- On this episode,
the four strongest men in the world are in
the Wild West of Cody, Wyoming, home of Buffalo Bill
and William Bankier, a strong man who
performed with him. [ roaring ] - Let's go, Nick.
[ grunting ] - They'll take on
some of Bankier's most outrageous challenges. - There it is, there it is.
[ gasping ] - Including racing down
Main Street while carrying
a 600-pound piano. - That's clear, that's clear,
keep going, Eddie, let's go, let's go. - Can they match
his frontier power? - Come on, right there--
Yes! - Keep going, keep going! [ gasping ] [ siren ] [ grunting ]
- Let's go, B! [ grunting ] - Go, go, go!
- Get some, get some! - The legendary feats
of strong men have been celebrated
throughout time. [ grunts ] - But just how true
are these fabled acts? [ shouts ] - The world's strongest man! - After years of
competing as rivals, the four strongest
men in the world are teaming up to find out. - Keep going, keep going,
keep going. [ men grunting ] - They'll take on
epic feats of strength... - Yes! - ...in a quest to
prove who really is... - Here we are, ladies. - What's this called? - The Hotel Irma. This is Buffalo Bill's
original hotel. - Buffalo Bill, what a name. - I've got a great week
planned out for the boys. I'm a huge fan of the Old West, so I figured I'd bring
them out to Cody, Wyoming to take on the feats of
strength of William Bankier. At 17, he ended up right
here in Cody, Wyoming, where he worked with Buffalo
Bill and the Rough Riders. He was one of the most
famous strong men of that era, and would even put out
challenges to other strong men to prove that he was the best. - Ah. Why do we always
go to cold places? Why... it's snowing. - I can't control
the weather, bro. - I'm from the UK,
it's always cold and rainy. But it's always sort
of T-shirt weather, if you know what I mean. And to come to Cody and be,
like, minus whatever it is, oh, man, I just...
I hate being cold. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Wow. Afternoon, sir.
- Hi, how you doing? - I'm functional.
How do you like Wyoming weather? - A little cold. - We've got a reservation
under Robert Oberst. - You got three rooms. Just need a signature here
on the bottom line. - No, we, uh...
we ordered four rooms. - According to my computer,
I've got three rooms. One of them's
got two beds in it. That's all that's
left in the hotel. - There's people
in every room you have? - In every room but those three. - [ bleep ] - This one has a single. - All right, I'll take that one.
- This one has a single. - Yeah, all right.
- This one has a double. - I'll grab that one. - Is there any other
hotels right around here? - We're one of the few hotels
that stays open all year. - Rooming with
Eddie or Robert, I would rather go sleep
in the street. - You guys are set.
Have a good evening. - You too. - It's like a little museum
as well, isn't it? - Yeah. - This is pretty cool. - Yeah, this is
the Old West, man. - Right, should we dump the bags
and head to town? - Yeah, let's take off.
- Yeah? All right. - Shotgun. - What is this place? - Buffalo Bill Center
of the West, baby. - Glad you could read. - I wanted to bring
the guys along to the Buffalo Bill Center
of the West, so they can see what
William Bankier was actually up to when he
was with the Rough Riders. - So what exactly
did Buffalo Bill do? What were his acts and stuff? - We got this one right here,
Annie Oakley. She's probably the most famous.
She was wicked with a gun. They would go town to town
and, like, Annie Oakley, she'd, like, put a can
over there. - Uh-huh? - And have your dad put
an apple on his head and, like, pop, pop, you know,
that kinda stuff. - Was William Bankier
a part of that? - Yeah, he was part
of their act. William Bankier only
spent two or three months in Buffalo Bill's
show back in 1887. Eventually he ended up
back in Scotland, where he had refined his
act and was known as Apollo,
the Scottish Hercules. - There's nothing in here
on William Bankier. - No. - I really think William Bankier
should have an exhibit in here. He was an amazing athlete,
not just a strong man. He was a boxer, he was an
acrobat, he was a wrestler. And the guy was amazing and gets no credit for
the things that he did. Where's the respect in that? - Why doesn't the strong man
ever get the recognition? That's a real ball-buster. - That's honestly one of
the biggest reasons we're here. He should be here.
- Okay. Just a little bit.
- Yeah. - I'm enjoying that part. - You're not a cowboy. - I am. I am from Texas.
