What Happened to Brian Shaw's Leg? His Pro Strongman Career Almost Ended in Tragedy

Since 1977, the World's Strongest Man competitions have helped heavyweight champions worldwide try to earn the eponymous honor. Strongman Brian Shaw is one of five men who has won the overall title for several years.

In 2011, Brian became the first man to win the Arnold Strongman Classic and World's Strongest Man in a calendar year. He continued winning WSM in 2013, 2015, and 2016. Brian appeared in his final WSM competition in 2023 before retiring. However, the champion nearly lost his leg while preparing for his final curtain call.

Brian took fans along to follow his retirement from World's Strongest Man with a series on his YouTube channel called "Road to WSM." In April 2023, he posted a video titled "Almost Lost My Leg." The footage showed Brian in a hospital bed alongside his wife, Keri. He was healing from a cellulitis infection on his right leg. Cellulitis is a bacterial infection that can occur in various parts of the body, including the lower legs. If left untreated, it can lead to amputation, shock, or even death, per Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Brian candidly expressed his fears of having his leg amputated due to how severe the infection had become. Fortunately, he shared in the video that he was able to avoid an amputation because he went to the doctor before the infection went into his bloodstream. Brian recovered from his injury to compete in WSM from April 19 to 23, 2023. While the honor went to Canadian strongman Mitchell Hooper, Brian thanked his fans for supporting his challenging journey to the finish line.

"So many thoughts and emotions to process with this being my final WSM appearance," he wrote on Instagram after completing WSM. "In any competition, it’s tough to not perform at your best, and unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to put what I was capable of on display. That is 100% on me and I can only look in the mirror to find someone to blame as I always have.

Though many wouldn't blame Brian if he didn't compete in WSM after his traumatic leg injury, he did the exact opposite. In addition to competing in WSM, Brian's final stop before he retired was his event, The Shaw Classic, which he competed in in August 2023. During the event, he won the The Strongest Man on Earth and called the victory a "surreal way to end my professional strongman career."

"This weekend was a rollercoaster of emotions for me," Brian said while discussing the win on Instagram. "And I told myself going in I was going to take it all in and enjoy it as much as I possibly could…and I did just that.

Since officially retiring as a professional strongman, Brian has remained involved with the industry. He and his wife organize the Shaw Classic Expo and Shaw Classic Open. And while he's not competing in his event, he's ready to come out of retirement by taking on arm wrestling as a professional sport.

"I am gonna figure this arm wrestling game out to the best of my ability," Brian told his fans on Instagram in June 2024. "So far, I have been playing around and getting a feel of it, but that’s not enough for me. I don’t like to “dip my toes in the water” with anything I’m gonna do…I am much more of a “jump in and learn how to swim” type of person."

He added: "I know lots of people are excited to see what I can do with arm wrestling, and to be 100 percent honest — SO AM I."