People always love a good David vs. Goliath battle. For whatever reason, the idea of a physically inferior individual taking on someone much larger and stronger draws our fascination.
So when 6’9″, 400-lb strongman Hafþór Björnsson decided to square off against 5’9″, 154-lb MMA fighter Connor McGregor, interest was definitely piqued. Could the little guy from Ireland stand up to the much larger man from Iceland?
Well, if you saw the above sparring session a couple of years ago, you already know that the answer is seemingly yes. However, before you go lauding the David-like performance of the UFC lightweight, the Icelandic strongman famous for his role as Ser Gregor Clegane, aka “The Mountain” in Game of Thrones, would like to clue you in on something.
According to a recent interview on RT Sport, Björnsson admitted that he held back during the encounter and claimed that, had he wanted, he could’ve done some serious damage to his much smaller opponent. “If I would push all my power into him, I would crush him. Crush him,” said the World’s Strongest Man runner up for the past two years. “I had to hold myself back because I have too much power for a man his size.”
That wasn’t the only time “The Mountain” went toe-to-toe with a fighting opponent. Here he is throwing some haymakers at a man a little closer to his size.
