The drama at the 2026 Arnold Classic has gained plenty of attention over the last two weeks, but has it been blown out of proportion?
After finishing fourth in Men’s Open, Martin Fitzwater was seen aggressively cheering when Nick Walker was called as the runner-up, finishing behind Andrew Jacked and missing out on the $750,000 prize. Many in the bodybuilding community have shared their opinions on the situation. Recently, BTS TV shared a clip of head judge Steve Weinberger criticizing media for the handling of the situation.
“I think there are some very good people and I think there are some that should not have a podcast or a microphone that are just incompetent and too negative and don’t give people the right respect. There are some platforms that are great and some that should be off.”
Weinberger continued to explain how he believes the media should not give opinions to sway the audience. Instead, discussed the importance of sharing all details to let the public create their own opinions.
“You have to give the full report, not your own personal feelings. It’s not your opinion to lay on other people. Let them figure it out for themselves, let them make up their own mind. Don’t try to change their mind or put them down a certain road. These people get only their side or someone else’s side instead of getting the whole story and reporting the whole story.”
While this happened for all to see, there is an alleged incident that took place backstage. Walker shared in a comment’s section on social media that Fitzwater shoved him backstage. This came after Fitzwater refused to shake his hand on stage, claiming that he would “not be fake” about his feelings toward Walker.
Mohamed Foda Gives View From Bodybuilder’s Perspective
The issue with the media was voiced by Mohamed Foda over the weekend as well. Foda won the Detroit Pro title on Saturday and following his performance, spoke about how he felt about Fitzwater.
“I did Arnold. You all saw me on the stage at Arnold. I didn’t do good as well, I was disappointed, I stayed away from media because Media is harsh. They don’t know that we are humans. They see what happened between Martin and Nick, come on guys, it’s between Nick and Martin.”
Bodybuilding legend Phil Heath previously spoke about how mental health. is not discussed enough in the sport of bodybuilding. He also brought up how making situations like this an issue can take away from the winner of the show.
Foda doubled down on the perception around bodybuilding and its competitors. He believes that it is important to see bodybuilders as humans who make mistakes.
“We’ve have seen this before, we’ve seen this between Phil and Kai. We have seen this for a long time in bodybuilding. As a bodybuilder, for me, on the stage I saw it was fun. For us, it was fun. You guys keep going and going, he’s a human. Sometimes people need to see us as humans.”
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