Dave Chafee beat Cyplenkov the last time they pulled. Dave is EXTREMELY strong. His only weakness is defending against the King's move. NO ONE has beaten him in conventional armwrestling in a half decade now, including Cyplenkov. Right now, the only man who has a chance of beating Levan is Dave. I know Dave personally, as he is part of Team Relentless in Erie PA, where I practice (although it's been a while). I've been there to pull many times. While Levan may look stronger than Dave due to his greater size, he is not. I believe Dave has the strongest hook in the world; a belief shared by many of the world's top armwrestlers (Costadinov, for example, who qualified for the Top 8 this year). Dave's genetic structure...from a muscular attachment standpoint, is superior to Levan's. This is why he is able to generate more (likely) back pressure than Levan. One of the most important factors is back-pressure strength (curling strength, basically) is the length of the brachioradialis muscle. Dave's attaches half-way down his forearm (or more), while Levan's is maybe half as long. Brachioradialis length is the #1 reason Oleg Zhohk had some of the greatest back-pressure in the world prior to his near fatal car accident. Th guy only weighed about 190 pounds and had, maybe, 17.5 inch arms...and likely smaller. However, his forearms were freakish...specifically his crazy long brachioradialis, which attached down at his wrist!
The point here is that Dave had a much longer brachioradialis muscle than Levan and can therefor, I believe, generate at least as much and likely more, back-pressure than Levan. We already known Dave's hand is crazy strong as well...as is his side pressure. So, as long as Levan doesn't sink into a King's Move (which is doubtful because Eastern European and Asians despise the King's Move), Dave has a VERY good chance of beating Levan. Like I said above, Dave beat Cyplenkov when he was at his very best. No one has ever done that before--only Dave. When it comes to conventional armwrestling (no King's Move bullshit), Dave sits at the top of the heap, which is why he was rated #1 in the world (just a year or two ago) until he lost to the King's Move. This makes Dave and Levan are a true super match. Who will win? I think Dave will pull out the win, but unlike most other matches, in which we can gauge who might win based on how each man fared against mutual opponents, neither Dave nor Levan have ever any of the same men (at the upper level)! This makes it very difficult to gauge who will come out on top. One thing we do know, though, is that both athletes have beaten the very best in their federations with ease.
Just to give you an idea of how strong Dave actually is, there is an online YouTube video of him curling 5 plates on the Preacher Machine for 4-5 reps...with ONE ARM! If you've ever used that machine before, then you know that each 45 plates provides at least 35 of resistance. Therefore, he was able to curl at least 175 pounds...with one arm...4-5 times. That is insane. A few moths ago, when he was training for the match with Levan (prior to the Corona virus resulting in the match's postponement), he was doing side pressure training with 300 pounds of band resistance...and he broke the bands!!! 300 pounds worth of bands literally snapped all at once. As far as side-pressure is concerned, 150 pounds is considered very good (among pros), while 200 pounds is considered upper-world class. Now imagine 300 pounds. I am unaware of ANYONE who has ever done that before, so breaking 300 pounds of bands is unreal.
You see, unlike so many people today, Dave doesn't doesn't record and showcase his lifts on YouTube for the whole world to see (it's very rare). He keeps quiet, trains hard and lets the results speak for themselves.
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