Sergio is the ONLY person to blame for a poor showing, no one else. Ultimately he is responsible for his actions. He looked good in 84 albeit not his former glory but still good , 10 ten after a long lay-off of competition is nothing to scoff at but let's be realistic he wasn't going to win
Precisely.
May he rest in peace, but Sergio wasn't a particularly sharp guy or, from what I've gathered, at all disciplined when it came to bodybuilding. His idea of "dieting" was to eat a lot of burgers, french fries and pancakes covered in maple syrup, followed up by gallons of cold Coca-Cola and pizzas.
Many have also attested to his "haphazard" training; some days, he'd come chase a pump for maybe 30 min. with light weights, get distracted by some gym bunny and then abandon his workout to go try and smooth-talk her (the very idea, LOL ... of course, looking like El Poder Negro, maybe he didn't
need to talk much game to score mad pussy. There are always those silly mudshark bitches out there, like Amanda Bynes, who are all curious about the black dick).
OTOH, then you have guys like Arnold who swore Sergio was ridiculously strong and could easily plop down and flat bench 405 for 12+ no problemo -- but getting him to actually DO that was probably more effort on your part than he'd actually put into the set.
And, of course, there's the infamous tale of Arnold and Sergio in a "pose-off," both tired, both about ready to walk offstage. Arnold leaned to Sergio, said he'd had enough and started to walk offstage. Sergio, like a big dope, followed ... only Arnold walked
back onto the stage and continued posing, as if to say, "BOOM! Look at dis hunk o' man, somethin' like dat'."
Oops. Got my bodybuilding references mixed up. But what Matty Ferringo said will do well enough. Arnold exposed Oliva for the lazy dummy he was.
We can talk what-ifs all fucking day long, but IF Sergio had the drive of someone like Dorian Yates and someone to properly direct his drug use and diet, he would've been unstoppable until he suffered a very serious injury.
Personally, I think Steve Reeves was of barely average intelligence at best. To me, then, he was kind of dumb. His most profound statement vis-a-vis weight training was, "No brain, no gain." Wow. I kneel before steeps of his deeply-sunken, forever shaded eyes and mightily-jutting brow for such insight
But as stupidly simple as it is, just like Lee Haney's "stimuhlate, don'ts annihilate!" credo, most every major champ that's come down the pike since Yates has been side-lined by injury or some similar kind of fuck-up. Coleman, Cutler. And that Dominican dude spent time behind bars. Dexter finally aged out and Kai fucked a grapefruit, so I doubt they'll ever give the title to him injury or no.