by Christian Duque
This is actually a very interesting question that I have had posed to me over the years in the sport of bodybuilding by competitors and enthusiasts alike. It is the idea that razor thin wins and losses create tremendous discussion on message boards, social media platforms, and even at gyms and contests. It is a novel concept because of the fact that we are dealing with a very subjective sport unlike objective sports like basketball or football or baseball. In bodybuilding there are no goals or baskets to be made. In this sport it’s about subjective criteria determined by a panel of judges. It is not the same panel of judges and they are not looking at the same physiques. Things like symmetry and balance are judged on a number of different physiques. Some are mass monsters others are streamlined aesthetic freaks others are hybrids. It really it runs the gamut.
The argument being made here is that competitions that go down to the wire and require multiple comparisons are the ones that create the interest that will grow the sport. And I suspect that that is true to a certain extent. I think anytime you have competitiveness that is going to generate buzz. When fans are stumped and can’t make up their mind and judges are in the same boat you have the makings of a truly nail-biting situation. This is why I think fans get turned off when you have multi-year champions at the Olympia or the Arnold. And that is why I think people got a little bit bored with Ronnie, Phil, and even Jay to a certain extent even though his reign was interrupted one year. Anytime fans pretty much expect who is going to win and who is going to place second and who is going to place third, then going to the show is not really a top priority. And sometimes even watching the show on pay-per-view or worse yet – on a free webcast – has lost value its well. Therefore I 100% agree that close calls increase interest in bodybuilding but we can’t stop there.
If this was 4 or 5 years ago when I was in the thick of the thick I would not have been able to have talked about politics. This is a very taboo subject in physique-based sports and it’s not reserved or exclusive to any single federation. I would argue that politics plays a role pretty much in any bodybuilding show in any federation – to varying degrees. Politics doesn’t necessarily have to involve shady deals backstage or collusion between promoters and coaches and judges. Of course that is certainly an example of politics, but politics can also be far more subtle and far more difficult to pinpoint. It could be something very, very discreet; it can also be something subconscious.
For example if a big-name coach brings in an army of competitors to a contest and in one division it’s between a client of said coach and a no-name, if the judge goes with the client of said big-name coach for whatever reason that could be argued to be politics. Even if that judge or those judges didn’t intentionally pick the client of the big-name coach because of the fact they were coached by the big-name coach it may still be an element of politics. And that is where close calls may or may not grow the sport. On their face they will grow the sport just because of the sheer competitiveness taking place on the stage but it is the outcome that may actually have a detrimental effect on that which we are talking about. Close calls that usually can be figured out beforehand actually could be a blemish on the sport itself.
I have written about this in various different articles for Iron Magazine and I would like to touch upon it one more time. If you were to compile a list of all active professional bodybuilders in pretty much any division and in pretty much any federation you are going to have a stark realization on your hands. You are going to see a very small handful of guys and gals that you recognize based on the fact they have won big shows or have big sponsors. Now maybe it’s because we live in the United States and we are focused more on American and Western European bodybuilders than bodybuilders from anywhere else in the world or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s the fact that the United States and Western Europe are the areas where bodybuilders with the biggest contracts and most impressive wins happen to come from. Whatever the case may be, you will only know about a handful of pro bodybuilders but there is an entire sea, an entire world of other names from other countries that you have never heard of. And my point here is that if somebody from one of these countries is up against someone from the countries that we are familiar with and that unknown person consistently places out of the money, that is also an example of politics.
Back in the 90s and 2000s there were bodybuilders from all over the world that would come to stages in the United States and Western Europe with phenomenal physiques but would always place outside of the Top 10. Then you have the guys that would make it to the Olympia somehow but didn’t speak a word of English. Nobody would ever ask them questions, nobody would ever want their picture – they were just kind of cannon fodder. They sat on the stage staring out into nothingness waiting for the press conference to be over and waiting for the weigh-ins to be over so they could take the stage and place last. That was the trajectory of countless international athletes who came to Las Vegas to compete in the Super Bowl of Bodybuilding. If I’m lying, I’m dying. That’s the way that it was done. And sometimes close calls involving those guys in smaller shows would always result in them losing. That’s another example of a close call that does not grow the sport.
Close calls have got to be fairly judged. And whatever breaks the tie needs to be something objective. But therein lies the issue. How can you bring objective criteria into a subjective sport? Beats the hell out of me.
The reality of the matter is that the only thing you can do is to order more comparisons. And one thing that I would love to see is more fan interaction. I think that in a very real way bodybuilding is a little bit of an elitist sport – meaning that only the judges who are trained to judge can judge. Now I understand that to a certain extent, but who created the judging criteria that these judges supposedly have to study? Did it come from the Lord above? Was it divinely inspired? Or was it just one group of guys that created a criteria for another group of guys and gals to master? And when I say guys I mean men and women just for the record. I don’t like using the word gals, but I also don’t want my article to seem as if it’s chauvinistic. That being said, I think the audience has as much right – if not more than the judging panel – to have a vote. And I think that during close calls that audience vote should matter.
So let’s say for example there’s a panel of judges and let’s say there’s eight judges. Why not give the audience one vote? Why not make the entire audience in-person and online have the voice of one judge? Make the audience the ninth judge. And in bodybuilding you tend to throw out the top score and the lowest score so it would not really alter things very much and it would add a touch of democracy. And beyond democracy, perhaps even accountability.
Some federations have Incorporated fan interaction but for a separate title like the Olympia does with the people’s champion award. The Olympia also did something similar years ago with the challenge round. But again these were separate titles. What I’m talking about is allowing the fans to have a say in the main title in question. But even with that there’s still no guarantee that it will be fair. Because again the popular competitor will do better with the fans than the unheard of one. It shouldn’t be about that. It should be about muscle, physique, symmetry and posing. It should be about merit not about popularity, but that’s just not how it is. And there is where the danger lies in a subjective sport like bodybuilding. Fair judging may not be attainable and it may not be because of any disingenuous or illegitimate reason. It may just be human nature.
So again, we’re not getting philosophical although I think we have already missed that bus. This is very much a philosophical argument and very much a conceptual struggle that we just cannot avoid as bodybuilding fans, but do close calls grow the sport? Or do they further antagonize fans and frustrate competitors?
When I think of close calls like in New York and I see the outcome, I’m a little less than livid, but even if Martin had won there would have been a sizable majority of people that wanted Nick to win based on popularity and buzz that would have been annoyed and would have taken to the message boards and would have created a shitstorm. And because Nick won I have written countless articles and done countless lives about the injustice to Martin. So maybe that frustration from either side creates the kind of buzz that’s necessary to keep people engaged. I really don’t know but I am two or three pages into an article trying to figure it out so I guess close calls at the very least create conversation which may in turn create interest in the sport. Or maybe this is a recipe for insanity.
What say you? Do you think close calls grow the sport? Does it matter who emerges victorious from these close calls? And is the constant conversation that comes after beneficial to bodybuilding or detrimental to it? As always I hope you enjoyed reading my article, here, at Iron Magazine. I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments and highly encourage you to copy and paste the URL to this article on all your social media feeds. I guarantee you it will generate conversation – maybe more conversation than you’d like!
