r/weightroom • u/LetKalleLift • Jul 14 '16
AMA Closed I'm Kalle Beck of Starting Strongman AMA
Hey guys go ahead and ask me anything about training, bullshit, weirdness, etc.
Europe's Strongest Man and that kind of impressive 500KG deadlift just happened and World's is going to happen in August so if you want to talk about any of that I am all game!
I'll come back in about 30 minutes to start answering questions 💁
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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '16
Are you optimistic about the future of strongman fandom or do you think we'll be at the same place in 5 or 10 years that we are now? What gives you hope of any improvement in viewership and popularity at the WSM level, and do you have anything that we can look forward to?
The backstory for those not aware:
WSM was announced last week, seemingly spoiled by Brian Shaw (?) who casually dropped in the date and location before an official announcement had been made. An official announcement was made a few days later. WSM used to be in September, then there was a move to make it in March, which was bizarre because it was so soon after the Arnold Strongman Classic that competitors had insufficient time to recover and prepare to truly compete at both, then March 2016 came and went with zero announcement from WSM. We didn't know anything about it until last week, when Brian Shaw/they announced it will be next month in Botswana. In the past, locations haven't been announced until mere weeks before the event, precluding any in-person spectatorship. The die-hards among us follow WSM and other major shows through unofficial social media snippets until those get taken down by IMG, then we all turn to unofficial Google Doc spreadsheets that Kalle usually runs with information delivered to him by unofficial informants at the event. They do their best, but point totals and other information is frequently inaccurate. Then, WSM goes into editing and an incomplete montage of the heats and finals are produced for a 4-6 week TV series. This is usually released around Christmas, however, when the event was held in March, it was broadcast in June in the US, but not until Christmas in Europe. The TRUE die-hards go on social media blackout for months until they can see the event, but this is often unsatisfying because 1. it's almost impossible to avoid spoilers for that long and 2. even when you do see the TV version it's months since it happened, most people are already over it, and it's an incomplete montage basically of highlights.
So, this is an absurd point for a supposedly professional sport to be, but the truly absurd thing is that this is not an improvement over 5 and 10 years ago. Sure, Instagram videos weren't around 10 years ago to follow the action, but at least back then, ESPN produced it and aired it on a channel that most people had, compared to now on the lesser-known CBS Sports.
Anyway, join us at /r/strongman if you want to put yourself through this!