If you were to write a tally sheet on all of the things in bodybuilding that made you shake your head you’d probably need to set up an appointment with your local chiropractor. Nothing is more ludicrous than the exclusive contracts negotiated by Flex and Muscular Development. By now we all know that once you’ve made a significant name for yourself in the industry the two big boys will come knocking on your door for exclusive rights. At the time, it seems great for the broke bodybuilder—most work as trainers or local contest prep coaches, and sure, they can make some decent money doing it. After a 16 week contest prep and limited time invested in their day job, once the contracts start getting offered you can bet they have their hands out. But is being on Team MD or Team Flex what it’s all cracked up to be?
Let’s begin with the now infamous weekend contracts. The boys down at Muscular Development are notorious for these little gems. You’ll see these handed out at shows like Junior Nationals or USA’s. In many cases, finishers in the top one or two places in each weight class will be offered a few hundred bucks for what ultimately turns out to be a gag order. As a fan, all we’re looking for is a little coverage of the upcoming stars. So what ends up happening? If you’re lucky, these weekend warriors will get two minutes with Shawn Ray after the contest and in most cases he will forget the name of the competitor he’s talking to.
Now let’s say you are a Red Arowana, a very popular and sought after big fish in bodybuilding still in transit to Palumbo’s house via mail order from Curacao. These athletes likely started out with Dave on RxMuscle and were lured away – Evan Centopani, Juan Morel, and Guy Cisternino come to mind. MD and Flex have a laundry list of guys who they essentially put on the shelf and let collect dust. It wasn’t too long ago I remember the signing of Nicole Wilkins and Steve Kuclo to MD and I’d be hard pressed to remember if either of them have done much at all for the brand. Then you’ve got mega stars in the industry like Jay Cutler and Branch Warren; no, they aren’t shelved, but for the amount of money being shelled out annually for these guys you would think we would see more than Jay on the couch at Dave Bourlet’s store in Venice or Branch stalking Metro Flex in his typical Gasp Capri pants and combat boots. I got it Branch, you’re intense…I got it.
Everyone in the bodybuilding industry wants to see the sport grow and expand. Not only will it bring in more money for the competitors, but ultimately we will see bigger shows, more frequently. But what’s happening, by limiting who the athletes can be covered by, cuts the audience size down and limits the sports overall appeal. You wouldn’t see exclusive rights for players in the NFL or NBA with Sports Illustrated or ESPN The Magazine. Those athletes are free to give interviews with whomever they choose. But because bodybuilders earn so much less money than their mainstream counterparts, media companies like Flex and MD take advantage of the starving bodybuilder.
Now I know the past few years have been hard on everyone financially. The Recession has affected IFBB pro’s just as it has affected everyone reading this article, sans Aaron Singerman – he just bought a Breitling watch with the change he found in his couch cushions. So to turn down what is essentially free money is hard to do. But when you consider the new media marketing that is available to bodybuilders it really doesn’t make much sense to sign with Weider/AMI or Advanced Research Media. What it does take is creativity, motivation, and yes, personality.
By not taking a contract and getting shelved like Todd Jewell and Mike Liberatore, a bodybuilder could start his own YouTube channel, host his own weekly Podcast radio show, schedule independent photo shoots, freely write a blog on his personal website without any limitations, and of course not be told who he can and cannot interview with throughout the year. Hell, we might even get to see some lifestyle or training videos by some current IFBB pros that are longer than 5 minutes long—now wouldn’t that be refreshing?
The perfect example of a guy who understands marketing his own brand is Antoine Vaillant. Coincidentally he recently signed an exclusive contract with MD, but I fear he will soon realize that until he reaches the status of a Branch or Kai he will ultimately leave money on the table and lose much of his creative freedom.
So why do the bodybuilding superpowers hoard their athletes? It’s the competition inside of the competition. Steve Blechman reminds me of Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner. Just because he’s all grown up and has more money than he knows what to do with doesn’t make him the cool kid down the street. If he buys enough ‘friends’ maybe he will earn credibility in the sport. Sadly, it doesn’t work that way and in the meantime all it is doing is holding the sport down for long term success. You can’t collect athletes the way Jay Z collects sports cars and expect your industry to grow as a whole.
