Following the breakdown of negotiations over a prospective matchup with heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, Thor Bjornsson has given up boxing.
After challenging his strongman competitor Eddie Hall to “the heaviest boxing bout in history,” Bjornsson began boxing in 2020. Before meeting Hall, he shed almost 50 kg and competed in three exhibitions.
Bjornsson challenged Fury to a bout after he announced his retirement from boxing in April. Even though Bjornsson’s gym is in Iceland, Fury travelled there in an effort to provoke his opponent. However, plans for the exhibition fell through. Bjornsson has since declared his retirement from boxing.
According to Bjornsson on his YouTube channel,
“I’ll admit there was a time when there was talks between Tyson Fury and I, his team and my team, there was build-up but that never went through. Now I’ve made a hard decision and the reason why it took me so long to make this video was because this is actually a very difficult thing to talk about. I’ve made a decision to move on from boxing, to not compete in boxing again, to say goodbye to boxing and just not fight again.”
“I had a good run, I did it for two-and-a-half years. It was nice to do so, because when I first started I had a lot of people not believing in me. I proved a lot of people wrong by working hard and I made some people proud. In reality, the passion was never there, it was all grind as I never really loved the sport. That’s just the truth, but I have a lot of respect for the sport because I know how much work goes into it.”
Returning to strongman competition, Bjornsson plans to shatter the world record he established in 2019 by tossing a 25 kg weight over a 20-foot tall bar.
“It was like ‘what should I do?’ Spend the last few years as an athlete doing something I don’t love or should I focus on my businesses and the things that I love, like lifting weights.”
“I have two new goals, I have two new cats and I want to break one of my world records. The world record I’m trying to beat is the weight over the bar with 25kg, my record is 20 feet and two inches so I have to beat that to break my own record.”
Bjornsson rose to stardom after portraying Giant The Mountain on Game of thrones and has since worked both as a strongman and as an actor around the world.
Stuntman Martyn Ford was also angling to box Thor – but it looks like there’s no takers willing to promote the bout.