The Mountain fights MMA champion Conor McGregor, and other curiosities
By Dan Selcke
Maybe it’s his size, maybe it’s his onscreen charisma, maybe it’s that time he crushed a guy’s head with his bare hands, but people always seem to be interested in what Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (Gregor “the Mountain” Clegane) is up to. Luckily, Björnsson is often up to interesting stuff (playing tug-of-war with a tractor, breaking a 1000-year-old strength record, visiting a Renaissance Faire—the guy leads an eventful life).
He recently kept up that streak by sparring with Conor McGregor, the Interim Featherweight Champion of the UFC.
At 5’9”, McGregor is a full foot shorter than Björnsson, and weighs quite a bit less. Still, being an international strongman/actor is very different from being a trained fighter. I wasn’t sure which I was more afraid of watching this video: that McGregor would knock Björnsson out, as he has a history of doing in his career, or that we’d see a repeat of the Mountain vs the Viper. Luckily, neither of those things happened, and everyone walked away smiling.
In other Game of Thrones-related curiosities, a Dallas Area Rapid Transit employee took inspiration from the Game of Thrones opening sequence when creating this video for a public transportation conference (delightfully called the Rail~Volution conference).
Finally, Oliver over at Amazing Venues has imagined what an invitation to Joffrey Baratheon’s pre-wedding stag party might have looked like, and mocked it up here.
If Joffrey did have a stag party, it’s probably best we never saw it.
Next: On-set photos show the aftermath of the massive Saintfield battle