Eddie Hall and Brian Shaw were left with financial losses after their MMA tournament was cancelled.
Hall recently made his MMA debut in a bizarre 2 vs 1 fight with the Neffati brothers, which he ended with a brutal KO.
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Hall trained for his planned MMA debut in February but it was called offCredit: @eddiehallwsm - instagram
But it was second time lucky for ‘Beast’ who had been set to compete in an four-strongman cage tournament featuring friends Martyn Ford, Shaw and Mitchell Hooper.
The event was due to take place in February but it collapsed, and now the pair have opened up about their frustrations following the cancellation.
Hall, 36, and a 2017 World’s Strongest Man winner, said on Shaw’s podcast: "We got offered an MMA fight, all four of us, to fight each other and the money was life-changing.
"There was no reason to think it was a hoax, and we dedicated six months of your life but it came to a head in January.
"Coming back from that was tough, I was deflated. I’d turned down hundreds of thousands of pounds of work.
"It probably lost me six-figures maybe even closer to seven. So that was a big hit.
“I’ve carried on the fight training and I’m talking to other promoters, but as soon as that was cancelled it was tough.”
Shaw then added: "I’m still feeling that rebound effect myself. I didn’t take it lightly.
"The money and contract that was talked about was real. I had no fighting experience so I had to pump money into coaches and do it seriously.
“They made promises that they never fulfilled, I had a financial loss too but it was also time in life.”
Shaw, 42, is widely regarded as one of the strongest athletes of all-time winning the ‘World’s Strongest Man’ competition on four occasions. This feat - his last coming in 2016 - makes him one of only five men to win the competition at least four times.
He had never fought before but was training in anticipation of making his first appearance in the cage.
It has been a story of cancellations for the strongmen, with Ford having lost out on his boxing debut against Iranian Hulk in 2022.
The latest blow came after Hall revealed that he had lost out on his entire multi-million fight purse for his boxing debut to Thor Bjornsson in 2022.
Come on, weren’t they saying something like $10,000,000 for this or some shit?
How incredibly stupid do you have to be to wholeheartedly believe that shit? You’re obnoxious Eddie, probably missing a brain cell or two. But you can’t be that stupid and naive.
I could believe he turned down some offers for sure, wish he’d elaborate. All of these offers were “now or never” and completely lost forever in a 6 month window?
How much did you get from the content and traffic it drove to your YouTube channel? Maybe still net negative but surely that offset something.
Didn’t know that Eddie and Thor never got paid for their fight. That’s shitty. He sounds like he saying “I knew it was a bad idea to take the guarantee!” as if the percentage would have gone any differently. If the promoter had no intention to follow through they weren’t getting paid a percentage either.
I don’t know how you navigate the world of leeches when you’re famous. Guess you should always be skeptical and absolutely cannot be gullible (this mma shit), need to know who you’re dealing with as well as you can, and maybe demand some level of upfront payment from unknown promoters to at least get some protection. If they refuse to give you 50% up front because they either don’t want to or (worse) don’t have the money then tell them to get fucked.
Did Eddie’s mom never tell him if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?
100%
the industry is absolutely filled with dodgy chancers, bastards, arseholes and scammers. you can trust exactly what is in your hand. words, plans, promises, deals, whatever, are worth literally nothing.
the percentage of big deals with unestablished promotors which materialise as advertised is minimal.
optimism is good but not in all contexts, unfortunately.
username does not check out, etc
Eddie said in a recent vid that the organisers have been done for fraud and are awaiting sentencing
Which ones?
One article said they won’t suit against the boxing promoters and they said “what do you want us to do? We don’t have the money.”
Must be them because nobody is prosecuting any of the desert people which I think is where the MMA shit was.
The boxing promoters might as well go to jail but it doesn’t do Eddie a whole lot of good.
Some of the strongest men in the world, including Brian Shaw, Eddie Hall, Martyn Ford, and Mitchell Hooper, were scheduled to compete in a four-man mixed martial arts (MMA) tournament back on Feb. 17 at Lusail Stadium in Qatar.
The event fell apart a few weeks before fight night, robbing all four combatants of “life-changing money.”
“I just wasted six months of my life for nothing,” Hall said on the Shaw Strength Podcast. “You know, turned down hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of work. It’s affected your business, it’s affected your YouTube. It’s just had this massive knock on effect. It probably lost me… we’re talking six figures, easy. Well, well in the six figures. Probably closer to seven [figures].”
Hall also reveals he got stiffed by promoters for his Thor Bjornsson boxing match.
“We were given contracts and there was no reason to think this was a hoax or a scam or anything,” Hall continued. “It seemed really legit. So, me and you dedicated six months of our lives to that purpose, and that came to a head in the end of January. I’ve carried on with fight training because I really enjoy it and I’ve been talking to other promoters, so there might be some fights coming up soon.”
Hall, 36, appears to have taken out his frustrations on a pair of hapless influencers during the World Freak Fight League 1 event earlier this month in Blackburn (highlights here). As for Shaw, now 42, it appears he’s out of the fight game for the foreseeable future.