This is a very interesting battle of words that we are witnessing on social media between two Mr. Olympia champions. One from the current era and another from the ultra-competitive 1990s. It’s interesting because both generations are engaged in some kind of a bizarre conflict to see which one was more hardcore. I will tell you as a 47-year-old bodybuilding writer that I tend to favor the 1990s look to today’s. And I’ll talk to you a little bit about that momentarily, but before I do I think that there is an unsettling amount of animosity between the various generations of physique-based competitors. I think that a lot of it has to do with pride and very little that has to do with building the sport. But I will say that disagreement and dialogue is what fuels a lot of our conversations. At the end of the day, we are talking about a subjective sport that is all about comparing physiques and coming up with scores and assessments based entirely on what each person is looking for.
Some people like size, other people like definition, while other people look at bone structure and muscle bellies. There is no objective way to look at bodybuilding. It isn’t like making a basket or scoring a touchdown. That would make it an objective sport, and this is anything but that. But what’s interesting is that for the most part these conversations have been had by the fans on message boards and Facebook groups and that sort of thing. But what we are seeing now is an open dialogue, or an open debate, between the champions. And we haven’t really seen that before. We never saw a guy from the ’90s challenging the physiques of guys from the ’80s. We never saw a guy from the seventies comparing themselves to guys from the ’60s. Every era was good for what it was good but a lot of times the common wisdom was to let sleeping dogs lie. Now in the social media age, especially with the advent of AI, so many people are making virtual comparisons that are almost demanding that these conversations be had.
Dorian is probably the first of the real mass monsters. Lee Haney could lay claim to that title as well because he was the man that was responsible for the transition from that early ’80s crew of Mr. Olympia champions that included a weak version of Arnold, a weak version of Franco, and impressive versions of Chris and Samir. But what Lee Haney brought to the table was totally different. Lee Haney brought a tremendous amount of size but to coin one of his catchphrases, it was mass with class. It was a lot more size, but it was still true to the ideals of bodybuilding. It wasn’t like he was walking around with a roll of carpet under each arm. He didn’t have lats that looked superhuman. He was just a lot bigger guy, but he carried the muscle in true form.
Dorian, on the other hand, took it to another level. He had that grainy skin (that almost looked unhealthy) and he had that tremendous amount of size. The Shadow trained in a dungeon and except for the Olympia he was hardly ever seen or heard from. He was truly that gorilla bodybuilder that a lot of people thought was using everything under the sun. One look at Dorian and you just had this idea that he was willing to do anything in order to keep that title in the United Kingdom. Very few guys could outsize him and very few guys could out-conditioned him. He was just a walking freak and honestly, I think that nobody really came close to beating him. The only time that he, arguably, won by the skin of his teeth would have been in 1997 when he was severely injured and Nasser came around and nearly took everything from him. That was a wakeup call. That is why he did not compete in 1998. The guy was falling apart. But for his reign he was very untouchable and that alone I think separates him from Derek who held the title and lost it after a year.
Derek did lose the title but regained it. He was only one of two men in 60 years to be able to do that. So even though he didn’t hold the Olympia for six consecutive years like Dorian did, the fact that he was able to make bodybuilding history and win it back, really says a lot about him. But with regards to Dorian, he toppled the Totally Awesome Lee Haney (sort of) in 1991. And even though Lee Haney was done at the end of his career, who’s to say if Lee had come back in 1992 that he would not have won his ninth Olympia. Like I said, there is talk that Dorian Yates sent Lee Haney into retirement but Lee was not injured and Lee could have continued for at least another couple of years. The bottom line though is that when Haney left, Dorian took over the sport.
Before we talk more about Derek, I think it’s important to talk about the dominance of a multi-year champion. Guys like Dorian, Ronnie, and Phil were able to hold the title for several years consecutively. That’s something that Jay Cutler couldn’t do. Jay won the title for 2 years, then lost it, and won it back. Dexter only had it for 1 year, as did Flexatron, Brandon, Samson, and Hadi. They all only had it for one year. So in reality the dominance of Dorian really truly speaks volumes. It doesn’t mean that his physique was better than Derek’s, but it means that because of several factors he is in a class completely different from what Lunsford is in. Now that being said we can also look at the amount of improvements that Dorian made during his reign. Right now I don’t know that Derek could say the same. Has Derek dramatically improved from the first time he won the O? Was his Olympia winning physique better than his Arnold Classic winning physique? Or better than his Pittsburgh Pro winning physique? That is really up for debate.
