Who's better than Jay Cutler? How many people think if we stuck Jay in a time machine and put him onstage at the 1991 olympia he'd win it? Nothing againts Jay cause I believe he did what he had to do to win by todays standards but he wouldn't win back in 91. The standards are screwed up to say the least. Ronnie and Jay who by all accounts are the 2 top guys right now have no taper what so ever, it's like looking at a fridge with arms and legs. Yeah they're both 300lbs, big whoop they don't fit the model of what history has dictated a mr. o should look like. Dorian did up to a point then the standards started to change, Ronnie kinda broought it back with his first 2 wins but over the last 5 years or so it went out the window. Who fits the standard of what I believe a mr. o should look like? There are guys who didn't even make the top 15 who meet a bunch of the criteria Ronnie Rockel comes to mind so does Dave Henry.
Look at Darrem Charles. Think about this, Darrem was an also ran for years. He's worked really hard and I don't want to take anything away from him but no way should this guy be winning as many pro shows as he is. The over-all quality of pro's these days is waaay down. Same with Gunther, this guy has improved but if he showed up in the exact same shape as he was in when he placed 4th at the olympia for a show 15 years ago he'd still get buried. Structurally he just would not be able to stand on stage with guys like Haney, Labrada, Christian etc.
Markus Ruhl is almost a perfect example of what's wrong with BB right now. Look at pics of him from when he made his pro debut, he was incredible, ripped, seperated, big, hard...the structure was off but he was impressive non the less. Look at him now....we've got a guy who's gigantic but that is at the expense of everything else, no symmetry, he's not seperated at all, not hard, not muscular-compared to a guy like Gaspari from 86ish. Shouldn't he at least be able to match that standard? he was hard as a rock at his pro debut...why not now? Could Ronnie today walk out onstage and stand next to the guy who won the 98 olympia and hit a back shot? No. If you put Mark Dugdale onstge with alot of guys who were in the top 10 at the olympia who better meets the criteria of what a guy on the olympia stage should represent? History dictates it's dugdale but he can't even qualify for the show and people wonder why we have threads about 21 year old guys who are winning open shows looking like they're 40.