How Devon Counters Every Technique In Arm Wrestling?

Do you ever wonder how Devin counters literally every technique in arm wrestling? And flop press was the only technique he was not able to counter, but now he has become unfloppable. How did he do that? Curious? Devin is a versatile puller. Unlike certain athletes who only master one technique, Devin always tries to learn every technique and tries to use everything in the match. How is it helping him? If you know every technique, you'll eventually figure out how to counter it. Devin knows how to do the king's move, open toproll, low hand toproll, posting toproll, high hook, shoulder press, and flop press, which means he covers almost every technique in arm wrestling pyramid. Now we can see how he counters every technique. So let's take the first technique in the pyramid, starting from the bottom. The king's move. Devin himself was a king's mover back then. He was dominant in the hook, but during the WAL times Devin had to go through some surgeries, and he wasn't able to use the hook anymore. As you know, anything you do inside puts a lot of stress on the elbow. After the surgery, Devin started getting top-tier hook pullers like Dave. Devin would have probably ripped open if he used his traditional low hook against Dave. That may be the reason Devin used the king's move in that match. Now let's take the Devin Larratt vs. Michael Todd rematch that happened in 2021. This was the heaviest Devin had ever come into a match at that date, and this is his bald form. He came super prepared because he wanted to win that match so badly after losing badly against Michael in 2017. Let's get into the match. So this is the first round of the match, and watch closely during the setup. Here Devin is focusing more on depth than height. As you know, the king's move primarily attacks your hand height and wrist, and it's very important to make sure you are not holding onto their thumb, but their hand. Devin has a world-class pronator, but Michael doesn't have a world-class cup. So cracking Michael's hand isn't an issue for Devin. So the focus mostly went into covering Michael's hand. And when the go happens, Devin doesn't lose his wrist. He climbs on Michael's hand and finishes with a press. In the second round, Michael went a little harder than the first one and dropped Devin's riser down, but Devin gained it back on the offensive side. He brought his shoulder in and went into that shoulder press. He was so deep on Michael's hand that Michael couldn't even crack it from that position. Devin then starts to climb from that press position and presses him effortlessly. Now let's go to the second technique in the pyramid, the open top roll. For this, we'll choose how Devin dealt with Denis Siplenkov. As we know, the open arm top roll is kind of like a king's move, but with more back pressure. After his return, Denis was playing mostly from a defensive position, mainly using the open top roll. And we can see how Devin countered that. In the first round itself, Devin identified that Denis was going for an open top roll, so he took the offensive immediately. And the grip Devin took was far far superior to Denis's grip. The problem is Denis mainly grips low. If you ask me whether Denis is a legit open arm top roller to properly analyze how good Devin was against an open arm top roller, my answer would be no. Because true open arm top rollers fight a lot with the hand. That's where the trap is set. And Denis didn't really have anything to challenge Devin's hand. But this is the only match we have. And we can also consider the Michael match as somewhat of an open arm match because, as we saw, Michael wasn't in a typical king's move position. Because Devin was not attacking like a mad train. He was calculated and took every move while protecting his wrist. Coming to the match, Devin took the center. Devin tried to break that wrist. As you know, Denis has a powerful defensive bicep. First, Devin tried to tire Denis's wrist by extending and flexing it, thereby opening his arm and then curled him into that anaconda hook. From there, he dragged him near the pad and top rolled to finish the match. As we saw, Denis's arm felt like a wall for John. This is such an underrated performance by Devin. Then we are going to the third technique in the pyramid, which is the low hand top roll. As we know, Devin is a posting top roller. The worst thing someone can do against a strong posting top roller is low hand top roll him. Low hand top roll is designed mainly to fight against hook pullers. A top roll versus top roll battle is all about taking the high ground. A low hand top roller intentionally gives away fundamental advantage which others usually fight to gain. So a low hand top roller needs superior side pressure, back pressure, and of course strong pronation to compensate. The best example for this would be Vitaly versus Devin. Devin versus Vitaly was not just low hand top roll versus posting top roll, it was a