By Samantha Yardley
Two heavyweight foes, one long-standing rivalry that first began on the World’s Strongest Man arena battlegrounds. One controversial deadlift knocked The Beast off the Guinness World Record holder spot later, and the stage is set for a boxing match of behemoth proportions.
Eddie: “If he beat me, then the fact it was only 1kg heavier is irrelevant, but I just can’t get my head around how he can think his attempt can be legitimate,” says Eddie. “Every single person in that room was paid to be there. People were saying Core Sports sanctioned it. No one from Core Sports was there. Who checked the plates? His dad weighed the plates!
“Everything about it stinks to me. Put it this way, if I pulled 500 kilos four years ago in my home gym and my dad weighed the plates, everyone would smell bullshit. I don’t understand how he thinks that’s okay. It seems so convenient that we all have to go into lockdown for him to pull this deadlift four years after I did it. It just stunk of bullshit to me.”
Thor: “His question mark over my world record deadlift is also laughable. I mean, I have more records than he could ever have. There’s no need for me to prove anything. Everything was filmed, and everything was weighed. There was a high-class referee there. It happened under controlled circumstances because of the COVID pandemic; it was out of my control. I was supposed to fly to Dubai and perform it at the competition, but that got canceled. When I was offered to do it on home turf, I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to entertain the people. I’m going to do what I can,’ but I still wanted it to be sanctioned. We had four times World’s Strongest Man, Magnús Ver Magnússon, refereeing the lifts. People could see everything. It was live-streamed throughout the world, with millions of people watching. We could be seen weighing every plate because I wanted to ensure that it would be an official record. It’s now in the Guinness World Record Book as the heaviest lift ever. So that’s that.”
EDDIE V THOR: TALLYING UP THE TITLES