I shoot guns for fun. How much more cowboy
can you get than that? - I'm from Las Vegas. Nevada is literally
old Wild West as old Wild West gets. So I'm extremely cowboy. - You three, you just
think you're Mr. Cowboy all of a sudden. - Eddie's the furthest thing
from a cowboy. He really knows nothing when
it comes to the Wild West, so this the perfect opportunity for us to show him
what it's all about. - They say if you
smell this right here... - Uh-huh?
- It's seven years' good luck. - Seven years?
- Seven years. That's what the cowboys do. - Mm, I can feel
the luckiness entering me. - When William Bankier first
arrived in North America, he worked his way across
the country as a farmhand. So we wanted to check out
a local ranch to see if we can get a feel for his
first feats of strength. - All right, boys,
I got us set up here with William Bankier's
famous one-armed plough lift. We have ploughs right here that
are from the same time period. As a teen,
William Bankier was famous for doing a plough lift
with one arm. He actually wrote about taking
on other strong men in the area, and none of them
being able to do it. - At only 12 years old, William Bankier ran away
from his home in Scotland. He survived a shipwreck off
the coast of Canada and made his way across the
country, working as a farmhand. Without any weights to train on, Bankier did the next best thing:
he lifted farm equipment. Can our strong men match
his earliest feat of strength? Let's find out. - He didn't have weights
to lift then, so this is how he would train. - So the legend goes he
would take it with one arm, from the ground,
up and over his head. - So you think
130-pound dumbbell, all of us are pretty accustomed
to lifting a 130-pound dumbbell. - Right. - William Bankier was only
5'6" and 175 pounds. I'm 6'8", almost 450 pounds. So him lifting a 130-pound
plough with one arm from the ground overhead
is actually very impressive. So do you have any idea how he
actually lifted it with one arm? - I have no clue. Just looking at it right now, you could tell
it's gonna be awkward. My best guess is
that somewhere right here is where you're gonna
wanna grab it. But I mean, this is,
I'm telling you guys about it, this is the first time
I'm trying it too. So I don't know. This one looks like
it'd be easier to grip. That one's pretty sharp. - One hand.
- No, you gotta put it back. - Cheat, doesn't count.
Put it back down. - No two hands at all. - William Bankier never touched
it with a second hand. Which that's honestly
what makes it such a crazy feat of strength.
- Yeah. - Because two hands,
we'd handle this. - Lifting a 130-pound dumbbell, it's not that hard for any of
us because it's very compact. But when you get a hold of
the plough and you gotta do it
with one hand... - Oh, you gotta put that down!
- Oh, two hands. Fail. - The weight's spread out
all over the place. And you gotta balance this
thing that's huge. - This is more using
your brain than your brawn. You've gotta grip it
in the right place so the balance is right. - There it is, just get it up,
there we go, there we are. - Come on, Nick.
- Get under it. There we are, nice and close. As tight as you can,
right there, right there, yes! Come on, come on!
- That's it. Much better. - It's right there,
Nick, come on. - Yeah.
- Yes, that's good! - Good man.
- Good. - There we go.
- Yeah. - The balance on
that thing is not easy. But as soon as you figure out
how to pick it up in the right position....
- There you go. - ...it wasn't that hard. - Oop!
- Oop! [ grunts ]
- Eddie did it! - Ploughs were pretty
impressive for a little kid. - Straight up, B. Nice. - But not for the four
strongest men in the world. [ laughing ] - That feels a little
bit too easy. I feel like moving a hay bale
would be a lot more impressive than lifting this
little toy plough. - Well, you're a farm boy,
how much do they weigh? - My best guess would be that
the bigger ones are around a thousand pounds, give or take the snow and
moisture that might be in them. - You guys wanna see
if we can move these hay bales around a little bit?
- Let's have a go at it. - See ya.
- Let's do it for time. Flip that one.
Fastest time wins. - We came out here to compete, so we had thousand-pound
hay bales right there, why not see who could flip them? - The closest event in
World's Strongest Man that we would have
to flipping over a hay bale would be flipping
over a tire. A tire is a very solid
piece of rubber, so flipping a hay bale
will be a lot harder. - Why don't we get
the Average Man out and see if he can do it first? - Average Man!
- Average Man! - The Average Man always
gives 100 percent effort, and he doesn't quit easily. - Let's see what you got,
Average Man. - Well, I grew up on
a farm too, so you know. - You did?
