amatuer contests rivalry?

[HowieW]

Maybe it is just me, but when I was active in shows, it seemed the state level and other NPC amatuer shows had a lot more healthy rivalry going on and hype.
Despite the great abilty to speak to anyone viw the internet, the pro shows seem to get a all the controversy and few seem interested in their own state meets or local shows.

[timfogarty]

there was a time where guys at the gym could see themselves getting up on stage with a chance of winning. 

Now to compete at the amateur level you need to use more drugs than the pros did in the 1970s and 1980s.

The pool of athletes competing is a fraction of what it was 20 and 40 years ago.

[Thin Lizzy]

Over and over, I've heard the argument that if there were no steroids, the same guys would still win. However, that argument assumes that there aren't people with great genetics for bodybuilding who don't compete because it's not worth it.

[njflex]

Back in the nineties if you won your state title it meant you were good,today they need bodies to fill these weight classes and now if a state has more than 5 or so local show's their all national qualifier's.Does that make you national quality because you took a weight class in the open ,back in the day the top 5 all had pro potential in the usa's and national's in most weight classes.today you couldn't remember who even won usa weight class unless they won the pro card which they have increased to two now.IT was so tough in the nineties that a guy would win his weight class in usa and tried to peak later at national's and finish out of top 5.

[Old-Skool]

Back in the day when I competed...early 80's....you had twenty guys in each weight class at local shows. Now your lucky if you have twenty guys in the whole show. Many of our smaller local shows have been cancelled. I see guys qualify to a higher level who are horrible, simply because they were third out of the three guys in that class. Bodybuilding is slowly dying.

[njflex]

Back in the day when I competed...early 80's....you had twenty guys in each weight class at local shows. Now your lucky if you have twenty guys in the whole show. Many of our smaller local shows have been cancelled. I see guys qualify to a higher level who are horrible, simply because they were third out of the three guys in that class. Bodybuilding is slowly dying.

you stand corrected

[HERACLES]

there was a time where guys at the gym could see themselves getting up on stage with a chance of winning. 

Now to compete at the amateur level you need to use more drugs than the pros did in the 1970s and 1980s.

The pool of athletes competing is a fraction of what it was 20 and 40 years ago.

So True.

[timfogarty]

another problem is that back then, people would enter many contests throughout the year.  Coming in as dry and ripped as needed today, it's impossible to do that more than once a year.  Top athletes now win one contest to qualify for the nationals, then usually only enter one national level contest a year until they need to qualify again.   Long gone are the days of someone winning all four major amateur contests in a year's time.