I just saw a comment on a picture of a star bodybuilder—it could have been either Derek Lunsford or Nick Walker, or someone else equally massive. It really doesn’t matter who it was, what matters was the cataclysmic-sounding quote : “Bodybuilding is dead.” That comment stuck with me because it was just so stupid, so near-sighted, and so incredibly barren of thought it might as well have been uttered by a Muppet.
Serioiusly? Bodybuilding is dead? Please explain, because the open men’s division doesn’t portray what YOU want it to? Oh, because, let me guess, the 90’s bodybuilders were better. Let me tell you something, the same idiots have been saying bodybuilding is dead since the early 2000s. So, what, its been dead for 25 years? Then why is it growing? Dead things don’t grow. This yearning for the 90’s era bodybuilder is like a cancer. With one stone’s throw you not only malign today’s top open men, but you also demean the guys who actually do espouse the 90’s standards – in Classic, and the 212. But noooooo….. the open has to do it too or it’s dead. Why can’t we have a freak show in peace?
You have to remember something, bodybuilding—men’s bodybuilding, and to some degree women’s bodybuilding—prior to the other 9 divisions we have today, were always a different type of freak show. Always. It doesn’t seem like it now because of what’s walking the earth today, but the bodybuilders of the ’70s and ’80s were all-out freaks of their time. You think when Sergio Oliva first stepped onstage anyone had ever seen anything like that? A total freak back then, who couldn’t win the Nationals today. But, open bodybuilding remained the core element of the array of physique sports we have today.
All the other 10 divisions we have today were cleaved off of men’s open bodybuilding—the thing that’s allegedly has one quad in the grave. This cleaving process defines the parameters of each division. The best example is men’s Classic Physique. Amid the cries for the return of the 90’s bodybuilder, no one seems to notice that you could have stuck Chris Bumstead in between a ’90s Flex Wheeler and Kevin Leverone and there is no way you could say C-Bum didn’t blend. Today’s classic physique is ’90s bodybuilding, in terms of conditioning, presentation and quality. You could argue that the ’90s guys were bigger. To some degree, true. But they didn’t have limitations. Lift, or extend, the height/weight thing and see what happens. It will be the 1990s all over again.
The 212 guys are there right now. They’re just short. What you want is for Mr. Olympia today to look like Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, Dennis Wolf, Chris Cormier, Flex Wheeler, Kevin Leverone, Paul Dillett, Lee Priest, Nasser, Gunter….. yada yada yada – giant guys with see-through skin. Well. I’m sorry, but you’re not going to get what you want. And I’ll tell you why…
About midway through Phil Heath’s reign we came to a turning point. It was like 2013, 14, 15… the guts were getting way out of control. Guys were trying to out mass each other. In 2014 we saw not only Phil, but also Kai, Dennis Wolf, Big Ramy, even Dexter Jackson, all pushing the size envelope. Condition wise, the 2014 lineup would have gotten crushed by the 2004 lineup. The symmetrical standards of the ’90s were now lost.
The crying got loud enough for the IFBB to to offer Classic Physique in 2016 (won that year by Danny Hester) specifically to carry the torch of the ’90s era – a continuation of the golden era of bodybuilding. This meant that the open guys could be the mass monsters they wanted to be—or thought they had to be—and push the size envelope to its limits, while the Classic guys could soldier on the golden era and preserve something beautiful, protected with strict height and weight limits to maintain the ideal.
And you know what? For 10 years that’s EXACTLY what happened. Yet, we still have fools crying about how bodybuilding is dead and how much they miss the ’90s!!
You can’t make this stuff up…..