- Yeah. - Uh-oh. - Oh, so you've flipped
hay bales before? - No, but we carried
bins of grapes. It was a grape farm,
a vineyard. - No, get your hands over here.
- All right. - Yeah.
- Holy moly. - And push, like...
- You wanna push through and up. - Oh, my God.
- Through and up. - Here we go. [ grunts ] - Maybe if you get
a running start. - Okay. I'm toast. I'm toast. - At the end of the day,
he's 155 pounds, the hay bale was
a thousand pounds. There's no way he was gonna
flip that thing over. - We know you tore
your hamstring. I wouldn't call you
a coward if you bowed out. I know you only got one leg.
- Yeah. About a week ago,
I was in a really big strong man competition
called the Arnold Classic. I was attempting
to deadlift 1,051 pounds, and my hamstring tore. Since then, you know, my leg
went completely black and blue, and it's made it
not only difficult for me to compete,
but also just to move. - Do you wanna give it a go? - I can't be out here
on this ranch and you guys are all having fun
and I'm not gonna participate. [ laughter ] If I can't compete in anything,
it is a little bit embarrassing. For me, I'm ultra-competitive
with everybody. I wanna beat all the guys. - You can't be the farm boy
and not do this. - Yeah.
- That's exactly it. - Give it a lean.
- Let's get it. Come on, B. - Let's see what we can do.
- Come on, B. - Normally, flipping
over a hay bale that's a thousand
pounds wouldn't be a very challenging
task for me. - Come on, B.
- Come on, Brian. - But now that my
hamstring is torn, I really don't know
how this is gonna go. Oh. Phew. Ah! Ah! [bleep].
Ah [bleep]. - Robert Oberst dramatically
earned his spot in the last qualifying event, the head-to-head,
winner-take-all, Atlas stone showdown. [ crowd cheering, screaming ] [ screams ] - Ah! Ah! [bleep] I was trying to flip
over a hay bale that's a thousand pounds,
and immediately, I could feel my leg
tightening up. - Come on, come on, B.
- Come on! - Come on, B, finish.
Come on, B. - You got it. - I couldn't use my full power
because of my hamstring injury, so I really just dug deep. - You got it!
[ grunting ] - Nice!
- Well done, buddy. - Nice! Dude!
- Oh. - You all right?
- Dude. - Yeah, I'm good. Whew. - That's pretty badass,
one-legged. - Good job, buddy.
- Hell yeah. - I was able to work through it,
able to flip the hay bale over, which actually
made me really happy. - Good job, B. - Oh, that wasn't fun. - All right, Nick, come on,
let's get this one. - Come on, Nick. - All right,
I'll give it a ride. I am very competitive,
and it's a lot of fun to go head-to-head
with one of your friends and get after one another. - Come on, Nick. - There you are.
It's right there. There it is, there it is. Just right there.
- Oh [bleep]. You gotta push into this thing,
but it's really squishy. There's no real solid
point to push on it, and I'm a short guy, and height
is an extreme advantage in this because the longer
lever you have to push up, the easier it is. - That's it, Nick, come on.
- Nice. Nice. - Come on, Nick.
- There it is! - That's it, one arm under,
there you go. - Yes, Nick, nice.
- Finish it, finish it. - Get it done. Yep. - Yeah.
- Nice, nice. - There we go. - Nick pushed over that
hay bale really slowly. I'm pretty confident I can
do it quicker than he can. Who's up next?
- You. - Oh, okay. - There you go. - It wasn't a matter of
just pushing it over. The straw was very bendy
and flexible, so we're pushing it, and then it
was sort of fighting us back. Me and Brian have gone
back-and-forth in strong man domination
in the last 10 years. If you can beat Brian Shaw,
that makes you the top dog, because Brian Shaw is the best
of the best right now. And throughout my whole life,
no matter who it is, I've always gotta be the best. - There it is, there it is.
He's got the knee under. - The only way I could do it was
to get my knee under and then sort of lever it over.
- He's got it! - And over. - Well done, well done. - I'm probably gonna
eat [bleep] just because I wore the worst
shoes possible for this. - There ya go. - Not bad. Boom, that's how it's done. I got all worked up for nothing. - Good job, man. - It's quite frustrating
watching Oberst win things. When there's something
he can beat me on, I can just see that cheesy grin
come across his face, and it really ravs me up. I must say, I think that
one was heavier than yours. - Yeah, I think you just
made it look heavy. - Definitely. - Hi, have you got
a table for eight? - Thank you.
