one of them prolly did just because he was a pro wrestler already. Maybe they just showed him. But also anyone remember muscle digest? They would have dozens of pix of most everyone in the contests. Rows and columns of them.
Putski indeed got a lot of coverage because of his wrestling status. During the late 70's, early 80's he'd show up a lot just randomly in the mags "Oh look, there's Polish Power, Ivan Putski spotting xyz on the bench....". He was also really good about giving interviews to them, so that probably helped.
That being said, you did seem to have a better chance getting a picture or low place result in the older mags. I remember the old yellow Ironman mags were good for stuff like that. They'd report the contest long form, and occasionally stick a few photos of the low place finishers in there just randomly.
