Travis Bagent VS Arsen Liliev Istanbul August 1st

Admin Posts : 7176 Join date : 2008-07-05 Location : bacup

Travis Bagent VS Arsen Liliev

in Istanbul August 2nd

Oh yes... it's true! Travis Bagent (ranked 4th in the world) has confirmed that he wants to meet Arsen Liliev (ranked 8th in the world) at the Istanbul event the 2nd of August!
Initially it was planned that the eagerly awaited rematch between John Brzenk and Devon Larratt would take place at the time but John unfortunately suffered a shoulder injury during the Vendetta against Denis Cyplenkov in Las Vegas, and John's and Devon's meeting in Istanbul has been deferred for an indefinite future. Now let's keep our fingers crossed that John heals as he should and that he is back again soon!
As soon as the match got cancelled the other day Engin began planning for a replacement match, and quite promptly Liliev agreed to meet any of the armwrestlers ranked above him in Istanbul, except Devon (ranked 1st in the world), who he simply thought would be too much for him. Engin searched and he searched... but it proved more difficult than he thought to find anyone who wanted to meet this 85 kg monster from Russia, although there is no specific weight limit the challenger needs to keep.
But, Travis finally heard about the match and confirmed his participation, and now we have an almost ridiculously interesting match to look forward to in only four weeks!!!

Personally I think it's hard to predict who the winner will be in this incredible match, since there are so many factors that matters and even the slightest difference in strength can result in a total dominance for either of the competitors.
What makes the outcome of the match even harder to predict is that we don't know much about Travis' shape at the moment since he hasn't competed that much lately.
He lost to Georgi Gelashvili in New York not long ago, but should we take that as a hint that this match against Arsen might not be as easy for him as many believe? Or... did it rather had to do with Georgi's style that is particularly uncomfortable for Travis?
I guess the answer to that differs depending on who you ask, but in my own opinion I think Arsen's incredible wrist strength in combination with his strong side pressure can be compared to the uncomfortable hook Georgi utilized, so I definitely think that Arsen is fully capable of winning against Travis.

I take for granted that there will be a lot of gripping and difficulties to get the matches started, and most if not all matches will go to straps. What happens next is the big question, and even though I think it's almost impossible to guess the winner of this match I'm gonna go with Travis on this one if I have to choose. I think his large hand, backpressure and fast starts will be a little too much for Arsen to handle. My guess on the score: 3-2 or 4-1 to Travis.
But Travis better show up in great shape and with the strongest mind he can bring forth!

The other supermatches we can look forward to see in Istanbul is Pascal Girard VS Dursun Onder and Janis Amolins VS Immanuel Ozyurek.

Read more on Northeastboard in the threads "anyone to pull Arsen Liliev?" and "Arsen Liliev vs Travis Bagent".