That must have been great to see the Shadow live. Since many regard 97 as one of Yates worst years (behind 94), just how did he look in person?
UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!!!!! By the night show, he was 274 lbs. As I said on another thread a long time ago, while discussing this very topic(quoting myself):
"I've been to some three hundred bodybuilding contests, both at the amateur and pro levels and I've never seen anything that looked like The Yates. I was both at the 96 O in Chicago and the 97 O in Long Beach, and they were my most memorable bodybuilding contests experiences. I remember that, when Dorian entered the stage at the 97 O, I said to myself:'What the f**k is THAT and what are those things trying to crawl from under his skin?!' Yates looked like a Human anatomy chart come to life, only drier, much drier. There's no possible way to describe it, really. I was also at the 2001 and 2003 Os, and Ronnie never impressed me that much. Humongous, yes, but not really that off-this-worldly. There were also other guys who were just as big as Ron, like Jean-Pierre Fux, Aaron Baker, Paul Dillet, Roland Kickinger and Nasser and they never impressed me as well. To me, Ronnie's best for was at the 99 O, when he had as much striations, details, separation and dryness as in 98, but with 10 lbs more lean mass. Ronnie never looked that good again."
SUCKMYMUSCLE