How Strong Is The Mountain Really?

According to IMDB, the first actor cast as The Mountain was Conan Stevens. At seven-feet-tall and with an Australian Professional Wrestling Championship on his resume, his strength is without question. He's also an accomplished stuntman as well as a chess and beer-drinking champion, so he's like Frankenstein's monster if he was created in the basement of a frat house to destroy nerds on any possible playing field.

After Conan Stevens left the role because of scheduling conflicts, Ian Whyte donned the massive suit of armor—which probably has as much metal in it as the Statue of Liberty. Ian's also over seven-feet-tall and previously portrayed the Predator in Alien vs Predator: Requiem, a role he prepared for by jogging while wearing a vest stuffed with rocks. Dude's a caveman.

Sir Gregor Clegane is Tywin Lannister's beastly thug-for-hire in the wildly popular novels and adapted TV series Game of Thrones. Described in the novels as "The Mountain That Rides" due to his massive frame and rumored height of almost 8 feet, the TV series' showrunners had to find actually massive humans or rely on special effects for this character to be believable. So far, three real life giants have portrayed the ruthless knight, and while they're all strong, there's one in particular whose power we can quantify. Let's take a look, shall we? 

-A dairy cow

-Almost five Kenmore refrigerators

-Half of a Ford Fiesta

-The feeling of shame you will now have looking at yourself in a gym mirror

Unquestionably, each of these men are as close to the fantastical source material as real human beings get, but Hafþór Júlíus is probably the strongest, and has carried the record-setting log to prove it. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that he sailed a Viking ship through a time machine, then smashed the ship to pieces, built a giant club from said pieces, and destroyed the time machine so he could rule the modern world unchallenged as the rightful alpha male that he is. 

If you thought those other two guys were brutes, get ready for Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, the third actor to take on the role. Not only does his name exhaust your brain when trying to read or write it, but he's also an actual strongman who broke a record at something called The World's Strongest Viking Competition by putting a 1,433-pound log on his back and taking five steps.