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Way back in the ancient days of May, when the boxing world was pretty much entirely shut down, a fight between World’s Strongest Men Eddie “The Beast” Hall and Hafþór “The Mountain” Björnsson was announced for 2021. It is a pure curiosity for most, but I kid you not when I say I’ve had a couple people in real actual life bring that fight up to me. (Just a couple, but honestly that’s more than most normal boxing fights.)
Today, it was announced that MTK Global will be involved in the event as “boxing advisors,” meaning they’ll help the participants oversee “fighter preparation, operational and logistical advice, and overall commercialization of the even,” which is planned for Sept. 2021 in Las Vegas, and will be promoted by Core Sports.
The 32-year-old Hall won the 2017 World’s Strongest Man competition, and also won the UK’s Strongest Man competition from 2011-16. The 31-year-old Björnsson, whom you may now from playing Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” won the 2018 World’s Strongest Man, as well as the 2018 World’s Ultimate Strongman, 2018-2020 Arnold Strongman Classic, and Iceland’s Strongest Man from 2011-20.
No one should be expecting much by way of technical skill here, obviously — these are simply enormous, unbelievably strong men who plan to punch each other. But there’s some appeal in that, and both say they are taking training and preparation seriously, which is easy to believe in this case given the sort of dedication it requires to succeed as they have in strongman competition.
“I’m training for this fight like I trained to be the strongest man in the world, no stone un-turned, anyone in my way is getting milled down,” Hall said. “As for the fight itself, I have zero doubt in my mind that crybaby Thor is getting folded in half and sent packing back to Iceland.”
“This is something I’ve been taking very seriously, and I want others to know how serious this fight will be,” Björnsson added. “I’ve been extremely focused and dedicated in my training as always, and I am looking forward to getting in that ring.”
MTK CSO Paul Gibson said he’s taken a look at some footage of the two in the ring.
“In boxing it tends to be the big men who receive most of the attention and it is difficult to find two bigger athletes than Thor and Eddie,” Gibson said. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised watching footage of their training and sparring. There is a personal and very genuine grudge between the two and that is driving both to take the contest extremely seriously.”