British strongman Eddie ‘The Beast’ Hall has revealed the real reason why he’s looking forward to going blow-for-blow with Hafþór ‘The Mountain’ Björnsson, and it’s not just because the Icelander took his world-record deadlift title.
Immediately following his record-breaking lift on May 2, Thor challenged Hall to a boxing match of literally epic proportions to settle their ongoing feud.
Less than 24 hours after the challenge, Eddie eagerly accepted. Now, he’s explained to British YouTuber True Geordie (who’s a very large human being in his own right) why he’s really looking forward to the match, which has apparently been years in the making.
Hall admitted that no human in their right mind (including himself) would want to enter the ring with his 6-foot nine-inch, 450 lb Icelandic rival.
“He’s a giant of a man, an absolute giant of a man, and given the choice I’d never want to fight Thor, it’d be a stupid life choice for anyone on the planet to fight a man that size,” The Beast explained. “But this is more personal, it’s not about the contract, it’s not about the money offer, it’s not about this stupid deadlift feud we’ve got going on, it’s the fact that he accused me of being a cheat at World’s Strongest Man 2017.”
“He threw all these accusations out there that the referees were corrupt, the events were changed in my favor, that I knew the events in advance, it was just so much bullsh*t that Thor came up with,” Hall continued. “That put this black cloud around my WSM win. At the time I didn’t really think anything of it, but after I won every interview I did wasn’t about the win, it was about this controversy.”
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One of the biggest issues from WSM 2017, in Thor’s eyes, was the Viking Press (as seen above), which Hall won by completing just one more full press than The Mountain. As a result of the event, Thor ended up getting just one less point scored than Eddie, and in the final rankings, Björnsson was just one point behind Hall on the podium.
“It genuinely hurt me deep down, I trained my whole life for this one moment, and this guy just tried to take it away from me because he couldn’t take being beaten by a better man,” Hall claimed. “That’s why I want to fight him, he’s put a black cloud over my career, and has done so ever since.”
Though he’s given up on ever getting an apology from Thor, Hall said putting on the gloves and going toe to toe in the ring would be the next best thing.
“I’m never going to get an apology from Thor, and he’s never going to admit I beat him fair and square, but for me, this is my way of putting this to bed,” The Beast told Geordie. “I feel like, if I can rip this guy’s head off in a boxing ring, this is perfect. This is my opportunity to get one back on Thor and like he did to me, belittle him for the whole world to see.”
Hall went into more depth and detail about the pair’s feud and his thoughts on Thor’s world-record in the full 50-minute interview with True Geordie, which definitely makes it worth a listen.
With the date of the fight still over a year away in September of 2021, both men have ample time to train and sharpen their dislike for one another. But we already can’t wait to watch this rivalry come to a head in the ring.