Clearly I have made my case for who are the villains in the bodybuilding industry. Any fan will tell you how unimpressed they are with the content being delivered by Flex Online and MD. Once bodybuilders realize that they may have to give up a little now to make more down the line, we may see a trend of guys not being swayed by a few thousand dollars and more and more gravitate towards RxMuscle or their own independent ventures.
RONNIE COLEMAN SIGNATURE SERIES™ SIGNS CHINA’S TOP BODYBUILDER
November 29, 2012- Ronnie Coleman Signature Series™ is proud to announce the official signing of China’s top bodybuilder Zhang Hong Yu aka the “Quad-Zilla” of China… Coming off a fresh victory at the China Bodybuilding Championship, Quad-Zilla has aspirations of making his USA debut at the Arnold Amateur in 2014. From the looks of it there’s one guarantee… He will have the biggest wheels on stage!
It’s all my own fault, I know. I have nobody to blame but myself. I’m the one who decided to spend 20 years lifting heavy slag and stuffing myself with copious amounts of steak and potatoes to get to 300 pounds. So when I fly, I totally understand that I am the guy nobody wants to sit beside.
As I walk through the airport, I get the usual looks that a 300 pound bodybuilder gets, and I just ignore most of what is going on around me and keep my ear buds in. My travel soundtrack always makes my trips tolerable. However, as I arrive at my gate, and I choose a place to sit and put my cooler down, I see that the others around me are thinking “That guy’s on MY flight”, and I know they are hoping they don’t get stuck sitting beside me.
I always wait for most of the others to board first. It’s just easier since I always have an aisle seat, so I tend to board with the final group of stragglers. As I walk onto the plane, I can see every person with an empty seat beside them looking at me with hope in their eyes. As I get closer to them I can see them doing the math on me, versus whoever is boarding behind me. They know they are getting stuck with one of us. If I pass them, I can sometimes see the relief in their faces. It’s the exact opposite when I stop and take my seat.
Three feet wide at the shoulders. Six feet tall. My body radiating enough heat to make YOU sweat. Big elbows and knees sticking out all over the place, which you will just LOVE while I eat my meal beside you out of a giant glass tupperware dish full of chicken, rice, and veg (which I had heated up at one of the food court stops before boarding, so it’s steaming too). Hope you think it smells good because I’m a slow eater.
My hips fit in the seat fine, but the rest of me just explodes out of my “space” in all directions. Gotta have that aisle seat to stick my leg out so my knee doesn’t ache. After this many years of training, asking for an aisle seat on the right side of the plane, is just travel planning 101. My other knee might push into your space if my bottles of water and Diet Coke take up too much of the knee room when I stick them in the back of the seat ahead of me.
The arm rest is mine too. Not because I’m a jerk and I’m going to take it, but because it’s practically impossible to not have my elbows on both of my arm rests. Sorry for changing your channel 20 times while I slept, digging my elbow into your controls.
To prevent me from getting even hotter and making life miserable for both of us, it’s probably in your best interest to let me have your little air vent up above us. You know the little adjustable one. Ya, I’ll just point all three of them towards my head and torso, thank you very much. Trust me.
Now, of course there are passengers less desirable than myself to get stuck sitting beside, like the ones who are actually fatter than I am big. More often than not there are a few of them, especially when flying within the US. I used to almost always be the biggest guy on the plane, but rising obesity rates have really helped me out there.
Really tall guys, like 6’4” and up, they aren’t too popular. I was on a plane with an entire basketball team once. A real US College team. I wound up sitting with a dude who was 6”10”. I felt like I fit really well compared to him. He was terrible to sit with. About 30 minutes into the flight, a flight attendant actually moved some people and I wound up with a really petite young woman beside me, and he got to sit in an aisle seat across the way.
Obviously, anyone really sweaty (bad hygiene sweaty, not sexy hot yoga sweaty), smelly, or crazy looking is going to be on the list too. Sometimes I get lucky and there are so many undesirables that I actually start to look pretty good as a seat mate. Flights out of cities like LA and Vegas are sometimes like that. 
One thing is for sure, I always fly clean. Showered and smelling as pleasant as possible. I’ve encountered some very inconsiderate travelers in that regard. I sat with a guy once from Vegas to LA that smelled like vomit and rum. On the flight home from the 2010 North Americans, I sat beside a guy who was at least 6’6”, 330 pounds of fat, dressed in a sweater with a shirt and tie underneath, and he smelled of B.O. so fucking bad I swear it was a mental endurance test to even sit beside him for takeoff. The flight attendant even came by soon after we took our seats, and gave me a look of sympathy and mouthed the word “sorry”.