strong arm low hand top roller versus posting. And how did Devin deal with it? Devin tired out the arm in the initial rounds and then took the center effortlessly. Even then, he was having a hard time opening Vitaly's arm, so he alternated between pressing and can opening to attack Vitaly's arm and hand simultaneously. And in the restart, Vitaly had nothing left in that arm. Devin pressed him straight away. Devin knows how to attack weaknesses. When we checked Vitaly's previous matches, he had lost to flop press many times. And Devin used it at the correct time. Next is a sweeping top roll. Sweeping top roll is a variation of a top roll which is used to break a traditional low hook in defense. So in a sweeping top roll, you are in a high hook position and using the elbow pad to move in a mirrored L-shaped motion. Devin used to counter John's sweeping top roll in the straps. And in general, Devin doesn't exactly counter a sweeping top roll directly. It should be viewed more as Devin countering John's top roll by hooking John first, and then John trying to sweep top roll Devin. But Devin's wrist stayed super tight and flexed in the straps. He also managed to beat Taras Ivankin in 2006. And he managed to hold Taras in that super messed up position and beat him for a couple of rounds. And the next is the posting top roll. You can see how he defeated Ermis, Jorgic Svetkov, Dave, and many others. It's all about getting purchase in the setup and getting more of your opponent's hand. He always tries to get a high vertical hand setup. If Devin feels like the opponent's hand or arm is a threat, he will try everything to never let them use their pronator. Because for people who can still fight without wrist, it's usually because their pronator is intact. Devin always tries to take that away so they don't have anything assisting their arm. Next is the high hook. If posting top roll is Devin's elder son, then high hook is Devin's younger son. Whenever Devin goes inside, he tries to incorporate pronation. A high hook is basically a hook with pronation. A traditional low hook is mostly bicep. But in a high hook, you have your brachioradialis supporting your bicep and you can also control your opponent's hand. If Devin allows you to curl his pronator, then you are in a much, much worse position. He will curl you in like an anaconda and will suffocate you from there. I don't really find any video of Devin getting trapped in a high hook. And high hook is such a dominant position because it means you are way stronger than your opponent. You have control over their wrist, pronation, rise, everything. I don't really see anyone putting Devin there. Maybe you can see a lot of videos where Devin low hooks top rollers and the top roller gets stuck in that high hook position and Devin eventually curls them in. Now, I will explain the next two techniques because I think there will be people who don't know how they work. So the drag hook always starts from the front right corner of your pad. What you do is supinate them, add more shoulder commitment and drag them diagonally to the other corner. You can say a lesion is a hook drag puller, then the hook drive. You need to position your elbow on the right back corner of the pad, not fully on the corner because you still need to get grip with your opponent. The idea is to leave space in the front part to drive forward, then what you need to do is attack sideways while going forward diagonally. You can see I've been doing this against Levan years ago. So how does Devin counter this? Devin counters both of them using one technique, which is the high hook. Both hook drive and hook drag completely give away their pronation. You cannot really do much against Devin that way. Then there are two techniques left, shoulder press and flop wrist press. The difference between them is that in one you have your wrist supinated and in the other your wrist is bent back. As Devin's pronation is too strong, nobody can really curl his pronator, so anyway a shoulder press eventually goes into a flop press. And there was a situation when Devin went shoulder rolled in Camille's match, but that was an exception because Devin was trying to go inside, but Camille was super strong there. This is the biggest weakness of Devin, a strong flop press. And we have seen that in the Gennady match, the Levan match, the Camille match, and recently in the Vitaly match. Does that mean Devin doesn't know how to counter flop press? No. He knows how to counter a flop press. A counter to a flop press is a well-connected high hook press with a low grip. But it's not always about him not knowing the counter. Sometimes he simply doesn't have enough power to stop it, or it could be a timing issue. And with Levan also, Devin may know every technique in this universe, but he's just not strong enough to beat him. Simple as that. I think we went through all the techniques and its counters. That's all for today. I hope you liked the video. See you later.