- Thank you. - I've always been tall
and big my entire life, and I can't walk through my life
without having people watch me. Luckily, I don't
like being normal, and I love being
really, really big. - Can I get two of the ribeye? - How would you like those done?
- Rare. - Could I get two pepper-crusted
sirloin alfredos? - Yes.
- With double meat. - And throw in a ribs
and brisket combo too. - Can I have a wood-fired
ribeye, medium done? - I'm gonna do two of the
12-ounce wood-fired ribeyes. - Throw in a Diet Coke. - My favorite thing
to eat is steak. It just provides more
nutritional content. I really try to stick
with stuff that's gonna fuel
my body adequately. - Right, these steaks look good. I think we should have
a competition to see who can eat their steak the quickest. - Yeah.
- Twelve ounce, you up for that? - All right. I'm up for it. - Steak race?
- Steak race. - Being this size, you gotta eat
about 10,000 calories a day. It makes it a lot easier
if you make a game out of it. Loser buys dinner.
- Fair enough. - Are you ready?
Nick's on the clock? Three, two, one, go. - Did you really eat
that that fast? - He literally ate an
entire steak in 90 seconds. I was just absolutely
amazed at it, and horrified. - Ladies, ladies... It wasn't that bad. Honestly, I think I could
have ate it faster. [ belches ] - Ed's done.
- Excuse me. - Oh, Brian's done.
Game over. - Nick, you still aren't
even close to finishing. - Your wife's gonna
be so pissed off. - I know, that's what I'm more, I'm more afraid of
that than anything, [bleep]. My wife, when she sees
that bill, she's gonna lose it. I can tell you
one thing for sure, it's gonna incentivize me
to win the next food challenge. - This is my nephew.
- Hi. - How you doing, Matt?
Awesome, man. Do you wanna do
a picture real quick? - Yeah.
- Love to. - Let's do it.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- Awesome, buddy. - Yeah, sure.
- Yeah. - Does it come in
black and white? [ laughs ] - Oh, my God. - How's that?
Where's the camera? There we go. - Yes! - Pretty fricking annoyed
I actually lost that. I can usually
eat steak pretty quick. - Losers come up with excuses. - What CPAP machine
have you got, Obie? - It's nice, man. I got decked out, heated water,
it's really good. Have you seen Nick's?
Nick's is carved out of stone. [ laughs ] - What's it run on, diesel? We all use CPAP machines. It's nothing unhealthy,
it's nothing we can help. It's just something that
I have to use to go to sleep. It's literally a machine
that pumps atmospheric air, forces a little bit of pressure
into your nose, and keeps you breathing
through the night so you get a
good night's sleep. As the bigger guy,
it's something we need. Do you think every single
strong man has a CPAP machine? - Oh, yeah, at least everybody
on World's Strongest Man. Once you get to a
certain weight it's too much
on your chest, you know? Whether that's muscle or fat, just basically you
have airway blockage. - Yeah. - We're at a high elevation,
and for what we do, breathing's extremely important. I started off strong this week, and I need to get
a good night's sleep for all the upcoming challenges. If I didn't have the CPAP, I'd probably be
a lot less of an athlete. I would start every day
at a huge disadvantage. - Good night, bro. [ crowd cheering, applauding ] - Bankier used to perform for
audiences all across the West, so for our second challenge,
we invited the people of Cody, Wyoming, to come out
to the Irma Hotel so we could follow in
his footsteps. [ crowd cheering, applauding ] We were in Buffalo
Bill's old saloon, where honestly, William Bankier
probably stood. - All right, ladies
and gentlemen, has anyone heard of
Buffalo Bill, obviously? [ crowd cheering ] Like the most famous thing here. Right, has anyone
heard of William Bankier? - And that's why we're here.
- Exactly. - That's why we're here. - Today, we're actually
going to look into William Bankier's
475-pound sack lift. - In one of Bankier's
most famous acts, he would offer $40 to anyone
who could carry a bag he said weighed 475 pounds. After audience members
would try and fail, Bankier would take a bow by
carrying it offstage himself. But did it really
weigh that much? Our strong men aren't sure. - I don't think
it's a stretch for us to challenge the number, right?
