When a fan dared YouTuber Dean Dodd to let Eddie Hall slap him, the Welshman didn’t just accept — he bought a flight to Dubai.
The Wrexham-based content creator, who’s built a career off stomach-churning and pain-inducing challenges, lived up to his “challenge accepted” ethos once again by taking on a hit from the 2017 World’s Strongest Man.
And yes — it went about as badly as you’d imagine.
Dodd, better known online as Dean Alex, has spent nearly four years turning dares from his followers into viral moments across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. With more than 740,000 TikTok followers, another 610,000 on Instagram, and 370,000 on Facebook, the influencer is known for pushing limits — from eating scorpions and pig snouts to taking on some truly bizarre endurance feats.
But few challenges have been as downright dangerous as this one.
After being told, “Bet you won’t let Eddie Hall slap you,” Dean took the comment literally, arranging to meet the 350lb strongman at the Slap Fighting Championship in the United Arab Emirates over the summer.
Hall — known as “The Beast” and still a physical freak of nature — warned that even a restrained hit could be devastating, especially considering the size of his huge hands. His first slap sent Dean to the floor instantly, even though it was only meant to be half power.
That might have been enough for most people. Not Dean.
“Give me 70 [percent]. Come on! A little bit harder,” he told Hall after popping back up to his feet.
At first, Hall refused — before being goaded into delivering one more. Dean even called him a “bitch” to seal the deal.
This time, the result was far more brutal.
As Hall’s hand connected, Dean dropped to the mat again, clutching the side of his head. “Ahh, my ear’s gone. My eardrum has been burst,” he shouted in pain. Hall immediately leaned in, visibly concerned. “Oh, we didn’t put the thing [protector] in,” he said off-camera, before asking, “Oh, jeeze, man. You okay, buddy?”
Dean — somehow still smiling — hugged Hall moments later, saying he loved him. But the damage was already done.
“I can’t hear anything. I can’t feel my face. He’s popped my eardrum,” he told his viewers. “I can’t hear anything out of this, all I can hear is a ringing — it’s like a bomb’s gone off.”
Later, Dodd confirmed the full extent of his injuries online: “Black eye and a popped eardrum,” he wrote on Instagram, before adding, “Think I’m quite lucky, if he hit me 100% I wouldn’t be able to post this.”
The stunt quickly went viral, with fans flooding his comment section.
“Wasn’t even half what he could throw but fair play,” one viewer wrote. Another pointed out just how dangerous the challenge was: “He even measured his HAND to show that this guy isn’t slapping your face, he’s slapping the entire side of your skull.”
Still, Dean — whose catchphrase “Do you not know who I am, kid?” has become something of a running joke among his followers — took it all in stride.
“I’ve got a black eye and a completely burst eardrum,” he later told The Leader. “Eddie reckons he only hit me with about 60% power — said if he’d gone full force, he would’ve killed me.”
As for Eddie Hall, he’s been keeping busy well beyond one-off slapping contests.
The former World’s Strongest Man turned MMA fighter recently scored a 30-second knockout over Mariusz Pudzianowski and has been eyeing a handful of “money fights” to close out his combat career.
“I perhaps want one, maybe two more fights, and that’ll do me,” Hall said in a recent video. “It’s the money fights to put it blankly. I want to fight the Mariusz Pudzianowskis’. I want to fight the Bob Sapps’. I wanna get paid. I’m not here to get a fight ranking. I don’t care about being the UFC number one. I don’t care.”
He’s even called out Jake Paul for a boxing match and Dillon Danis for an MMA scrap, proving he’s not done making noise in the fight world just yet.
For Dean Dodd, though, it’s safe to say this latest stunt won’t be topped easily — unless someone’s brave (or foolish) enough to suggest another round.
Until then, the man from Wrexham can rest knowing he survived a slap from one of the strongest men to ever walk the planet — and somehow turned it into another viral moment.
Fans can keep up with Dean’s next dare on TikTok (@deanalex7), Instagram (@dean.dodd), and Facebook (Dean Alex).
Featured image credit: YouTube/Deanalex (screenshots)
