Former World’s Strongest Man Eddie Hall is about to invite cameras into his life in a new documentary titled Eddie Hall: The Beast v The Mountain.
Produced by filmmaker Louis Theroux, the one-off film will follow the lead up to Eddie’s March 2022 boxing match against Hafthor ‘Thor’ Bjornsson, and the impact it had on his mental health and family life.
Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Hall revealed the most challenging part of filming the documentary, admitting it was “emotional” to talk about his mental health battle.
“I think it’s been a big it’s been a real hard two years for myself as it has for most people. But I think there’s been some issues that have really come to light and that is mental health, and particularly male suicide rates.
“They are going through the roof and 90 males per week take their lives, and when you break that down, that’s one man every two hours in the UK. I myself have lost three friends in the last year; one of them was my best friend,” he said.
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He continued: “I just wanted to get that message out there that we’re all on a struggle, we’re on a path, and having someone like myself – the World’s Strongest Man – who is seen as the alpha, going through the struggles and strains, it helps other people to sort of realise that they’re not alone and maybe they can look for help and better themselves.
“It was very emotional. I’m a very emotional guy and talking about the struggles you’ve had is not easy. But I enjoyed doing it because I know it’s going to help people. And if you can make a difference to one person’s life, then to me that is worth it.”
Eddie also suffered physically while filming the documentary.
In 2017, Eddie won the World’s Strongest Man title. His win led to Thor calling him out publicly as a “cheater” and later challenging him to a boxing match, which Thor won. Ahead of the match, Eddie caught COVID twice and injured his bicep.
Hall continued: “It was a hell of a challenge to go from strongman to boxer. You know, when I signed the contract, I was 175 kilos in bodyweight and then dropped back down to near enough 140, so wanted to lose like 30-something kilos in the space of two years.
“I caught COVID twice – once at the very, very start of 2021. I had it really bad and was on my back for three months. Then I got COVID just before the fight as well. So that f***ed me over in terms of like fitness.”
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He added: “And probably the worst thing was I detached my left bicep. I ripped my bicep off the bone eight weeks prior to the fight, and then it got rescheduled for six months from the injury. And that was hell on earth training around an injury because I didn’t have enough time to get back in shape.
“I was given six months and the surgeon said to me, ‘You cannot use that arm for boxing for over a year.’ So I was given six months to get ready for a fight and basically had to fight with one arm, and I had to train with one arm.”
Eddie Hall: The Beast v The Mountain premieres on BBC Three and iPlayer on Sunday 26th June at 9pm. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.
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