- Yeah, oh, yeah, for sure. - We know he had
something heavy, we know he did it
in front of a crowd. Just 475's probably a stretch.
- Yeah. - The heaviest bag we've ever
competed with us 330 pounds, and that would be to pick up
and carry and load. William Bankier wasn't
that big of a guy. It's very, very
outlandish to think that he actually picked up
and carried a 475-pound sack. And especially a sack like this,
with as much play is in there. It would be almost impossible...
- Yeah. - ...for somebody
to pick that up. You need something packed a lot
tighter, like one of these bags. - Right. - That would be a lot
more feasible to lift. - In the 1890s, you'd have
to have a bag kinda this size,
this material. I mean, I don't know if
it'd hold picking it up. Probably tear. The companies that
make our bags today are making them out of Kevlar. They're quadruple-stitched,
they're bulletproof. And to make it small
and compact enough that he could actually lift it, I just don't see
how that could happen. I'm saying 475 is fake. You wanna see what
the Average Man can do? - Let's get it.
- That sounds good. - Average Man!
- Average Man! - He's here.
- There he is. - The bag that William Bankier
would have used was so big, it was like
picking up a jellyfish, and that could really
leave your biceps exposed, pull your back quite easily. So based on that, we decided
to lift modern-day sandbags, basically to protect ourselves. - Do you think it's possible
for you to get that in your lap? - In my lap? Maybe.
- Yeah. - That...
- Off the ground is big. In your lap is bigger.
- All right. - Well, I'll give it a go, but--
- Roll it onto your feet. - Yep, yeah. - Yep, good call,
roll it onto your feet. Oh...
[grunting] - We know that the 475-pound bag
was a big exaggeration. So that's why we only
went for the 400-pound bag. - Holy crap. My quads are burning. [ applause ]
- Well done. - Oh... - So ladies and gentlemen,
William Bankier liked to challenge the audience. So I would like to see
if anybody in the audience could come and lift
this 400-pound bag. Is there any volunteers?
- Any volunteer? - You wanna try?
- Come on! - This guy's got the best shirt
in the crowd. We gotta get him up here. [ applause, cheering ]
- Come on. - It's a death wish. - There you go... - Now you're getting
a good spot. - There you go, good.
- Good job. [ crowd clapping ] - No matter what it weighed,
William Bankier was still the only man in that room
that could pick that sack up and walk it off the stage. And that was
the feat of strength. - All right, guys,
let's start with the first one, and get warmed up. [ crowd cheering ] We use smaller sacks to warm up
before we get to the big lift because we prefer not to tear
the muscle off of our bones. It's quite painful. - Three hundred pounds,
it's the same pound as your age. [ crowd cheering, laughing ] - When you drive a car,
you turn it on, you let the motor warm up,
and let all the parts get oil on them and stuff like that. Well, your body's the same way,
you gotta warm up. - Nice. Nice.
[ crowd cheering ] - Carrying 400 pounds,
especially on your stomach, is very difficult to do. You have to have endurance, you have to have
speed and agility, all at the same time. - You guys wanna try the 400? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - Is everyone ready?
- Yeah! [ cheering, clapping ] - Good to hear, because I'm not. Sandbags is something
that I've always been quite scared of at
World's Strongest Man. - Come on, Ed!
- Come on, Eddie! - And the thought of
picking up this 400-pound bag, it really runs
shivers down my spine. It's really dangerous. - Come on, Ed. - Come on, Ed!
- Come on, Eddie. - Come on, Ed! Come on, Ed! - Just slipping down my top. - That's all right.
Good fight. - I have seen so many people
detach biceps, hurt their backs, and I don't wanna
be one of those guys. I like my biceps the way
they are, big and massive. - Brian, are you out of this
because of your hamstring? - Yeah. Guys, I did a contest
called the Arnold Classic, and my hamstring tore, so I'm gonna have to be
a cheerleader today. So I'm sorry, but...
- Aw. - I was extremely disappointed
that I couldn't participate, because that is actually
one of my best events. I actually hold the world record
for the heaviest Atlas stone ever lifted at 560 pounds. [ crowd applauds ]
- Nick, you're up. - Nick's up.
- Good luck, buddy. - Yay. We're in the Irma, there's
a ton of people in there. [ crowd cheering, applauding ] And I watched Eddie
not get the 400-pound bag, and I'm thinking,
I'd better get this bag up, because I don't know if Robbie's
gonna be able to do it or not. - Come on!
