Bodybuilding, in its competitive vehicle, is just not very exciting.
Oiled folks in thongs flexing muscles.
When I was a competitor, and in the vortex of my obsession, I didn’t see the whole thing for what it is: a giant bore.
I’d imagine there needs to be constant “surprises” (not Dickerson belting out opera) and better and more varied events to pad the central thong battle.
As others say, strength feats/events, right on the main stage.
But I don’t know.
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Effectively, the take home is this: What do you do to enhance a fundamentally boring freakshow that lasts for days, well after the moment where you're entertained by the oddness?
Less of it, more varied stuff.
I think some may disagree with this, but it doesn't make sense to me that some of the real top end strength stuff that happens at these comps, happens away from the main event. People can always watch someone go for more weight or something interesting like that - it's a sport. That could also be a laboured point, but there's always that "will he / she get it"? thing. At least some intrigue.
The actual pageantry is dry as fuck. So instead of pooling all the varied things they could do, they stick to having thonged brutes waddle out and pose for X minutes, each. If the promoters want to grow their events, they have to accept that their product has about a five minute attention span from the average person and work on keeping that attention span going. Bodybuilding has no chance of ever being mainstream as a spectator thing. There is way too much of it. Why did pumping iron get so popular? We see fuck all of the actual competitions, with good reason. It has no context and it isn't interesting above perhaps viewing the top 3 guys.
People have really alluded to it already. Maybe, just maybe, bodybuilding and competitions in general is being held back by the fact that it still relies on extending out the freakshow as the centrepiece.
I saw a video of Curry warming up back stage. 1000 times more impressive than watching a man on stage pose with no real context as to how large this fella is. Great example of what I'm talking about.
I have no specific ideas, though - I think it'll just continue to flounder as a cult thing that few people are interested in.
To be perfectly honest. I could more easily watch a 1 hour top 5 comparison thing for all classes, including women, better than watching the extended cut length version of the open class. The differences in the top people are really where you might have some slight intrigue.
