Dorian Yates Would Have LOST The 2022 Mr. Olympia

Dorian Yates is the reason that I started lifting. I was 13 years old at the 7-11 in Inglewood, CA off La Tijera and Centinela. I wanted to get big for football, so I went to buy a magazine because I am so old that we didn’t have the modern-day internet except for maybe some slow-loading porn sites and AOL Instant Messenger. Sports Illustrated didn’t tell you how to get jacked and huge so I sought out the muscle magazines…. Flex, Muscle & Fitness, Musclemag….

Flex had a Dorian on the cover. All I remember were his hamstrings. Grainy, veiny, NASTY! As a football player, a fat lineman to be exact, I knew I wouldn’t be getting legs like that, but the muscle drew me in, and from then on, I was addicted to bodybuilding.

But Dorian would not win the Mr. Olympia in 2022.

Say what?

Dorian would get smacked. Maybe 3^rd.

But why?

Rich Gaspari, a friend of mine, posted like the true boomer he and I are, that the 90s bodybuilders were better and came in better condition.

Ummmm, Dorian was grainy but didn’t even have striated glutes. Even the bottom 10 had striated glutes at this year’s Olympia.

And this pic, different angles, different lighting…. not a fair comparison.

While the show isn’t judged on glutes alone if a person has glutes, they are lean as hell everywhere else.

The issue is that the people who competed in the 1990s are partial to that look.

Flex Wheeler never had head to toe striations like Hadi Choopan does. Dorian could never vacuum like Derek Lunsford can. Chris Cormier never came in shape.

Yet when Brandon Curry won in 2019 with a near-flawless physique that would have beat Dorian in my opinion, Dorian couldn’t help but to point out how superior he was to Brandon.

Now that I have sh*t on the 90s bodybuilders, let me lay out the facts.

Dorian was awesome. Hadi was awesome. Flex was awesome…. you get the point. These are different generations and bodybuilding has evolved. While some might think it’s evolved for the worse, I personally think, even as a man who grew up admiring 90s bodybuilders, that it hasn’t gotten better or worse, it’s simply taken its current form.

A form where two former 212 competitors who can hold a vacuum and great cheese on their butt-cheeks can place first and second. A show where those two champions can be followed by a mass-monster, Nick Walker, who will probably win a few Sandow’s of his own in the future. A show where the 2019 Mr. Olympia, in the same or better condition than he was in when he won, is relegated to 4^th place.

A show that Big Ramy, the reigning two-time champ got FIFTH!

This is the most competitive and most exciting time in bodybuilding history. These boomer-bodybuilders are seeing things through bias glasses. They were and will always be champions, but the sport has move on and is better than ever.

What do you think? If bodybuilding better than ever? Or am I out of my mind?

Whatever you think, I am already excited for next year!