- [ screams ] [ crowd cheering ] We are in danger of looking
like idiots. [ cheering ] - Oh! - Oh! - Ugh. - You all right?
- Good job, Nick. - Picking up a 400-pound bag
is very difficult to do. - It's really close.
- Yeah, I think I can get it. I'll try it again. [ crowd cheering ] I got around it and
it's sitting right on my belly, and I'm kinda started to
lose my balance a little bit. And I just ran outta gas,
and let it go. - Let's go, Nick! [ crowd cheering, applauding ] - Come on, Nick.
- Come on, Nick! [ roars ] - Come on, buddy. [ crowd shouting, cheering ] - Go, Nick! - Good job, buddy, good job. [ screaming ] I was really pumped. When I was able to pick
that bag up and go... knowing that we are not gonna
look like idiots in this place. [ cheering, applauding ] I was jacked. Come on, Obie. - Come on, Obie!
- Yeah! - Come on.
- Let's go, Obie. - When you're out there,
you're really vulnerable. I'm basically baring myself
in front of a bunch of people I don't know, and I'm showing
whether I'm strong enough. I'm exposed. I literally had surgery on my
bicep just a couple months ago, so I'm worried about
that popping off again. - Come on, Obie. - Come on.
- Y'all ready, or what? [ cheering, applauding ] - Come on, Obie. Come on.
Come on. - But when you pushed yourself
and you didn't know you could do something,
and all these people get to see you
elevate yourself, there's this euphoric
feeling where you feel untouchable. And then I stop being me and I become a showman. You don't really
get an opportunity to do this very often. [ cheering, applauding ] That made my night,
just, ooh, so good. - Fire feels great. - This probably had to be
one of the best parts of being a cowboy. - Love a campfire,
love a view. - William Bankier
was an amazing man. He was an acrobat,
he was an author, and he ran away from home at 12,
and he had to survive. - Random fact, William Bankier
actually brought Brazilian jiu-jitsu to the UK.
- Get out. - Really?
- That's crazy. - He was a boxer
and a wrestler, too. - This guy's literally the most
interesting man in the world. The only way
he could feed himself and take care of himself
was working on a farm. You gotta be strong
to do that kind of work. One of the biggest things that's
kinda bugged me about this week is everybody knows Buffalo Bill,
everybody knows Annie Oakley. They know a bunch
of the Rough Riders. And not one person has
known William Bankier. - Strong man doesn't
get the recognition it deserves, even now.
- That is true, yeah. - I mean, everyone
knows who Eddie Hall is, but, I mean, who's Brian Shaw? I think, you know, us doing
this and traveling the world in search of these feats
of strength and these legends, it's bringing it to light. That's what I'm enjoying
most about this, is bringing it to
the attention of the masses. You know what's funny is that
William Bankier is from the UK, he moved to North America,
tried to work and fit in. I can kinda relate to that, because I've come here
to prove that I'm still one of the strongest men
on the planet. Now imagine doing
that as a teenager. It's incredible. - So Oberst, what was
William Bankier's most famous feat of strength? - He had a guy playing a piano
on his Tomb of Hercules, where he was in that
reverse crab position. It was basically
just putting weight on top of his skeletal system.
- Yeah. - It wasn't like he lifted it
or did anything like that. He just kinda supported it. - So the guy was actually
playing the piano? - Yeah, yeah.
It was a show. - That's kinda cool.
- Yeah. - And it was all sitting
on top of him? - Yeah, and I don't think
any of us would be able to get in that position. - Old strong men were very thin,
they were very flexible. They could get into that
position and their joints and skeletal structure
could support the weight. We can't get into that position. The cool part is
is we can actually lift that weight, though. - I mean, if that's what
he did, we can't do that. So what can we do that's
something similar to that? - What would be cool is
we get some old-time pianos, we strap them on our backs,
and we have a race. We actually lift the weight,
and then we race. - Of course Robert wants
to put a piano on our backs. He's got the strongest
shoulders in America. He's trying to create a
challenge that he can win. You think that's safe?
- I don't know how safe it is. But we set ourselves up with
a start and finish line, and see who crosses first. - My concerns are
the safety of the event. How we are gonna
get it balanced? That's a lot of pressure,
to lift that kinda weight. - So, boys, we came
out to be cowboys. You wanna have some beans? - Hell, yeah.
