Ironage Shot of Brandon Curry.

[Matt]

Brandon Curry at the 2011 Toronto Pro where he placed 3rd.

It's interesting looking back as bodybuilders climb up the ranks, how in some ways they look better even at times when they were much less competitive and placed much lower.  In some cases, there are examples like Branch Warren and Dennis Wolf, who were placing low early on in their careers, yet had much better placings later in their careers when Palumboism was setting in.  A good example of exactly that would be when Branch Warren won the 2012 Arnold Classic, beating Dennis Wolf, when most people disagreed with that decision.

Then, in the few years to follow that, Dennis Wolf started to get such gift placings, placing 4th in the 2015 Mr. Olympia, when he placed 5th in the 2007 Mr. Olympia, and looked better in 2007 by just about any objective standard.

I guess judges notice when bodybuilders get the shaft [when they don't get the elevator to the ice machine on floor 7 of the Mirage Hotel], and then start to get placings that are undeserved because judges see that previously unknown or lesser known bodybuilders effectively "paid their dues", and start to sort of retroactively make it up to them with undeserved better placings, due to undeserved lower places earlier in their careers.  I'm not exactly sure how any judge with eyes wouldn't have noticed that Dennis Wolf looked amazing in 2007 though.  In my opinion, Dennis Wolf was 2nd that year, to Victor Martinez, who I felt should have won.

Brandon Curry in 2011:

[Matt]

Does anyone remember this Ironage bodybuilding website?  I read on here that the Ironage webmaster passed away, which is why the website stayed online for some years after his death, without any updates.  I like the basic style of Internet 1.0 websites:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020111181111/http://www.darkwoods.net/bodybuilder/male/bb/

[njflex]

GUSTAVO BADELL,comes to mind he was good and then ran more or better cycles and got mass to hang sorta with cutler and coleman and place higher .

[Matt]

GUSTAVO BADELL,comes to mind he was good and then ran more or better cycles and got mass to hang sorta with cutler and coleman and place higher .

I vividly recall Ironage bodybuilder Gustavo Badell really coming into his own at the 2004 Ironman, and later at the 2004 Mr. Olympia contest, and then the 2005 Mr. Olympia contest, where he placed 3rd at all three shows.  Lee Priest beat him at the 2004 Ironman, where Lee placed 2nd.  That may be another example of what I am talking about - Lee has definitely has his share of screwings in contests, but in that 2004 Ironman, Gustavo kind of came up out of nowhere, and Lee Priest beat him, but Gustavo was so good that he placed 3rd.  Placing higher is hard even for bodybuilders who make huge improvements seemingly out of nowhere, because you are fighting the star power of other bodybuilders - and where Lee Priest may have been screwed in many contests, he has benefitted from favourable placings too at times, even if they are outnumbered by the times he was placed lower than he deserved.

I can't recall exactly...but perhaps that 2004 Ironman is an example where Lee's brand landed him in 2nd place to Dexter Jackson, when perhaps Lee and Gustavo should have been switching placings, but Gustavo was still too unknown at the time.  Gustavo really made a splash at that contest, and had a good few years after that as a result.

I suppose it's impossible for judges to be completely unbiased.  But then you have ridiculous things happen, like King Kamali place 4th in the 2006 Montreal Pro to Dennis Wolf's 5th place at the same contest.  How can anyone explain that one?