 50-300k views

Devon has probably the longest and most established social media presence out of every armwrestler and has often engaged with fans Emails through RU-vid (even as far back as 2008!), coupling that with his outgoing persona and the fact that he competes in the superheavyweight class while being the relative underdog there oftentimes (at least in terms of size) gives reasons and sense for his current high standing, as he is, speaking of popularity, almost larger than the sport itself. Not everybody has these unique conditions behind them AND speaks Emglish. Building a hardcore fanbase (aka people who actually care about armwrestling as THE SPORT with its unique aspects) will always take long. For me peronally, Devon was the catalyst through which I discovered armwrestling and soon I found myself interested not just in particularly him armwrestling, but in armwrestling as the act. The official sport of armwrestling is barely 70 years old, so we shouldnt rush the growth. The growth of the sport should not be the single main goal and should not occur at all cost. I believe a hyperfixation on simply the growth of the armwrestling is a limited view on the sport.

There are more Devon fans than there are armwrestling fans

I'm very happy, huge Levan fan here😊

RU-vid algorithm boosting comment 💪 ... yes, the more stars we can make from AW the better! just imagine if you had AW clubs in schools for the last 20 years, then AW would be a main stream big sport here in NA too. kids play every other sport growing up, and look where that leads.

I watch armwrestling only because of devon and i don't know if i would keep watching it without him

i disagree, you didn’t factor the payperview numbers, plus the growth of people like ermes and levan on social media. And speaking about devon, when he dropped to 115 and pulled pridnik, the replay has like 2 million views, so his weight class doesn’t matter much. theres also the advent of Auden and Milo larratt carrying the name

Individual/1-on-1 sports require personality/narratives around the individual athletes moreso than team sports (where then the team/organization/localization) develops its own reputation/persona/narrative), or else it is less interesting to most audiences

Isnt there Auden Laratt to continue ?

Problem is that he did a meteoric rise in interest, unfortunately a lot of those fans aren’t really interested in armwrestling.

Definitely should invest on the Filipino market I'm not that usually say this but, AW should expand its territory and market on populated nd social media dominant countries. More media!

It's unfortunately how things are with any sport. Take football, for example. 99% of people know who Messi is. 99% of them cannot name a single teammate of his.

Ermes got good numbers with Levan and Vitaly

sport itself is growing fast, in tested side at least. every single team in my country has several new talented competitors for nationals etc. Every year more people join. But what comes to professional side that is made possible by non-armwresling audience, i agree that many people only watch because of Devon. Personally i don't care about personalities and i just wanna see action on table, Muratov is my favorite and he doesn't speak a word of english, but to keep these events going with this high scale they need to start promoting themselves for non-armwrestling audience, otherwise we'll be back to 3-4 match evenings because noone can afford to organize bigger events-

Ironically the best event for me was the one in which there was no Devon and levan in it i think that was 11? Purist arm wrestling fans would agree, the growth of the sport personally i dont care for as long as these awesome matches continue with or without big personalities

You have to add ppv numbers to the views. I buy every ppv so I don’t watch the matches when Engin releases them for free.

We need more stars like devon. Also important events should consider more the Spanish speaking audience that is huge…

On engins channel most matches got over 100k views

What happened with your left?

Arm wrestling's biggest problem is there are more fans of just some specific pullers compared to ACTUAL FANS OF THE SPORT

For india its far from truth we have our own league only second to east vs west and people hear are more interested in native arm wrestlers. Don't know about you but i personally think arm wrestling is growing in my country in economic terms as well social. The team that won the last season were public celebrity in their locality. Use some of your time and do a good research on PRO PANJA LEAGUE and its viewership😊

Look at Indian arm wrestling scene. It’s growing there quire fast

Devon will still dominate the 105 and 115kg classes

I disagree with you The first point is that all of the views go's to Engin Chanel youtube.com/@Engin_Terzi?si=_q3WKuIK8AC9fPId The views are really good specially evw10 and 11 Second point is you can't know how much people searching arm wrestling around the world by the world arm wrestling because in a lot of languages the sport have Different name I hope my points are clear and sorry for bad English

I only watched because of Devon... He's a real life wolverine and an inspiration. What he brought to the table can not be matched.😢 there's a lot of good talent , but without the present of Devon I can not get behind another arm wrestler... he's the Michael Jordan of arm wrestler's

Levan also brings views.

My interest in Arm wrestling will vanish as Devon vanishes.

😴

Armwrestlers with the exception of a few like Devon Larratt are way way behind in terms of marketing and promoting. I am not saying it lightly when I say Devon Larratt is the most popular armwrestler in armwrestling history, surpassing John Brzenk by a long mile. Devon's haters don't realize how much this man has done for the sport in terms of popularity. As much as Levan is the Mt. Everest of armwrestling, he isn't driving up the popularity of the sport. His role is largely a self-serving one. To preserve his No. 1 spot. Neither anyone of the Top 10 can be like Devon Larratt in terms of driving up the popularity of the sport and bringing armwrestling to a wider audience. In other sports like Boxing for eg. we all have guys like Tyson, Ali, Fury and many other.. all providing momentum to the sport. If Levan continues to be No. 1 it will simply kill the sport yet many don't realize it. He has to take matches as regularly as possible. Not just 1 match per year. If armwrestling wanes down in popularity, the armwrestling community will suffer. This means less interest, less sponsorships, less tournaments, less pay per views .. this will really make armwrestling go underground again which is something we don't want especially if its on the rise.

Wishing to see more juicers getting heavily ill from PED use . On East vs West maybe 5% of athletes are natural. And Engin has no intention to regulate events with anti doping controls.