I definitely agree with you that the true feelings are showing.
I saw that post Thor made about Eddie being a one event wonder with no other victories, which Thor apparently deleted later.
I feel like I have so much catching up to do. Iāve not stayed current at all with high-level arguing about strength feats and the conditions under which they are performed. That happens when you stop lifting weights with powerlifters and start pajama wrestling.
I didnāt even know this sort of bickering was taking place in high-level strongman.
Social media drama between ridiculously large and strong men? Iām down for that kind of smut.
3 Likes
Bro! Youāve been missing out!! Itās the best (only) game in town!!!
1 Like
I legit blame Larry Wheels for the majority of this. Eddie has a fair share of it too though.
3 Likes
I guess heās probably the last āstrong internet dudeā that made his way on to my radar outside of what I stumble across here, so you may have some truth there. Iām certainly familiar with everyone on the high-level strongman stage, or at least their performances.
I suppose high-level bickering seems like a natural progression of almost all things in the social media age. The incentives are very different in this kind of framework. I think introducing some form of combat back into strongman is needed at some point. Not MMA, but something like Sumo wrestling might be a good start. Or even mud wrestling. That would probably get a lot of social media attention. Why canāt strongman have tag-team wrestling events? Like the WWE, but with strongmen instead of bodybuilders.
Thereās a lot of directions the sport can take.
Tug-of-war might be an easier pill to swallow. Or Red Rover at Strongman Nationals. Iād pay to see that, even as a friendly exhibition event. So many options for strong people to struggle against other strong people and settle the nonsense internet bickering. Got a problem? Hash it out on the Red Rover field.
Red Rover, Red Rover send Hafthor right over!
Itās amazing that you wrote this with what I imagine is a touch of irony yet Mas-wrestling was trying to take a run at the sport for quite a while because it was the baby of Od Haugen, haha. Still super ridiculous.
But I blame Larry less for his internet antics (which I hear are quite a thing) and more for the fact that he brought a lot of āpowerliftersā into strongman, and suddenly people started demanding standardization in a sport where it was NEVER a thing.
5 Likes
Yeah Iām way behind in all of those developments. I suppose itās an expected outgrowth of getting very specific about the conditions under which a given strength feat is to be judged. Iām looking forward to some interesting reads. I still love the strongman shows I grew up watching in the '80ās. Playboy bunny squat, refrigerator carries, all kinds of absurd yet impressive feasts.
Thatās why Iām still talking about greasing these guys up and putting them into a pit of some kind to sort things out.
For sure. Strongman is honestly the worst itās been at this point. Trying too hard to be a sport instead of a show.
1 Like
You just nailed it for me right there. Behind a lot of the bickering are valid points if you want to get down to the details of a strength feat, PARTICULARLY if youāre talking about a single repetition lift.
All you need to do is look at powerlifting to see where that can lead to.
Strongman has a good identity and it needs to shift a little more to the weird, unpredictable and how do you train for that?, in my opinion as a spectator.
4 Likes
I saw something like that in Larry Wheels strongman competition they had a weird event where they had to pull the otherdude to them while both were holding a stick
Yeah: thatās mas-wrestling.
2 Likes
Thanks I forgot the name
I remember back in the 1989 WSM they did tug of war with a pool of water between the two competitors. The loser got wet !! Fun to watch.
I positively despise tug-of-war at a contest. It was at one that I did. I didnāt even try, I showed my position on the event by holding the rope loosely and just letting the other gut yank and we both walked away. Stupid event.
1 Like
The county fair here has a strongman comp. every summer, but they divide the 20 or so people who do it into two teams. It always ends with a big tug-of-war match, with all the competitors going at once. I think they actually go best out of 3. It honestly seems to be one of the most competitive events.
1 Like
Sounds way more stupid when one of the competitors gives up and walks away.
I wasnāt the only one. No one wanted to do it, except the one over-amped guy in the āSinnerā T-shirt. It was a good contest otherwise, just the stupidest event ever. Especially as an early event. Trashes your hands and risks injury, and doesnāt actuallt test strength. Iām decent at tug-of-war, but itās not worth the damage. Thereās a reason it went away and resists resurrection.
And it wasnāt like the guy got hurt, I was obvious in just going out there to record going out there and move on. He half-ass pulled and we moved on.
I donāt get blown away by stuff that often but last year when they pulled out the yokes with the monster truck tyres hanging off them, I was genuinely wow-ed.
Why youād want to lose that is beyond me - hereās a standard-ish yoke with calibrated weights from the same contest:
I am too confused to even come up with a metaphor for this haha Too many max deadlifts and max logs has brought us hereā¦
5 Likes
Not as much as when they had arm wrestling. I still remember Magnus Samuelsson breaking Nathan Jones arm in 1995 !!!
I want to see dodgeball. Letās see some lateral movement and throwing. Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge.
1 Like