Pulling John

[Delarey]

A bit of an obscure sport (arm wrestling), but I quite enjoyed this documentary movie. Anyone who dominates his sport for close on 30 years should be more famous than this. John Brzenk does not even look that impressive for an arm wrestler, but he destroys guys much bigger than himself.

Worth a watch on a lazy Sunday.

https://youtu.be/TJTZAd4l590

[Delarey]

Ever since I watched Pulling John on YouTube, the algorithm has been feeding me arm wrestling content and taking me down the rabbit hole further. I can’t get over the career of John Breznk and how I’ve never heard of him. In his younger days he looked a bit like John Denver and yet went on a 25 year unbeaten streak in a sport where one slip can mean

defeat. In arm wrestling they have weight categories, but then they also allow the winners of the weight categories to fight it out for the overall prize. That meant that he battled monsters such as Dennis Cyplenkov.

 

Looking at the pictures one cannot fathom how he can stand a chance. Yet out of the 6 times they met John won 5. He finally lost on the 6th occasion when he was in his mid 40’s. Incredible!

[Delarey]

Glad to see that in the process I have managed to make the thread pic to be a photo of Denis Cyplenkov’s enormous hand. Quite appropriate for a thread named “Pulling John” [emoji23]