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As the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. William is by far one of my favorite bodybuilders of all time. He exemplified the role of a professional athlete, and he always took the stage seriously. I have a lot more to say on this tremendous competitor and his very impressive resume, but I think it\u2019s most important to start this article out by giving the man kudos for something that a lot of other professional athletes just don\u2019t. For Bonac the stage meant something. It wasn\u2019t just somewhere to put your feet on. Everything about competing was sacred to this man. It didn\u2019t matter if he was competing at the most prestigious show or one of the $10,000 shows. It was all about the fact that the fans paid their hard-earned money to see the best bodybuilders on the planet and he was not going to let them down. The respect for the stage is far more than meets the eye. Some people think it\u2019s about the money prize. Other people think it\u2019s about the title. In reality, it\u2019s a combination of a lot of different factors. I don\u2019t want to downplay the prize money or the title. They are important and they are also factors. But there\u2019s something very wholesome about the whole experience that a lot of new school guys just don\u2019t have. I feel in a very real way that William was a bridge from the old school to the newer generations of the sport. He is a champion that brought it. We\u2019re not talking in past tense. He could continue competing, but it\u2019s that respect of the stage that I think has contributed to him making the decision to retire. I also think it\u2019s respect for his legacy. That\u2019s another thing that doesn\u2019t get talked about very much these days. Competitors keep competing until the wheels fall off, but when you have a resume like William\u2019s, you have to think about what you\u2019ve accomplished and how that\u2019s going to translate to the future generations.<\/p>\n
I can sit here and tell you that he took runner-up at the Olympia, or that he won multiple Arnold Classic titles, but you know that. You could put his name right now on to a Google Search and Wikipedia will tell you all of those fun facts. I\u2019m not going to write an article about one of the competitors who I look up to most by simply regurgitating his contest record. Did he win a lot of shows? Absolutely! could he have won the biggest show on Earth? Absolutely. I have said it so many times and I\u2019ll say it once again, and I\u2019ll probably end up sending it more times in the future, but 2019 was either William\u2019s or Brandon\u2019s. It was honestly a dead heat. Both men brought it and both men could have won. I\u2019m happy that Brandon won, but I would have been just as happy if William had. That was both of their years. If there was a way to give out two Olympia titles in 2019 both of those guys would have been deserving of it. But that\u2019s just not how bodybuilding works. It\u2019s not like soccer. There are no ties. You either win or you lose. But I don\u2019t think either man lost that night. I think bodybuilding won. And we can\u2019t forget the New York Pro, which is also a Big 3 show. And why can\u2019t we forget it? Because William nearly beat Nick Walker at last year\u2019s New York Pro. That\u2019s how good William was. That\u2019s how good he is. We have to talk about him in the present tense because we\u2019re not looking at a shell of what he once was. What we\u2019re looking at is a man that has done everything, pretty much save for winning an Olympia, and now has found the time to retire.<\/p>\n