Watch Strongman Eddie Hall Train Like a Professional Wrestler

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Former World’s Strongest Man winner Eddie Hall and bodybuilding influencer Jesse James West both take on all kinds of fitness challenges on their respective YouTube channels, and in a recent collab they teamed up to spend the day learning how to fight like professional wrestlers, combining strength, agility and athleticism with a flair for high drama.

For the first portion of their training session at Megaslam, Hall and West practice their “bumps”—which in wrestling parlance refers to hitting the mat—so that when they inevitably get clotheslined in a match, they will go down safely.

Then they move onto body slams, taking it in turns to literally throw each other from over their shoulders down onto the mat.

In addition to the physically arduous training, West impresses with the level of his commitment to the acting side of WWE too, taunting Hall while he’s down. (“Kayfabe,” in which a wrestler maintains their persona no matter what, is a key aspect of wrestling.)

“I’m starting to believe what you’re doing now,” says their coach James. “You’re carrying on. Some people, in training, they do something and then they just stop all that character. You stayed in character all the way until we said time. Always remember that. When you’re training, you stay in character, you keep working, you keep wrestling, until you’re told time.”

Then it is finally time for both Hall and West to take everything they’ve learned and apply it in the ring for real, facing off against a pair of professional wrestlers who they dub “Team Nasty.” They both fare well and get really into the performance aspect—so much so, in fact, that when West “steals” Hall’s victory by pinning their opponent, Hall pays him back by body slamming him onto the mat… and then once more through a folding table for good measure.

Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.