- It's time, yeah. - I'm sharing a room with you,
so I want some beans. - Oh, no. - Make sure you get it
from the bottom, so it's all beans,
not just juice. - I'll get you a nice,
big piece of bacon there. - Oh, there we go. - These are so hot. So hot. This is...
- Hotter than lava. - Alls I know is you
guys are gonna have a really smelly room tonight. [ crowd cheering, applauding ] - For our final challenge
this week, we're taking on
William Bankier's famous piano lift. - So we all know that
William Bankier was famous for doing the Tomb of Hercules, with the piano
and the orchestra. - The Tomb of Hercules,
it's a supportive lift. He's not actually lifting it. It's sitting on his knees
and on his elbows. And the position he was in,
none of us can get into. It's like kryptonite
to a modern-day strong man. We're too big.
- Instead of doing that, I thought we'd take
it a step up. We'd pick these pianos up
and race with them. - In the 1890s, William Bankier
returned to Scotland. Using the showmanship that
he learned from Buffalo Bill, he changed his name to Apollo,
the Scottish Hercules, and took the United Kingdom
by storm, putting on some huge
performances of his own. His most famous feat of strength was supporting a piano
while it was being played. But supporting weight doesn't
require moving any muscles. Actually lifting the weight
is a much harder thing to do. Can our strong men
scale it up a notch by carrying pianos
on their backs? We're about to find out. - All the guts are still in 'em. [ playing piano keys ]
See? And so they're all
rigged up at over 600 pounds. [ cheering ] - We made the local newspaper,
we made the local television, that's why everybody came out. Honestly, we don't even get
that many people to come out to a lot of the
World's Strongest Man events. There must have been two
or 3,000 people there lining the entire street, and the energy
they gave off was awesome. - Brian, we know
you're on one leg now. - We got you one just in case,
but we figured you're probably not
gonna be able to do it. - Yeah, I tried to
warm up this morning, and it's just not ready. I am actually really unhappy
that I cannot compete in this piano race
because of the hamstring. I mean, I'm pretty good
at yokes or carries. I hold the world record
in the super-yoke, so I know that I could
smoke these guys at this. I think I'm gonna
have to be referee, to make sure you guys
don't cheat, of course. So you guys are
gonna get warmed up. - Uh-huh.
- First here on this yoke. The race needs to be over
a set distance, so we'll have a starting line,
end line, and it's just whoever
can get there the fastest. - You'll have a good view behind
me, watching me cross the line. - Oh...
- Oh, man. - Wow.
- Okay. - Suited and booted?
- Yeah. - Strong men are like sprinters. You would never see
a sprinter just get out of bed and run 100 meters
as fast as he can. You've gotta warm up, you've
gotta warm the muscles up, get some blood in the biceps,
the forearms, the lower back. You've gotta gradually
wake your muscles up to be able to prepare yourself
to lift a big weight. Look at that. - Trying to loosen up my hips. - I already crushed
these guys in both the sack challenge
and the hay bale flip. If I win this race,
it'll be like winning the strong man triple crown. - I bowed out the sack race. I didn't do that well
on the hay bale challenge. Robert's brought us out
to Cody, Wyoming. He's won every
single challenge so far. I can't lose to this guy. [ cheering ] - There's a huge difference
between supporting weight and lifting weight, and there's an even bigger
difference between lifting that weight
and running with it. [ ambulance beeps ] - When we were
setting up the piano run, we saw this ambulance pull in. And that's when I thought,
should we really be doing this? - I'm the oldest one. I'm kinda the OG
of the whole thing. And I've never
carried a piano before, but I think I can
smoke these guys. [ crowd cheering ] - Athletes, take your position. Ready? Go! [ crowd cheering ] - Come on, guys, come on! That's good, that's good,
keep going! - Let's go, Oberst, catch up! - This is crazy. It's a ton of weight, and
we're at a high elevation. There's not much breathing
with that piano on your back. - Eddie's in the lead.
