Devon Larratt prepared for his first match with Levan Saginashvili, in June 2022, as if the decisive battle would happen after contact.

His work emphasized repeated pronation and rising effort, long sets, and the ability to keep attacking an opponent’s wrist after fatigue arrived. The approach fit the career Devon had built. He had survived difficult positions, extended matches, and made endurance a technical weapon.

Levan removed the time required for that weapon to matter.

Endurance Needed an Entry Point

Devon’s plan depended on creating resistance in the hand. If he could affect Levan’s wrist, preserve pronation, and stay connected through the strap, every additional second could shift the match toward his strengths.

The opening contact showed how narrow that opportunity was. Devon could briefly influence the wrist, yet Levan’s total force controlled the exchange before a prolonged hand fight developed.

Endurance remained valuable. It simply lacked a stable position from which to operate.

That distinction is the central training lesson. Work capacity extends a lane that already exists. It cannot manufacture the first stop against an opponent whose peak force takes the position immediately.

Devon’s Conclusion Centered Peak Strength

Devon’s stated takeaway was direct. Preparing for elite superheavyweight power required greater emphasis on maximum strength.

That is his training conclusion, grounded in his experience of the match. The wider interpretation belongs to analysis. Devon had spent years optimizing the ability to survive after losing clean center. Levan forced him to improve the quality of the position available at the start.

The change did not require abandoning endurance. It required a better balance between peak output and repeatable pressure.

That same habit of learning through an opponent appears in how Michael Todd forced Devon to evolve. Devon’s largest technical changes often follow a loss that invalidates one assumption.

The Rebuild Changed the Purpose of Volume

After Levan, heavier specific work gained a clearer role. Devon needed more force in the rise, pronation, and back-pressure chain so those movements could create a real first foothold against elite mass and hand strength.

Volume could then support the position instead of substituting for it. Repetitions maintained tissue tolerance, technical groove, and the capacity to surge again. Peak work raised the ceiling those repetitions served.

This is why a third Devon and Levan match would matter beyond the event itself. It would test whether Devon’s revised strength priorities can change the opening geometry against the strongest problem in the division.

The rest of the field has adapted under the same pressure. The Levan era is making everyone evolve, because endurance plans need enough starting force to reach the part of the match where endurance counts.