Spoke to Robinson backstage at the 76 universe. Even amongst other very good BBs on stage, he stood out. The fact that he never won the olympia proves once again the politics of the show, in fact it's surprising to me that the olympia has any integrity remaining given some of the "wins".
Even in 76 Columbu was never the world's best built man, but thanks to politics there was no Oliva or Nubret, both of whom would've cleaned his clock and beaten Zane as well.
Weider lost most of the top BBs in the late 70s and early 80s to retirement or defection, because they were tired of working hard to no avail. Padilla, Szkalak were top guys who left, as well as Mentzer, Robinson, etc. If Weider had played it fairly the olympia would've been far more interesting well into the 80s, with some strong rivalries created and sustained that were otherwise cut short thanks to his nonsense.
The classic argument trottered out here and elsewhere for Zane beating Robinson was conditioning. While this was true in 77, it wasn't true the following year but remains the standard excuse for Zane's win, as seen here.
http://www.dailymotion.com/search/mr.%252Bolympia/video/x2s3jd_mr-olympia-1978_extreme Bottom line for some who should've won but didn't, such as Robinson and Fox is that Weider wanted good spokesmen for the "sport", which is entirely understandable but not part of the judging criterion. It should be because it's a clear factor. Fox would've won outright in 83 had he been shredded, but even a little smooth he was still one of the top two or three on stage at the very least-as proportioned and cut as Samir but bigger, and clearly better than Haney-once again they went with the more eloquent BBs.
Grymko was interesting but never a serious contender thanks to a lack of proportion (arms overpowered by delts and torso, wide waist, legs lacking) and an absence of aesthetics or detail. What i'll remember him most for were the first-ever in depth roid/gh articles he was part of in Muscle in the later 70s.
