In its first year it was dominated by the USA, with the winner being Mark Philippi, a successful athlete in other major tournaments such as World Muscle Power Classic.

[3] The promoter, Odd Haugen, placed third in the IFSA American Championships section of the competition, although no USA athlete made the Grand Prix podium.

[6] The podium saw three eventual winners of the World's Strongest Man title with Magnus Samuelsson, Phil Pfister and Svend Karlsen finishing first, second and third respectively.

By now Odd Haugen was credited with having done an incredible job of organizing one of the great contests on the strongman circuit making this a preview for the World's Strongest man.

The 2002 edition of the Beauty and Beast was scheduled for June 8, featuring defending World's Strongest Man winner Svend Karlsen, along with other top competitors including Janne Virtanen, Hugo Girard, Martin Muhr, Wout Zijlstra, Phil Pfister, Karl Gillingham, Brian Schoonveld, Jesse Marunde, and Grant Higa.

The very next day, a second Hawaii Grand Prix, again deemed Beauty and the Beast, was held as the opener for the 2003 IFSA World Strongman Super Series.

Like the World Muscle Power Classic, once the Beauty and the Beast became entangled with the Super Series, it lost its stand alone gravitas and quickly fell from favour.