Come on! - When you have
a piano on your back, you're not really worried about
what the other guys are doing. You just wanna get
to that finish line as quick as possible. [ crowd cheering ]
- Keep going! - Woo! - The amount of weight and force
on my chest was phenomenal. I just kept running
until somebody said stop. - Come on, guys! - And we have a winner! [ cheering ] - After I won the race, I felt really restricted,
I couldn't breathe. Get me out. At no point did I see Oberst
or Nick at the side of me, which meant they were behind,
where they should be. - Keep going! Keep going! - I see Eddie win,
and in my mind I was like, man, I should just
put this down. That would be the smart thing
to do right now. - Let's go, Oberst!
Finish it, let's go, buddy. - But for the sake
of William Bankier and the history of strong men,
I was finishing that race. - And done! Come on, Nick.
Come on, Nick. You can do it! Ladies and gentlemen, let's
get behind Mr. Nick Best! Let's help him finish this race! [ chanting "Nick" ] - Come on, Nick,
you can do it, buddy! Yeah! - Can't breathe. - Get him out!
- Let's get him outta there! - Come on, Nick,
you can do it, buddy! Yeah! - Can't breathe. - Get him out!
- Let's get him outta there! - Get him out! [ ambulance siren ] - He's having
problems breathing. Try to belly breathe.
Belly breathe. - Deep as you can go,
you're doing good. - After Robert and Eddie
finished the race, all the attention went to Nick because he was having
a serious medical issue. We didn't know what
was wrong with him. - Yeah, if you can do
in through your nose and out through your mouth,
it'll control that rate, okay? - Oh, my God. - I mean, to me, it
looked like Nick just completely lost his breath. But with his age, could have
even been a heart attack. - It was, it, it was
tight in my chest. - Yeah. - I couldn't get a
full lung of air. - Your muscles are probably
all constrained now. - No, I'm gonna finish. - That was a serious
situation for Nick. When your heart's
beating that fast and you can't collect yourself,
that's dangerous. - Good job.
- You, too, man. - Good job, buddy. - I don't know how they do that. Let me take a hit of that. - We need some more water? - I wanna finish.
Can I get strapped back in? - No way, man. - No, we're done,
we're done, done. - We're done, Nick.
- We're done. - It's all done, Nick. - I was a little worried
about Nick, but when I heard him keep
trying to fight people off so he could finish the race,
I knew he was gonna be okay. - Yeah, the thing was, like,
just so tight across here. I just felt
like I couldn't inhale and get oxygen into my lungs. And it's the first time
I ever lifted anything where I actually
started to panic because I couldn't breathe, and that scared
the daylights outta me. - Today's winner of
the piano race, Eddie Hall! [ cheering ] - I feel like we've done
William Bankier justice, getting the pianos on our back,
having a race down the street. It was really nice to give a
little treat to the town today, all the kids and everybody. We entertained, and
that's what we love to do. [ cheering ] - You guys,
this has been one of the best weeks
I think we've done. - Yeah, it has. - Yeah, it's been
pretty awesome, man. Look at this view. Doesn't get much
better than that. - Eddie, you killed the piano.
- Yeah, I know. - It was fun, man.
I had a blast. William Bankier,
being a Scotsman, I figured we'd have a toast to
his memory with a little scotch. It was an absolute pleasure. I fell in love with
this guy this week, man. Everything that he's done, everything that
he's done for our sport. I hope that we could do
a little bit to bring his name more to the people, and kinda
shine a little light on him. And so, from
four strong men to another, this one's for you, William. - Learning about William Bankier and how interesting his life
was overall was really neat. And one of the things that
I feel really passionate about, having won World's Strongest Man
four times myself, is being able to introduce
strong men of the past to the world because they didn't
get the credit or recognition that they absolutely
deserved back in the day. You ready to find
our next strong man? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - Let's do it. - Actually, guys,
there's one more thing I wanna do before we leave.
- What's that? - Burn this piano. After that event,
I had to get all the anger, all the hatred I had for
that piano out of my head. All right, here we go. Kids, don't do this at home. - All right. - I'm pretty glad you're
burning that piano too, man. - This thing was
murderous to carry. - How would you know?
- I-- - It nearly murdered him,
that's why. - Yeah, I thought
I was gonna die for a minute. Watching that piano burn
was very therapeutic. Never seen a piano burn before. This one's for you, William. - All right, guys, now I'm ready
to go find the next strong man. - Sounds like a plan, buddy.
- All right. - It generally brings love
to my heart knowing that we're growing
the sport of strong man. And maybe one day in the future, someone will be doing
an episode on me. - Hey, Ed, do you wanna
share a room again next time? - [bleep]
