Eddie Hall believes Strongman has become “very stale” – and the former World’s Strongest Man has come up with his own unusual way of shaking up the sport.
Hall reached the pinnacle of Strongman when he won the World’s Strongest Man title in 2017, but his career since stepping away from top-level competition has taken him in several different directions.
Alongside boxing and MMA, Hall has worked on television shows, documentaries and other projects outside of the traditional Strongman world.
And his latest idea combines the strength events fans are familiar with alongside some considerably more unconventional challenges.
Speaking to Generation Iron, Hall revealed he has produced a new TV show called Battle of the Beasts, which was filmed in Malta.
“I did a TV show. I produced a TV show called Battle of the Beasts,” he said.
Hall explained that the concept still has strongman at its core, but with a much greater emphasis on entertainment.
“That was basically a Strongman TV show, but mixed with entertainment,” he said.
Traditional strength challenges haven’t disappeared. Hall says competitors still took part in familiar events involving deadlifting, pressing and holding.
However, that is where things start to get considerably different.
“We did the standard, you know, the deadlifting, the pressing and the Hercules holding, everything, but we also did, like, some of the events was like, one of the events was a belly flop. Another one of the events was an eating competition,” he said.
The unusual additions are part of Hall’s attempt to bring something different to a sport he believes has become too repetitive.
“I just want to, like, throw some spice into the Strongman world because I feel like Strongman’s got very stale,” he said.
Hall pointed towards the longevity of World’s Strongest Man, which has been running for nearly 50 years, while explaining why he believes there is room for a different approach.
“It’s like we’ve seen the same events over and over again and every 10 years the athletes get replaced, but it’s the same over and over,” he said.
Rather than simply changing the traditional strongman format, Hall wants Battle of the Beasts to potentially open the door to athletes from other disciplines as well.
His idea is to create events that don’t necessarily favour someone simply because they have the enormous size traditionally associated with elite strongman.
“I thought, let’s create something that’s just completely different and it can branch out to not just Strongmen, but, like, anybody who’s fit and strong,” he said.
Hall even suggested the format could eventually allow athletes with very different physical attributes and sporting backgrounds to compete against each other.
“We’re going to adapt it in a way where, you know, you’ve got, like, a CrossFitter that could compete against a strongman because the events are so much more available,” he said.
And Hall used one of the show’s more bizarre challenges to sum up exactly what he means.
“You don’t have to be a 400-pound strongman to compete in a belly flop competition,” he said.
After conquering Strongman himself, Hall now appears determined to put his own spin on the sport – even if that means swapping Atlas stones for belly flops and eating contests.
Featured image credit: The Good, The Bad, The Rugby / YouTube / Eddie Hall / Instagram
