Editor’s Note: The Shaw Classic is now scheduled to take place August 27-28, 2021, so as not to conflict with the Rogue Invitational.
With four World’s Strongest Man titles to his name, you know that Brian Shaw has serious strength chops — but he’s proving to be a talented promoter, too. Less than one month after Shaw both produced and competed in his inaugural strongman competition, the Shaw Classic, Shaw already has a venue and dates confirmed for the 2021 Shaw Classic.
The next iteration of the show is currently scheduled to be held at the Estes Park Event Center in Estes Park, CO, on Oct. 29-31, 2021. Shaw announced the news on his YouTube channel on Jan. 11, 2021, and then his wife and co-promoter Keri Shaw confirmed the details to BarBend over email.
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In December of 2020, Shaw hosted nine other athletes to compete at the inaugural Shaw Classic at his home gym in Colorado. Among them was Oleksii Novikov, who had just won the 2020 World’s Strongest Man in November, JF Caron, and Luke Stoltman. The Shaws announced and organized that event from start to finish in around four months. Shaw actually won that contest, with Caron coming in second and Novikov finishing in third place.
Now, with nearly an entire year to prepare, Shaw says his goal is to make the event bigger and better.
“We have taken the feedback that you guys have given that watched the Shaw Classic,” Shaw said in his YouTube video. “I think this year…this year is going to be amazing.”
In the video, Shaw gives fans a tour of several different rooms in the event venue. According to the Estes Park Event Center website, the event hall is over 25,000 square feet and can hold up to 1,787 people. Estes Park is about 60 miles outside of Denver, CO.
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[Related: Watch Brian Shaw’s Colossal 1,091-Pound (494.8-Kilogram) Deadlift Off Blocks]
“This video was the first of many announcements…on the event,” Keri Shaw wrote to BarBend in an email. “We are in the beginning stages and have a lot of details to work through, but we are excited to make this an amazing event for the strongman community. Keep an eye on the Shaw Strength YouTube channel. We will continue to update as we go.”
For Shaw, his namesake show isn’t a money grab. This is punctuated by the fact that Shaw put $25,000 of his own money into the prize pool, and refused to accept any of the winnings so the other competitors could have a larger payday. For the iconic strongman, it’s an opportunity to improve the sport he loves.
“I first got into the sport of strongman in 2005 and fell in love with it immediately,” Shaw tells BarBend. “As time passed, I realized that someday I wanted to be in a position that I could give back to the sport that had given so much to me. This is just one aspect of that. I want to grow the sport and leave it better than when I found it.”
Stay tuned for further developments on the 2021 Shaw Classic as they become available.
Featured Image: @shawstrength on Instagram