As soon as we got in the air and leveled out, I stood up and went to the back to stand by the bathroom for the rest of the flight. I was horrified to realize that being pressed against the fat smelly guy soaked the shoulder of my shirt. It was gross, and he smelled terrible. My sympathetic flight attendant even let me sit in her seat for some of the trip.
Of course, no article on flying at 300lbs would be complete without addressing the one thing so many people ask me about. “Ron, can you take a dump on a plane?” Well, technically yes I can, if I NEED to. I have done what I’ve had to do many times, however, part of my travel ritual is to try to make sure that is avoided.
I remember one time I was in Calgary waiting to catch a flight to Montreal. I had an RCMP undercover officer show me his badge and ask me to step to the side with him. He started asking me where I was coming from, and where I was going. Immediately, the freedom loving, anti-authority part of me shut him down. I told him that since I had done nothing wrong and was not being detained, I was going to refuse all further questions, and did not consent to any searches. He immediately knew he had to let me walk. I spent the next few hours feeling singled out and angry. However, it did dawn on me that I was pacing around a lot while waiting at the gate. I also sat down in three different chairs, and kept getting up and moving due to annoying kids, or smelly people. Also, I made three trips into the bathroom.
Every guy knows the deal....you cruise into a public bathroom and you have that little conversation with yourself. “Should I try to shit here? There’s even a big clean handicap stall! Maybe I should wait and just do it on the plane when I’m ready. If I try now it might be disappointing and I’ll have to go later anyways. Maybe I should come back in ten minutes. I’ll go eat half a meal and drink some water, then come back before I board.”
I could see how I appeared suspicious to an undercover officer....however, I was just really hoping to take a good shit before boarding the plane!
Travel safe everyone......
Ron
If there’s one thing bodybuilding fans all have in common is their never ending need to bitch and moan about something. If it’s not a fan bitching about Kevin English winning another NY Pro, then it’s Toney Freeman calling out the entire pro league for being unjust.
Synthol in the biceps or Kai Greene snubbing Ron Noreman on contest prep all stir up controversy in the sport. But what really has the fans bitching and moaning is the great debate of 90’s bodybuilders vs. today’s bodybuilders. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, although mine is usually right, but what really separates todays pros vs. a 90’s pro isn’t striated glutes or lumpy calves Flex Wheeler, it’s good old fashion charisma. Love him or hate him, Mr. Big Banners/Bright Lights Shawn Ray knew how to stir up some shit. You would have thought the guy had a staff of WWE writers doing his material. He took shots at Dorian, Flex, Nasser, and Jurassic Paul Dilette and only spared those with physiques similar to his classic yet much smaller structure.
Before Shawn captivated fans, the sport only had the legend himself, Arnold, to keep people entertained not only with his iconic physique, but the personality that later made him one of the most polarizing international celebrities of all time. Arnold was the Muhammad Ali of bodybuilding. He would beat his opponents mentally long before anyone oiled up and stepped on a bodybuilding stage.
It’s hard to believe, but by the 2013 Mr. Olympia it will have been 8 years since Ronnie Coleman took home his 8th Sandow. Now talk about a guy with a charismatic personality. Only the Big Nasty comes out for his night show posing routine wearing a king’s robe and crown with the Lion King sound track in the background. Parking lot lunges in 110 degree Texas heat wearing bright yellow spandex still weighing 310lb just weeks prior to winning the Mr. O. And still years after even stepping foot on a stage the guy still has the longest line at any expo he attends. Ronnie has a knack for making any stranger feel like his old friend. Yeah Buddy!
And where do we sit today? Taking a look at the top half of the IFBB pro league there is a lot left to be desired in terms of charisma. I love physiques like Shawn Rhoden and Dexter Jackson, but man they might just be the two chillest dudes on the planet. Half the time you wouldn’t know if they were asleep even with their eyes wide open. Dennis Wolf has a lot of potential but half of his interviews I feel like he doesn’t really quite understand the questions people ask and ends up answering everything the same, “I need to eat more carbs sometimes yeah, and uh yeah it is good, and yeah I’ll be bringing up my lower back more, umm yeah so I make improvements, and uh get Top 3, yeah…haha”. And every time I listen to Branch I’m not sure if he’s going to choke slam the cameraman or throw a 200lb dumbbell at some kid for not being intense enough.
