Eddie Hall, one of the most legendary figures in the strongman community, recently switched from boxing to mixed martial arts, but his recent training session in the cage probably did not end the way he wanted.
The winner of the 2017 World’s Strongest Man competition, Hall dropped the curtains on his boxing career after losing to his fellow strongman legend, Thor Björnsson in March 2022 in a fight dubbed as “The Heaviest Boxing Match in History,” which took place in Dubai.
Now, the Englishman has made a switch to MMA, and will be making his debut in the cage in a mega four-man tournament against Canadian strongman Mitchell Hooper, while four-time World’s Strongest Man winner Brian Shaw will take on ‘World’s Scariest Man” Martyn Ford, on 17th February at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar.
Eddie Hall gets a “wake up call” during MMA sparring with towering Russian
In preparation for the fight, the Englishman has been training at the Evolution Fitness in St Helens, the same gym of Interim UFC Heavyweight Champion Tom Aspinall. Hall took to YouTube to release clips of his recent training session with a much larger opponent, a towering 6’9″ Russian heavyweight fighter named Minder, who gave Hall a taste of what he must anticipate in his transition from the squared circle to the cage.
In the video, Hall is dropped to the canvas, courtesy of a brutal head kick from Minder. Check it out below-
MMA champion Demetrious Johnson analyzes Eddie Hall’s knockout
Hall’s knockout has been going viral all around the internet, and has received attention from many in the combat sports scene and one of them has been none other than Demetrious Johnson, the reigning ONE Flyweight and the inaugural and former UFC Flyweight champion.
“What we call that is, this person (points to Minder) is watching him (points to Hall). There’s a gentleman here who said he (Midner) is a watcher. He’s watching him, and this gentleman (Hall) is pawing everything while leaning himself outside of his guard. He’s already in an unathletic position to be able to make a quick adjustment whatsoever coz his head’s outside of his home, in his box,” said Johnson in the breakdown video.
“…he (Hall) steps in across the void, he (Midner) gets way out of there, then he just switched southpaw… I don’t know if he registered that. So, (Midner) comes up, he makes a reaction, he thought he was going low to midsection, he brings both his hands down, comes up, whack! Clean shot. So he made the wrong judgment call, but he was already leaning outside of his guard, and that’s why he got hit,” he added.
Check out Johnson’s full analysis of Eddie Hall’s MMA sparring session in the video below-
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