UFC heavyweight star Tom Aspinall gave World’s Strongest Man competitor Eddie Hall a humbling lesson in grappling. The duo trained together as Aspinall prepares for whatever UFC has in store for him and Hall preps for his Strongmen MMA tournament.
The session started with some warmup drills and pad work, where Aspinall displayed his incredible hand speed and precision striking. Hall could barely keep up despite his massive size and strength advantage.
Things then moved to grappling, which Hall admitted is Aspinall’s biggest strength. Despite outweighing Aspinall by over 100 pounds, Hall was constantly caught in disadvantaged positions on the ground. Aspinall smoothly transitioned from dominant position to dominant position, catching Hall in submissions and controlling him with ease.
“As big as strong as I am, it doesn’t does not matter how big as strong you are. Just those little angles, those little little flicks of the wrist. He just manhandles me,” Hall admitted in the video after. “It’s very humbling.”
The massive mismatch demonstrated Aspinall’s world-class grappling skills honed from years of MMA training. No matter Hall’s size and brute strength, he was utterly lost when grappling with the technical precision of a UFC interim champion. It was a stark reminder that technique trumps pure strength in the world of combat sports.
Both athletes were very complimentary of each other afterwards. But it was clear Aspinall gave the World’s Strongest Man a lesson in ground skills. Just because you can deadlift a car doesn’t mean you can grapple with an elite MMA star.
