This concept of “the best man winning” was in its

bleakest hour last year

when Jay “narrowly”

beat Victor Martinez in

what was perhaps the

most confounding upset

since the 1991 Ms.

Olympia when Lenda

Murray inexplicably

edged out Bev Francis

in the finals.

www.fantamag.com

profiting from his win and I hope more than anything that the office of Mr. Olympia is occupied in the future by the guys who deserve it, not just the guy who is already there. And trust me when I tell you there are guys who will deserve it.

Let’s start with Victor Martinez. Ask 10 people who won the ‘07 Olympia and nine will tell you that while Jay took home the Sandow, he’s carrying it for Victor. The other one is probably a judge who was judging that day. In all my years of watching bodybuilding contests with question- able outcomes, this one was by far and away the worst case of “bad judging” I, and the world, has ever seen. If I were Jay, I would have Fed-Ex’d the trophy to Victor first thing Monday morning along with a sympathy card. I wouldn’t even have wanted that Sandow in my house. I’d have

kept the money, though. The judges fucked up, not Jay. I mean, principle is one thing; cash is another story.

For 99 percent of the free world, Victor Martinez has an O under his belt already. The next time he steps on the Olympia stage, he will take it home with him. The guy has potential beyond perfect and could possibly be the epitome of what Michelangelo thought was trapped in those blocks of marble. If you look up “symmetry and natural aesthetics” in the dictionary, you should see a picture of Vic. If you were a renaissance sculptor, Victor would have been your ideal. If you were Michelangelo and gazed upon Victor, you would have wept. That is how good he is when he is on, and that is how perfectly he represents the ideal with respect to physique art…natural aesthetics, symmetry, balance and anything else you can think of. Even in silhouette his shape is

breathtaking; if you were at the ‘07 Arnold where they brought the guys out onstage from behind a back- lit screen you know what I mean. Wide round shoulders, tiny waist, sweeping quads, bulbous calves, the image he projects could be of a man 30 pounds heavier.

Funny how life is. If the judging hadn’t been so far off last year, and had Victor not ripped his patellar ten- don off the bone this year, he’d have two Sandows on his mantle right now. Fate brought him none. But not for long. In his seven-year pro career, Victor has won the GNC Show of Strength, the IFBB Night of Champions and the Arnold Classic. If things go right for him this year he will add another ASC victory to that list along with his long- overdue Mr. Olympia title. There is no doubt that if Dexter is ushering in an era of shape, symmetry, natural aesthetics and condition, Victor will be king.

Hot on his heels is going to be Kai Greene. I

don’t know what’s more amazing about this guy, his

physique, his story, or the way he entertains the crowd with his posing routines. Either way you look at him, Kai is in a world all his own. Of the new guard, pound-for-pound, he is the most massive and the most freaky, yet closer in form to Dexter than he is to Jay at this point. Kai brings an almost unethical amount of well-shaped mass to the realm of what can

pass for natural aesthetics, much like Ronnie did in 1998, but he still holds the line. Of all the competitors poised to con- quer the battle for the Sandow, Kai is the most interesting. Not only is his physique an amalgam of striking shapes, but his posing is off the chain. Kai certainly has weak points, but he knows how to mini- mize their effect on the overall picture. He continues to improve and grow into his newly added mass and as long as he keeps the problem areas in check, this guy will dominate and wow crowds for a term that no one will ever forget.

Kai is a serious contender who has been competing since 1997— four years short of Jay’s and Toney Freeman’s com- petitive careers— which both began in 1993. This makes Kai, along with Toney, the old masters of the new guard. If Kai is going to rule the roost, he is going to do it sooner rather than later. The same goes for Toney. Toney may not have quite the chance Kai does of being a Mr. Olympia, but his presence will surely impact the front row. He is the ultimate X-Man and more accurately demonstrates the artisans’ lines of ancient Greece and Rome than anyone up there. As big as Toney is (6’2” and somewhere near 280 pounds), his physique flows more toward Dexter than to Jay. Again, he exemplifies the axiom of lines over mass and will spend the next several years doing battle in the front row,

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thanks to Dexter’s win this year.

