ONE FRIDAY AFTERNOON in late September, inside the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center, two of the strongest men in the world, Brian Shaw and Mike Burke, sit behind a black curtain on metal folding chairs, stretching their calves, chalking up their hands, quietly getting ready for competition. Though they are training partners and close friends, a certain terseness stands between them. At the end of the weekend, one of them will likely be crowned America’s Strongest Man, claiming a fat cheque and endless bragging rights, while the other will head home empty-handed.
After the day’s first two events, Shaw and Burke are locked in a virtual dead heat atop the leaderboard, with 12 competitors close at their heels. The third event calls for them to tow a car-size wheelbarrow across the floor, stopping at intervals to lift 150kg kegs and dump them in the wagon. When the announcer calls Mike Burke’s name, he leaps to his feet and lumbers away toward the competition area. “Go get it, Burke!” shouts Shaw from the edge of the curtain.
At the shriek of a referee’s whistle, Burke bursts from the starting line. A former defensive end [gridiron position] for the semi-pro Colorado Grizzlies, he moves with surprising quickness and agility given his hulking 198cm, 152kg frame. Effortlessly snatching up the first massive keg, he dumps it in the wagon and heads for the second. Here something goes suddenly and terribly wrong. As Burke tips the keg on its edge to get a solid grip, it slips, catching the tip of his middle finger underneath. Burke winces, pulls his hand free, and inspects the damage. The tip of his finger, from the first knuckle, has been nearly sheared off. Blood bubbles up from the wound, and through the mashed skin Burke glimpses the white of bone. In the crowd, his wife gasps.
Reeling, he takes a breath and goes back to work, heaving the keg into his wagon and heading for the finish line. It’s the worst injury he’s suffered in competition, but there’s too much on the line to stop now.
BRIAN SHAW AND Mike Burke first met a few years ago at a gym in Fort Lupton, Colorado, north of Denver. Burke, 39, had torn his labrum in a football game, and while rehabbing his injury, friends introduced him to the sport of strongman competition and to Shaw, its brightest star.
Shaw, 31, is widely regarded as one of the strongest men ever to walk the Earth. Perhaps the strongest. At 203cm and just under 200kg, he moves with the power and grace of a polar bear. A former college basketball player, Shaw later became a strength and conditioning coach at Arizona State University. His freakish size and athleticism, combined with a studious drive to perfect his craft, have led him to two World’s Strongest Man titles. But Shaw is also known as one of the nicest guys in the sport, a gentle giant who shares his advances in technique with his competitors. “My theory,” he says, “is to let everyone in on what works and let the best man win.”
In the older, grizzled Burke, Shaw found his ideal student – a hungry, unflinching warrior with raw talent and an eagerness to learn. The two became training partners, working out together several times a week. “You can’t always be the top dog,” Shaw says. “If you’re the best at everything, you’ve got no one to challenge you and make you better. I know Mike can beat me. He makes me work harder to stay on top.”
In just four years, Burke has risen from a complete unknown in the sport into one of the world’s best. In 2012 he claimed his first America’s Strongest Man championship, and in August in Sanya, China – where Shaw had claimed another World’s Strongest Man title – Burke turned in one of the best showings of his career, placing fifth.
Now, in Vegas, the stakes are higher than ever. Burke badly wants to retain his title. He’s finally mastered the few events that gave him the most difficulty in the past and feels that if he’s ever had a chance to beat Shaw, this is it. No matter how close they’ve become as friends, Shaw isn’t going to ease off the gas.
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