Ramy absolutely destroying Phil from the front. Phil does beat him from the back, but it’s not as glaring as Ramy’s shoulder structure being far superior to Phil. Ramy also has abs without the bubble gut and penoris. Shouldn’t even be debatable that Ramy looks far superior to Heath.
There you go. Sure the back counts for a lot but it's an exaggeration to say that judges tend to favor those with the best back. It's only one half of the body and I don't even think it's more important than the front. You are mostly looking at a bodybuilders front, any person's front. I think this thinking came from the Dorian and Coleman era. But Jay wasn't known for his back and neither was Dexter. And both Dorian and Coleman utterly dominated the competition from the back. Phil does not bury Ramy from the back. And if you've seen recent pics of Ramy that back more than holds it own. That Nick guy who lives for this stuff claims the currently improvement pictured is "Dorian-est". Maybe, but Ramy keeps improving. Phil is not.
Phil has some very strong points. Of course, he has, he been the Mr. Olympia seven times in a row now.
That back, and of course his arms, and I think his quads are perfectly proportioned with calves to match.
But he has such glaring flaws. Of course the shoulder width he is cursed with and can't do much about.
In front shots, his head looks so big. And then there's that glazed over bubble gut. He can't get his abs to come out sharp anymore.
Maybe judges do overly favor the back shots and score it higher overall. But I think that might be changing and that they are focusing more on the guts now because it's just gotten out of hand and the public is sick of it.
We can only hope.
Look how Phil's abs has glazed over. Doesn't even have a clear four pack anymore let alone a six pack.
Phil has some very strong points but he now has some very glaring and important weak points. We tolerate judges overlooking weak calves now we're supposed to ignore the most prominent feature of the upper body.