Now don’t get me wrong there are some characters amongst us in bodybuilding. Ben Pakulski tried to talk a little trash to Branch at the Olympia press conference. I’m not sure if it was all for the upcoming docudrama movie, Generation Iron, due out in summer of 2013, but it was an attempt at showing his personality. Toney Freeman has no trouble giving his opinion or showing his charisma, but sometimes I think he sees himself as the Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction of the bodybuilding world, “Say what again, say what again, I dare you, I double dare you mother fucker say what one more goddamn time.”
Kai Greene is incredibly charismatic with a huge fan base. As Dave pointed out on Heavy Muscle Radio, the guy almost thrives on controversy and drama. Only Kai would buy 2 rooms at the Olympia and shuffle back and forth to avoid his two guru’s running into one another. The problem with Kai is when the bright lights are on him he tends to shut down. When he gets asked questions at the Olympia presser such as, “Kai do you think you can beat Phil this year?” and responds with a solitary, “yes”, he is just provoking the fans to root against him. He has to seize those opportunities when they arise. 
And then there’s Phil Heath. He’s very interesting if you’re curious about his new pair of Jordan’s, what color his Beats by Dre headphones are or when he’s going to be getting his mani and pedi for the week. But outside of being well spoken and gracious to his fans he could be much better in front of the camera if he chose to be.
The ironic thing is that the on-air personalities on RxMuscle, Dave and Aaron, have much more charisma than the vast majority of the athletes they cover. Imagine if Rx had the same deep pockets to spend on athletes that Flex and MD have. With their personalities they could almost groom the pro’s the way an acting coach or public relations professional would assist a celebrity in becoming more likeable to their fans.
Click over to MD, the once charismatic Shawn Ray now gives the least in depth and lackluster interviews and contest previews I have ever seen. Back when Flex Wheeler was doing interviews if you closed your eyes he sounded like Randy Jackson from American Idol – you know what I mean ‘dawg’, not exactly someone you can listen to for more than 3 minutes.
Maybe one of the fan favorites like Evan or Kai can take the lead amongst the charismatic pros, unfortunately, what draws so many fans to them is there enigmatic personalities. With any luck we’ll see a new side to the bodybuilders in next summer’s movie, but until then we’ll have to wait until Mike Pulcinella or Zhasni create another fabricated entertaining masterpiece of our athletes.
Follow Matt on Twitter @MattMeinrod
They say the competition is won during the off season and in the last ten days. A simplistic statement, but it does bear some truth. Now, if I could only go from my off-season to 10 days out and win a competition I would be onto something!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Contest preps vary in length. Some preps last 20 weeks, some preps last 8 weeks. My prep goes for 16 weeks. In effect, I’m looking at 14 weeks and 4 days that aren’t accounted for in the insightful quote I started this article with. During these 14 weeks and 4 days the contest is also won, or lost. The power behind the quote lays in the fact that most people don’t “push” hard enough in their off season. They don’t eat enough. They aren't meticulous enough in their nutrition. How is this relevant to my prep? Well, the last 10 days… since starting on Wednesday, November 21st I will be 10 days out. The important thing here is to not do anything crazy. Keep on point, the hard work has been done, the mortar and bricks have been laid. Some people get caught up in crazy schemes to get “shredded” or to lose that “Water” - I got news for you… it probably isn’t water. That is how you can lose a show in the last 10 days.
What are my concerns you ask? I have a plethora of thoughts hounding through my skull at all hours of the day when it comes to this. What it boils down to are the following:
1. I want to be the most conditioned athlete at the show;
2. I want to maintain as much size and shape and still accomplish #1;
3. Win my class;
4. Win the whole damn show.
That pretty much sums it up. Everything else I place my trust in PJ Braun to dial me in correctly, as he has never failed me before. I place my faith in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I place my love for all my friends and family who have supported me and my lovely girlfriend Sabrina Taylor. My sponsor FUSION BODYBUILDING, whom I consider to be part of my family now. My new family at Rx Muscle (Dave, Aaron, Sally, Bryan) who I am looking forward to growing with in 2013.
It’s 10 days out and it is just a matter of following the plan laid out. I will bring the best Louis Uridel that has ever stepped on stage before.
Do Work, Stay Sexy… and always… Stay Sucka Free.
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