If you read a lot of strongman news, at this point you’ve probably come to the conclusion that the perpetual rivalry between 2017 World’s Strongest Man Eddie Hall and 2018 World’s Strongest Man Hafthor Bjornsson is friendly fun, a bit of marketing, something that adds color to the year’s proceedings, nothing really serious.
Sometimes Hall calls Bjornsson a “little pussy cat” for disputing the points awarded at the 2017 World’s Strongest Man, sometimes Bjornsson says he could “definitely” break Hall’s world record 500-kilogram deadlift, sometimes Hall tries to take Thor’s thunder by posting videos of himself easily lifting more than Thor’s latest PR.
But in a recent interview with The Malestrom, Hall said made a pretty serious jab: Bjornsson’s title of 2018’s World’s Strongest Man “is not as well earned as my title.”
Here’s the quote.
Well it’s been said many times by many people that he only won this year because I wasn’t in it and do you know what I kind of agree.
He had it quite easy this year, Brian was injured, he wasn’t in full fitness or form and obviously I was out of contention so there was no one to challenge him for the win, so it was a bit of a half-arsed win, it was a paper win.
He won because there was no one else there to take it. His title is not as well earned as my title, that’s how I feel.
Yikes. Hall may still be smarting from Bjornsson’s comments at the conclusion of last year’s WSM, though to be fair he only really disputed the judge’s opinion, he didn’t criticize Hall’s performance.
There are a few other interesting tidbits revealed as well. He’s launching a site called Official Strongman, which he plans to have live feeds of strongman shows and athletes training behind the scenes. (“It’s going to make strongman f***ing huge.”)
He also discussed his diet in a way that only a pro strongman could:
I’ve taken a big step down, I’m not force feeding anymore, I don’t have to get in 12.5K calories in every day, now it’s probably more like 8 to 9 thousand.
“Just 8 to 9 thousand.”
He’s also still hoping to take the world log lift record at some point (“I missed 230kgs by the skin of my f***ing teeth at Europes“), he’s lost 70 pounds since 2017, and he’s planning on competing in Britain’s Strongest Man again in January.
Finally, it sounds like he’s pretty serious about those acting ambitions he talked about in his interview with BarBend.
There are a few castings coming up, I’m going to go for some big roles. I’ve just done a pilot in America, I’ve got another pilot in L.A. in a couple of months. I’m doing a couple of series with a number of the channels in the UK as well. And also getting stuck into the film industry, I’m doing acting lessons as much as I can, sometimes twice weekly. So I’m working hard and hopefully, fingers crossed I land something big.
Eddie Hall, Hollywood actor? Hey, if Thor Bjornsson can do it.
Featured image via @thorbjornsson on Instagram.
