Two champions of the World’s Strongest Man, with a combined weight of around 800 pounds, and one 6 feet, 8 inches tall, and the other 6 feet, 3 inches tall, had to squeeze in next to each other on economy seats on a domestic flight—and couldn’t resist sharing a hilarious photograph.
Eddie Hall, who won the World’s Strongest Man competition in 2017 was booked on a flight to Scotland from London. So too, was four-time winner of the competition, Brian Shaw.
Hall posted a picture to his Instagram showing himself halfway over the passenger aisle, squeezed next to Shaw, whose shoulder butts against the plane, as their massive frames eclipse the headrests.
Hall wrote, ‘The check-in ladies sat me and Shaw right next to each other on the plane from London to Scotland, and no-one on the plane would want to swap seats.”
“Would you swap seats with one of us?” he asked. “I wouldn’t either.”
The post stirred amusement among fans, many of whom naturally said they would happily have swapped.
“You two should have gone into the cargo hold,” wrote one.
“And the plane just flew in a lopsided circle,” wrote another.
“Why aren’t y’all at least flying business class?” asked one person. “Or first class? I can’t imagine having to endure that for so long!”
(The answer to that question is most likely that for a short domestic flight between London and Scotland, business class may not have been an option).
Others were amazed that they fit at all.
“I’m 5ft 7 and about 175 lb and I have a hard time sitting next to my wife on a plane.”
Back in January, Shaw posted a picture of himself on a similar looking plane, not fighting with another strongman for space, but swamping the lady on the seat next to him.
“I seem to fit perfectly in this seat,” he wrote in the caption.
“Thankfully this young lady next to me was a good sport … and was in for a fun picture.”
Shaw, who is from Colorado and Englishman Hall, can be seen training together in some previous photographs on Instagram.
The two are both former champions of the World’s Strongest Man, a long-running annual event cast higher into the spotlight by its most recent champion: Hafthor Julius Bjornsson, better known as the Mountain in the TV series “Game of Thrones.”
Bjornsson has been part in the competition since 2011, around the time that the TV series was launched, finishing in the top 3 for the last six years, until finally grasping the crown in 2018.