What is a glaring issue as well is the fact that Derek is now involved in an embarrassing PMMA scandal. I’m not going to say that he is using what is known as bone cement or that he is using site enhancing oils or anything else like that, but the fact of the matter is he’s embroiled in a scandal and very few people are believing the fact that he is so reticent about the whole thing. The fact is a lot of people see his complete denial as grounds for not believing him entirely. At the end of the day the only way that he’s going to be able to truly disprove all of these rumors is by taking an MRI or something along those lines, but that is incredibly invasive and quite frankly if I was in his situation, I would not do that. At the end of the day, the people that are raising these concerns and making these allegations are not people that decide the contests. It’s also not the federation. It’s not even coming from his sponsors. It’s coming from a category of folks online that he might just write off as being trolls. I would not write them off as being trolls because I think they are raising legitimate questions and I think that a lot of the people raising these questions also represent Independent media organizations. But with regards to Derek’s purview, he may just write them off as trolls or haters or any number of other less than flattering designations.
With regards to his physique though, I think Derek has a lot of positive attributes but I think it’s laughable to suggest that any of the current guys can hold a candle to the condition of the guys in the 1990s. A lot of the guys today look smooth for the prejudging and for the finals forget about it, I mean these guys don’t know what suffering is. I would say that bodybuilding today is more a drug culture than it is a suffering culture. And again, anybody that tells you that you don’t have to suffer during a prep, especially during peak week, is full of shit. When you’re talking about guys competing at the New York Pro, the Arnold Classic, the Mr Olympia, the big three of professional bodybuilding contests, you bet your ass you have to suffer. These guys are coming in single digit body fat percentages, and they are coming in ripped to shreds. You can’t accomplish that without suffering. I mean you can take a boatload of drugs and come close to that level of condition but you’re not going to do it without suffering. I believe that a lot of guys today are taking those drugs and they’re jumping through those hoops but they’re not actually suffering. They’re not drying out, they’re not carb depleting, they’re not doing any of that. And the pictures and the videos tell the story. If you compare the definition of guys in the 90s to the definition of guys in the 2020s it’s apples and oranges. You have guys that are pushing 300lbs that are taking the stage smooth by 1990’s standards. If a guy like Dorian in his prime, or Ronnie in his prime or Flex Wheeler in his prime, if they competed today – they would blow these guys out of the water. And that’s just not just on condition. We’re not talking about the difference in training, we’re not talking about the difference in mass, and there’s posing. Guys in the 90s posed hard – every single one of them. Today, it’s just a select few.
I think guys in the ’90s posed way harder than guys today. The judges are almost apologizing now if they have to ask for extra rounds to get the scoring right. It’s because very few guys today suffer. They don’t know what it is to stand up there and pose for extra rounds when they’re running on fumes. That’s because of a lack of motivation and it’s because of a lack of discipline. I feel that over the last few years the drug culture has become so much more pronounced than it’s replaced so much of the foundation of competing.
Back in the early ’90s Momo Benaziza died which was a horrible tragedy, but I feel like so many more guys have died in the last 20 years than in the 1990s. And that’s not to say that guys did it safer in the ’90s because they were also experimenting with insulin, growth hormone, and all sorts of questionable agents they used as fat burners, but they were also training hard, eating very clean, and not relying solely on the drugs as much as the bodybuilders and physique-based athletes are doing so today. As a result of that, I would say that the guys in the 90s were far more advanced than the guys today.
Of course, that is going to draw tremendous criticism from younger fans and from competitors today because nobody wants to be told that the sport is regressing instead of improving. But I can honestly tell you that the quality in the physiques has actually diminished over the last 10 to 15 years. We have also not seen a dominant Mr Olympia nor have we seen a dominant Arnold Classic champion. As a result of that I think guys are building physics in completely different directions. There is no uniformity and while uniformity can get boring, it is also consistent. It provides a pretty clear path for competitors to take – from the amateurs to the newly minted pros. Unfortunately, it’s a free-for-all right now. So if I had to say which era was more competitive and which era was more impressive, I would have to say the 1990s by far.
As always, though, I leave the last word to you, the loyal readers of IronMag. What say you? Were the 90s tougher or is the current era tougher? Which era gave us better physiques? I hope you enjoyed reading my article and I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments. As always, please copy and paste a link to this article on all your social media feeds. It is bound to generate lively conversation.
Author Bio:
Christian I. Duque is the owner StrengthAddicts.com, a physique and strength website founded in 2008. He has worked for a number of bodybuilding websites, including RX Muscle and Muscular Development. Christian has written nearly 1,000 published articles for Iron Magazine, as well as articles for StrengthAddicts, RX Muscle, and others. By day, he is also a licensed attorney practicing in the areas of family law, immigration, and criminal defense.
