Dorian represents a lot of what went wrong with bodybuilding. Bodybuilding used to be about male beauty in the body and the face and he didn't really have either...in the bonus section of the Mike Mentzer HIT video, both the Mentzer brothers were calling him ugly, lol.
Well, Matt C, I agree partially with you here. Bodybuilding started in ancient Greece as an entertainment done besides sport. It's primary objective was to disply the physical and facial beauty of male youths. The boys would oil up nude and then display their musculature in athletic poses during the Olympics. The boy with the most symmetrical body and face usually wone; muscular development was a secondary consideration - although between boys that were equally symmetrical the most muscular would win.
The Greeks were obsessed with beauty, and beauty is intensely correlated with symmetry - beautiful people are people with symmetrical faces. So this explains why symmetry took precedence. Furthermore, the boys were also judged for their hair texture, skin complexion and other signs of health. Bodybuilding in it's origins was, essentially, a beauty pageant for teenage boys - the ancient Greeks would laugh at a man in his thirties flexing his muscles all oiled up, because adult men were valued for their achievements and not for their prettiness.
The problem, Matt C, is that bodybuilding is no longer a beauty pageant for teenage boys, but rather a freak shown of grown men. In the 1950's, the judges still cared about things like facial symmetry, skin complexion, healthy hair, etc, evidenced by Steve Reeves success, but even then facial symmetry was already considered secondary to physical symmetry and muscularity. In the 1980's, bodybuilding took yet another turn, with even physical symmetry being put aside more and more to muscularity. Lee Labrada and Francis Benfatto couldn't touch Haney despite having far more symmetrical physiques.Both Dorian and Ronnie became Mr.Olympias in an era where all symmetry, even physical, had been almost completely discarded in exchage for muscularity.
Now, you mention Dorian, but I assure you that in the 1950's Ronnie would only be able to win the Mr.Olymnpia in his lighter version around 250 lbs - if the Mr.Olympia contest existed in the 1950's. Ronnie was never the king of symmetry, and his 2003 or 2004 physique would have been regarded as an abomination by the judges: in those days, a man with a gut was not even considered for a physique contest. Period. However, I do agree with you that Dorian wouldn't be able to win the Olympia back in the 1950's in any of his versions. In ancient Greece, both Dorian and Ronnie would never win any physique contest, since they both have ugly, assymetrical faces, are too muscular and neither's physiques would be considered symmetrical b y their standards. In ancient greece, both Dorian and Ronnie would be defeated with straight-firsts scores by
this:
SUCKMYMUSCLE
