16 January 2024 , 10:30
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Former World's Strongest Man Eddie Hall was put down with a head kick whilst training for his MMA debut.
Hall is set to make his combat sports return as he competes in at the Finishers Championship in Qatar on February 17. The four-man tournament will see Hall fight Canadian strongman Mitchell Hooper and Brian Shaw, a four-time World's Strongest Man winner, take on Martyn Ford, who is nicknamed the 'World's Scariest Man'.
The Brit has been putting in the hours to prepare for his debut in the cage by training at Evolution Fitness in St Helens, the same gym that UFC champion Tom Aspinall trains at. Hall shared the cage with a 6'9" Russian heavyweight named Minder for his first spar of the day and was given a quick wake up call in the form of a head kick that dropped him.
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"I was pre-warned that he was a bit of a lethal weapon,” Hall said about his sparring partner. "I was very cautious with this guy, didn't want to attack him, to be honest, just wanted to feel each other out." Hall was in good spirits despite being dropped as he said: "F****ng hell, that was a good one, f*** my life. Someone could have told me about that back leg."
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Hall hasn't fought since losing to bitter rival Thor Bjornsson in his boxing debut almost two years ago. The strongman admitted his transition to MMA has been difficult, stating on his YouTube channel: “I have been doing MMA training now for about four months and it’s been a really hard transition from boxing, it’s taught me some bad habits for MMA."
Hall was pushing for a rematch against Bjornsson after losing in their fight and even got his rival's name tattooed on his foot after agreeing to a pre-fight bet. A second fight between the pair never happened as Bjornsson wanted to make Hall wait at least two years before fighting him again.
Despite standing at 6'2" and weighing 300lb, Hall won't be the biggest man in the MMA tournament as Shaw is 6'8" and weighs 400lb whilst Ford is also 6''8" and weighs around 330lb. All three strongmen haven't fought before but Ford does have boxing experience having trained for an ill-fated with Iranian Hulk two years ago.