Eddie Hall believes one of the biggest fights of 2022 should have made him a fortune.
Instead, he claims he didn’t receive a penny.
Speaking on the Cars & Money Podcast with Rob Moore and Carl Hartley, the 2017 World’s Strongest Man opened up about his long-awaited boxing clash with Hafþór Björnsson, revealing he and the rest of the fighters were never paid despite the event attracting a huge global audience.
When asked whether he would ever step back into the ring with his old rival, Hall admitted he would only consider it under very different financial terms.
“I wouldn’t fight him in a money format. No,” he said.
“It would have to be paid up front. Because the money all fell through from that fight and I honestly blame that b*stard for that,” he said.
Hall then revealed what happened behind the scenes before the fight.
According to the former World’s Strongest Man, the original plan was to stage the event as a low-cost pay-per-view, which he believed would generate significantly more revenue than a guaranteed purse.
“We were meant to do a pay-per-view and the pay-per-view was going to be cheap, like $9.99,” he said.
“The promoter came to us and said, ‘We can do that or we can do a guaranteed deal where you get a million, Thor gets a million, I get a million.’
“I was like, ‘No. That’s so s***. We’re going to make so much more money than that. Do the pay-per-view,'” he said.
However, Hall explained that the decision was put to a vote, with the guaranteed deal receiving enough support to go ahead.
“So we went with the set deal. I was like, ‘You’re a f****** bunch of idiots,'” he said.
According to Hall, the problems started immediately after the fight had taken place.
“We did the fight and then they just f****** stopped talking to us. Never paid us,” he said.
Asked whether contracts had been signed, Hall confirmed they had.
“We went to court. Won,” he said.
Despite that, Hall says the money never arrived.
“We got f***** in the a**. We didn’t get paid a f****** penny,” he said.
Hall believes the financial loss could have been enormous.
Looking back, he argued the event had all the ingredients to become one of the biggest combat sports spectacles of the year.
“I think we would have earned a hundred million each. I think the money would have been stupid,” he said.
He went on to claim the event drew more than 50 million viewers worldwide before technical issues brought the stream down.
“It was the biggest, most watched fight that year. The website was built for 50 million watchers and the website crashed,” he said.
“Over 50 million people watched and we didn’t get f****** paid. It’s crazy,” he said.
The experience has completely changed Hall’s approach to future fight negotiations.
While he praised Misfits Boxing for honouring payments after later events, he admitted trust remains a major issue within combat sports.
“It would have to be paid up front,” he said.
“But these b****** don’t pay it. I’ve had some trouble the last few fights I’ve had. One, I had to wait a year to get paid. It’s just the industry,” he said.
For Hall, the fight with Björnsson may have settled years of rivalry inside the ring, but financially, he says it remains one of the biggest disappointments of his career.
Featured image credit: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson / Instagram / Cars & Money / YouTube
