Big Muscles Forever

This was an article regarding upcoming contests. There is a nice photo of Mohamed Makkawy the 1982 Swedish and Belgium Grand Prix winner. Contests include the Men’s World Professional Bodybuilding championship. This was scheduled to be at the Playboy Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The event was to be televised by the ABC Wide World of Sports. The article continues to list other contests and mentions the 1983 Mr. Olympia to be held in Germany. There was $50,000 in “total” prize money to be awarded. The Miss Olympia contest was to be the final contest of the season. The article ended by saying that someday the IFBB will host the first ever $100,000 contest.

This was an article by female pro bodybuilder Claudia Cornwell Wilbourn who was worried that female contestants might be judged by outside behavior. Basically posing nude. In this brief article she stated that the best bodybuilder should win no matter what they do on their own time. She indicated male bodybuilders were able to get away with certain bad behaviors that their female counterparts could not. May the best bodybuilder win was Claudia’s message.

As the title says this column focused on world activities. Mentioned were some of the socialist countries. Countries finishing in the contest money from this group were Hungary, Romania, Poland and Czechoslovakia. England and China were also written about. What was extremely interesting were the Grand Prix points up to date which included contests in New York, Stockholm and Antwerp. Here are the contestants, see how many you recognize, in order of standing: Mohamed Makkawy, Albert Beckles, Johnny Fuller, Casey Viator, Jusup Wilosz, Bertil Fox (convicted later on of a doule murder), Samir Bannout, Jacques Neuville, Bill Grant, Danny Padilla, Tony Pearson, Boyer Coe, Ron Teufel, Dave Johns, Greg DeFerro, Jocelyn Pelletier, Ray Mentzer and Jorma Raty.

*Save our sport.

As always Rick wrote a great article about drug testing for contests. In this article he thinks the sport is endangered by the heavy steroid abusers. He suggest testing, nothing fancy, but at least something to curb the abuse. He thinks Joe Weider would be the right guy to lead the charge. He specifically cites Vic Tanny Jr. as an example of steroids gone wrong. Vic Tanny Jr. is a member of the Tanny bodybuilding family known primarily for their health spas over the years.

Vic Tanny Jr., according to Rick, started on a natural path of bodybuilding. He won some local and state contests while training naturally. However, he had a disappointing 8th place finish in the 1970 Mr. America contest. At this point he changed course and started taking steroids. Soon the symptoms began with chronic diarrhea and then blood elimination from the colon. He went off the drugs but the damage had been done. In 20 days Vic went from 205 pounds to 153. It turned out he developed Krohn’s (colon) disease as a direct result of steroid abuse. The disease is chronic and for life.

By the looks of today’s contestants steroid use is alive and well. I can’t tell you what to do but there have been a number of bodybuilding and powerlifter deaths that I know of since the publication of this First Flex Magazine.

Hey gang, is Rick Wayne the best bodybuilding writer ever?

This was an article by attorney Carl Morelli on New York. The article basically stated that bodybuilders need legal representation to protec the rights regardingt photos taken of them. If their photo is used for a commercial purpose they have certain rights and they must protect those rights through proper legal representation. Nice article which I wish was discussed more in current muscle magazines.

Pumping Up is a general news type column. There are two interesting articles on Arnold Schwarzenegger. One article shows Arnold and Conan costar Sandahl Bergman on the cover of the October 1982 Life Magazine.

The juicy article on Arnold is Punch/Counterpunch. Here goes the story. Arnold was in Belgium for CBS to cover the World championships which was being promoted by Julien Blommaert, who Arnold was suing. Blommaert cancelled Arnold’s rooms when he found out Arnold was part of the tv team. The next day Arnold spied Julien in the lobby of the hotel and said it was all a misunderstanding. Blommaert then noticed that Arnold never formally checked out. Blommaert called the police and demanded Arnold’s arrest for running out on the bill. It all worked out for Arnold when it was learned CBS settled the bill.

Other articles in Pumping Up were a little more tame. Some IFBB tributes and appointments, a short article on mass vs. cuts and a blurb on drug testing rounded out the column. However, the Arnold fight with Julien Blommaert was some hot bodybuilding gossip!

In this brief report Ben Weider reported on bodybuilding growth around the world. He also mentioned bodybuilding being on the three major networks: ABC Wide World of Sports, NBC Sportsworld and CBS Sportscene. Blogger note: Good thing bodybuilding has lasted longer than these shows.

During the sixtees, seventies and eighties Joe and Ben Weider wanted Bodybuilding to be recognized as a sport. To readers of this blog we all know that bodybuilding is the greatest sport. Bill Dobbins offered the argument that if auto reacing, horse racing and golf are sports, why not bodybuilding. Good point but bodybuilding today is more of a stage event so it has evolved but more along the entertainment lines. However, Bill does give a great definition of why bodybuilding is a sport. He says, “Bodybuilding is the art of developing the body through intense athletic training to create a physical form that will be judged in competition according to specific aesthetic standards.” Irregardless of how you view bodybuilding, just do it and tune in to bigmusclesforever.com the latest and oldest.

The first article from the first Flex is by non other than Joe Weider. It is a fairly short and to the point article on re-naming contest for public appeal. Joe Weider wrote that a contest with the name of World Championship would sound more legit than a name such as Mr. Garden Valley State. The Mister titles give a sleazy and amateur connotation to physique contests. Whereas: A title such as World Championship sounds more like a sports event. He said the one exception would be the Mr. Olympia title. Twenty-five years later this has worked out as written.

Here is the first issue of Flex Magazine ever. Rather than the hard core training magazine that it is today the first issue was a combination of bodybuilding politics, contest results and other unique articles. Lots of great “stuff” in this issue. The cover is has Chris Dickerson the 1982 Mr. Olympia contest on it. Chris won the title once at age 43. Bodybuilders written about in this issue inclede Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Zane, Tom Platz, Rachel McClish, Lou Ferrigno and many other old time favorites. some guys who were old at the time and still look great today. Stay tuned this month for a very exciting, historical and interesting issue of Flex Magazine. I haven’t looked lately but I’ve never seen this issue on ebay. I would think it would cost between $25.00 to $100.00.