This press conference took place one before the A1 Russian Open 2014 tournament, on 24 July 2014. I wrote some highlights of John Brzenk’s answers to questions, he is talking several times, you still have to watch the video (please add a link to this article if you copy this text):

John Brzenk talks about his shoulder and about his recent move from Sandy, Utah to Phoenix, Arizona and about the new training team, if they are young guys among them. The Russians asked him if the government is involved in promoting armwrestling in USA.

Next John Brzenk talks about the truck that he won during the Over The Top tournament in 1986. John said that he kept the truck about a year as a trophy, then he sold it, because he didn’t even had a license for driving the truck.

John said he wasn’t sure before that he will get to A1 Russian Open 2014 because of the injuries and because of the age, but he is happy that he was invited.

John was asked what makes him come back again and again in spite of all the injuries, age and the lack of investments in sport by USA government, how does he motivate himself. John answered that he never left the sport, he was just kicked back a little because of the injuries, but the best thing for him with the sport is the camaraderie and the relationships at practice, that are very enjoyable for him, it is something that he enjoyed his whole life and he doesn’t see himself getting away from that. He will slowly decline as a competitive level, be he enjoys so much just to be getting together in practice.

Next he was asked if he is training / doing other sports like Alexey Voevoda. John Brzenk answered that he never was much of a weightlifter, he always preached that if you want to be good at armwrestling you have to do a lot of armwrestling and just because he never followed much interest in the sport of weightlifting.

A woman from the public told John that he is very much loved in Russia and because of his contributed many sportsmen came to the sport wanting to become the champion of champions, and not only in Russia but all over the world, and he thanked him for that.

Next he was asked about retiring. John answered that he might retire at some point from the high level competition but he will never quit participating in sport because it is very enjoyable for him.

Next he was asked about Sylvester Stallone. John said that he only met Sylvester Stallone a couple of times before the making of the movie and they didn’t spend much time on the table but they discussed the sport in general. The first time when he actually set up Sylvester Stallone at the table was after he won the Over the Top tournament, so he didn’t provide any technical support with the techniques. Stallone is still involved in the armwrestling, John noticed that Stallone was present and he gave away the trophies at Arnold Classic, he still thinks about it and he has his eye on the sport but he is still busy making films not with armwrestling. 🙂

John said that he trains once a week, and that his biggest problem is still his shoulder which is not completely healed because of the strain that he puts in armwrestling and it didn’t healed as good as he hoped, but everything else he is 100%.

In the end John was asked if he would like to write a book about himself with the secret of his succes. He laughed. He believed that the secret of his success in the sport is due to his early start, because of his father he started at a very young age 12-13 years old, that gave him a huge head start against most of the competition. He still can get his left arm to catch up with what his right arm achieve, and that is all due to the fact that he basically armwrestled only right hand as a young adult.

A-1 Press Conference 2014 – Denis Cyplenkov, John Brzenk
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Source: Sutor Strong

From left to right: 1. Denis Cyplenkov – friendly Hulk 🙂 ; 2. Alexander Filimonov – the President of Russian Armsport Association (RAA); 3. Nikolay Mishta – the Vice President of Russian Armsport Association (RAA) and the owner of RusArtArhiv (the main sponsor of A1 Russian Open tournament); 4. John Brzenk – The Legend.

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