Brian Shaw has opened up on a massive missed opportunity that could have seen him pocket “life-changing” money — only for the entire event to collapse just weeks before it became reality.
The four-time World’s Strongest Man had signed on for a blockbuster four-man MMA tournament featuring some of the biggest names in strength sport, including Eddie Hall, Martyn Ford, and Mitchell Hooper.
It was a crossover spectacle that promised huge attention — and even bigger money.
“It was an MMA fight and Eddie Hall was involved,” Shaw explained to Bloody Elbow in a new interview. “Martyn Ford, was who I was going to go against. The contract came and the training started […] it was going to be a ‘one and done’ for me, a one-time deal.”
The format was simple but explosive. Two semi-final fights, with the winners advancing to a final later in the year. Shaw was set to face Ford, while Hall was lined up on the other side of the bracket against Hooper.
For Shaw, it meant stepping completely outside of his comfort zone. After agreeing to the deal, he committed fully — heading to Colorado and immersing himself in MMA training, even working alongside top-level fighters like Curtis Blaydes.
“I walk in from my experience in strongman where I’m very comfortable and know what I’m doing to now you have to start as a beginner and build up,” Shaw said. “But it’s fun for me and I love to train, I love to compete and this is a new challenge.”
What followed was nearly six months of total dedication.
“Then as we got closer everything just kind of fell apart, which was super disappointing because I had poured a lot into the training, it was almost six months where I was 100 per cent dedicated to trying to learn and get better,” Shaw revealed.
And the stakes couldn’t have been higher.
With an agreed prize pool reportedly sitting at $20 million, Shaw admits the opportunity was too big to ignore. “It was pretty disheartening to be honest,” he said. “There were talks afterwards [about another fight] but it never came together and I was disappointed with that for sure. It was crazy life-changing money.”
“I said ‘I’ll go, 100% dedicate myself to this, give it everything to the best of my ability and get after it’, and then I was going to walk away with that kind of payday,” Shaw continued.
But just like that — it was gone. No event. No fights. No payday.
For Shaw, it wasn’t just about the money — it was about the challenge, the commitment, and the rare chance to test himself in a completely different arena. He explained: “The opportunity was so appealing and you can take away positives or negatives so I just tried to take a step back as disappointed as I was with it.”
Shaw wasn’t the only one left frustrated.
Eddie Hall, who had also signed on for the same tournament, shared a similar experience after committing months to the transition into MMA.
“The challenge came along to fight Brian Shaw, Mitchell Hooper, and Martyn Ford in a four-way MMA fight,” Hall said previously.
“I think I was going to fight Mitchell Hooper, and the winner of that one would fight the winner of Martyn Ford and Brian Shaw in a four-man eliminator,” he added. “So, I signed this deal [for] life-changing money, stupid money, and I went on this quest to become an MMA fighter.”
Like Shaw, Hall fully bought in.
“During that six-month period, I just really enjoyed myself. You know, I lost a lot of weight learning something new every day. Then that fight got cancelled,” Hall said.
“And that big pay cheque fing fell through. Six months of my life down the fing drain,” he added. “My contract was for 20 million. I never got a f***ing penny.”
While Hall has since pushed forward in MMA — even securing a knockout win over Mariusz Pudzianowski at KSW 105 — Shaw ultimately moved in a different direction.
With no replacement fight materialising, he pivoted toward arm wrestling, continuing to compete at the highest level in a new discipline.
Still, the sting of what could have been clearly remains.
In the end, one of the most ambitious crossover events in combat sports never made it out of the planning stage.
Featured image credit: YouTube/BloodyElbow (screenshot)