Dennis Wolf, at 5’11” and 265 pounds, is the second youngest of the new guard and perhaps one of the most favorite com- pilations of mass, symmetry and natural aesthetics next to Victor and Kai. Although Dennis is from Germany, he embodies the “all-American” look. Blond, good looking, with a body like an action hero. He makes Dex look like a little boy. But, there is no denying the similarity in their proportion. His lines flow more like Dexter’s than Jay’s. I know that may sound hard to believe because of all the hype over Dennis being compared to Jay, but you just can’t deny the proportions. While Dennis is more or less the same basic size as Jay, his aesthetics mirror Dexter’s more than Jay’s. If you were a sculptor in ancient Rome you’d be freeing Dennis from a block of marble, not Jay.

This year’s Olympia seems to have been a let down for Wolf fans. They were expecting much more from the German Giant. He seemed overdieted and flat at the show and not nearly the rival to Jay he had been forecast all year. I imagine that’s a lot of pressure for a young competitor. But, make no mistake, the very same char- acteristics of form that give Dexter his incredible illusion of almost cartoon char- acter proportions are present in Dennis; the wide shoulders, small waist and sweeping quads— he’s got what it takes to

be Mr. Olympia even if Jay had won. Dexter’s win made a huge statement in terms of what the future holds for the sport. I think Dennis was exempt from that. If he finds the mass to complement his frame without taking anything away from his aesthetics, there is no doubt Dennis will be Mr. Olympia, even if it was Jay who won and the “business as usual” mass monster was still in vogue.

Finally, Phil Heath, at 5’9” and 240 pounds, is the youngest and slightest of potential Mr. Olympias waiting in the wings. Some criticize him for having nar- row shoulders and back, but the rest of him is so remarkable that it might not mat- ter. If Heath hangs in there long enough, he will bring home a Sandow. But, if Dexter hadn’t won this year, such a statement couldn’t be made with such convic- tion. Heath is a freak for sure, but a monster he is not, nor ever will be. There is an undeniable beauty to his lines, but if the criteria were going to stay in the Dorian/Ronnie/Jay realm, he would never stand a chance of winning. Now, there is no doubt Heath will one day be a king…thanks in large part to Dexter winning this year.

I’m sure there are some wildcards out there who are going to come out of the woodwork and shock and amaze us. Melvin Anthony might even get it together like he did this year and push things along; he’s got the right look. But that remains to be seen. The fact that a new direction has been plotted with the crown- ing of Dexter gives many players hope. It gives all of us hope, because this thing we love seems to have been freed from the monsters who ruled it. Now the door is open for more guys to set their sights on the crown. That never would be the case today if Jay brought home the win. If he had, looking the way he did, I can’t imag-

ine the long-term damage that would have been done to the sport. I could just hear guys saying, “Why bother? They are just going to give it to Jay.” But don’t get me wrong; if Jay really deserved it, I’d be first in line to bring him praise. But since his mantra seemed to be mo’ mass, mo’ mass, mo’ mass, the best thing that could have happened this year did.

For the years that saw Ronnie dominate the stage, it was latterly that his feud was with Jay, and it was from there that mass was the objective at the expense of flowing lines and natural aesthetics. Starting in 2001, skipping 2002 and then every year until he won in 2006, Jay took second to Ronnie mainly because Ronnie just plain outmuscled him. That’s not to say that Jay shouldn’t have beaten Ronnie in ‘01, but it was from there that the size gauntlet was thrown down and it was from there the gross departure from the ideal hit its stride; ‘01 was the last year Jay got as close as he ever has to the ideal. With each consecutive year that Ronnie got bigger, Jay followed him up the scale to the point where if you butchered them, the two could feed a small African nation and their congruence to the ideal was as vague as Obama’s economic plan.

So, the fact that Jay has now taken second to Dexter is quite telling. The guys waiting to come out and strike at Dexter all flow the same way Dexter does, and for the next foreseeable future, I think the throne is going to trade places pretty readi- ly. That’s just my assumption. If they had given it to Jay again this year, our future would have been severely compromised both from a credibility standpoint and to a perhaps lesser, but not unimportant, artis- tic standpoint. While Dexter Jackson’s Olympia reign might be one of the short- est in bodybuilding, it will probably go down in history as one of the most pivotal. It marks the point in time when the quest for unbridled mass took a backseat to the flowing lines of what pleases the eye and upholds the ideal that was fostered cen- turies ago by men who we refer to as “genius.” Looking at Dexter, and the guys ready to take him on next year, you can clearly see why, when the great masters of ancient Greece and Rome unveiled their mighty works of art, people all throughout the ages called those statues gods.■

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288 2008 “BEST OF”

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Photo and concept by Per Bernal

The Women of MD’s

In document Muscular Development №1 2009 (Page 122-126)