Right now there is a debate raging on throughout various generations of the sport of bodybuilding. You have the purests who aspire for what the sport once was. By this I mean what the sport was in its heyday, in the 1960s through the 1980s. To the purests, this era represented a time when the sport was about aesthetics, about flow, about balance. There were no mass monsters to speak of. There were no distended waists, no pointy body parts, no site enhancing oils or exotic supplements that could otherwise be known as cheating.
In this day and age there are suspicions of things like PMMA. In other words, not even oil, but fiberglass put into the muscle. The idea of competitors walking around with implants was absolutely unheard of for those 20 years between the 1960s and the 1980s. When you think about the beautiful physiques that came from that era and you compare them to some of the physiques of today, you are left scratching your head. You are left asking WHAT IN THE FUCK happened to physique-based sports???
I don’t think that you can call someone like Lee Haney or Samir Bannout “haters.” Why would you do that? All they are trying to do is save a sport that they love. They want to save a sport that in their opinion has lost its way. They’re not trying to rain on anyone’s parade and they are certainly not bitter that they are no longer competing. I think that anyone that dismisses them as such really doesn’t know about the history of the sport and really doesn’t know what’s in their heart.
There’s a difference between criticizing just because you’re salty and criticizing because you believe that the sport that you helped build has gone astray. I believe their criticisms rest entirely in the latter and not the former. Guys that have already competed and enjoyed all of the benefits of success are not jealous of the younger generations. In fact, I would argue that they are amongst the first to celebrate competitors who have reached the pinnacle of their career in building beautiful physiques. But they’re also not going to bite their tongue while the sport rewards looks that quite frankly are not going to grow bodybuilding. I’m talking about looks that are quite frankly not going to put the sport in a positive light with the mainstream.
And mainstream opinions do matter. There are those dungeon bodybuilders that believe that the sport should always be underground and that it should never be accepted by society. They’re the ones who GO NUTS for the freaks, but they’re a very small minority. That said, they’re VERY LOUD in real time and especially online. But those people are not the ones that are the movers and shakers. Those are not the people that promote the Big 3 contests (Olympia, ASC, NY Pro) or own the big supplement companies.
Any bodybuilding fan that says they want to keep bodybuilding as a niche sport – clearly – does not have very much invested. The reality of the matter is the real money, the real exposure, rests with mainstream approval. And guys that look like walking-refrigerators, or guys that don’t have a neck, or guys that are huffing and puffing after walking four or five feet, are not going to grow bodybuilding. They’ll cater to that SUPER VOCAL minority that loves the freaks, but that’s about it.
So what does this mean for the sport? Well look at our current Mr. Olympia, Nick Walker. He has 100% improved his physique, he does not have the descended waist, he’s not huffing and puffing, but is he a throwback to the golden era? Absolutely not. Is he going to draw mainstream approval? Absolutely not. Is he going to land a movie role in a Hollywood picture? Absolutely not. So the guys from the Golden Era have every right to criticize the direction the sport has taken. The sport has definitely taken a wrong turn because Mr. Olympia does not look like anything remotely resembling the physiques of the 1960s, the 1970s, and the 1980s. Therefore guys like Lee and guys like Samir are going to sound off. But they are not haters!!
If anything , the legends from yesteryear are trying to save the sport from totally going off the deep end. Is it too late? Will their opinions fall on deaf ears? Only time will tell.
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