Illawarra coach Rob Beveridge confirmed on Thursday that the mysterious ‘Mr H’ is in actual fact 211-centimetre 125-kilogram giant Michael Holyfield who’s set to bring a whole heap of inside presence to the Hawks this season.

The Sam Houston State University alumn was the Southland Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2015 and had a short stint with the Memphis Grizzlies before turning out the Los Angeles D-Fenders in the D-League this year.

“I’m excited to be heading to Wollongong to represent the Illawarra Hawks,” Holyfield said.

“I’ve heard great things about the club and the region so I can’t wait to get over there and meet my new teammates.

“I spoke with coach Beveridge when he was over here in the States and I believe I can bring the toughness and rebounding presence the team is after...but I’ll do anything needed to give the team the best chance of winning.”

It’s music to the ears of Illawarra fans who watched the Hawks get bullied inside by a top-heavy Perth roster at play-off time last season.

With the three-import rule likely to see an bigger league in 2016-17, Beveridge said adding some inside muscle was the number one recruiting priority after securing the services of former league MVP Rotnei Clarke.

“With [Aleks] Maric coming back this season and with your [Nat] Jawais’ and your [Cameron] Bairstows’ I think it’s going to be a really physical league this year so we made the decision to fight fire with fire,” Beveridge said.

“We still want to have our up and down game, obviously Rotnei will fit in well there but I thought it’s where we got hurt last year particularly in the finals where Jawai, Matty Knight and Jervis just hammered us.

“[Holyfield] loves physical play, a very very good rebounder if he was playing 40 minutes he’d be averaging 23 rebounds, he’s got good hands and he’s quite mobile. He likes to dunk and anything he gets offensively he wants to throw it down.”

Holyfield will be part of a formidable inside arsenal that will include last season’s rookie of the year Nick Kay and All-NBL first team centre AJ Ogilvy.

“Nick Kay is a beast, AJ’s a beast but I don’t want them having to bang the whole time, I want them to play their natural game,” Beveridge said.

“I thought that wore AJ down last season so we made a decision to go for a big who can come in and, not take away from AJ and Nick as our [offensive] focal points, but do that grunt work.”

Holyfield and Clarke will arrive in Wollongong on Sunday.