looks like Chick took home 10k that night (not 15.)
Italian stallion: hey, yo! It was the Bob Cicherillo show at the 2006 Masters Pro World Championships
Flex, July, 2006 by Shawn Perine
With the swagger of Saturday Night Fever's Tony Manero and the charm of Welcome Back, Kotter's Vinnie Barbarino, bodybuilding's smoothest operator, Bob Cicherillo, sauntered off the Tribeca Performing Arts Center stage on April 15 with a check for 10 grand and his first IFBB title: 2006 Masters Professional World bodybuilding champion.
The man who never met a microphone he didn't like brought a full and complete physical package to New York for his first show as an over-40 competitor. Just as important, he displayed a level of confidence commensurate with 27 years of entertaining bodybuilding audiences, both as an athlete and an emcee. Taking a page from Arnold Schwarzenegger's book, Chick painted the perfect picture of confidence, even when lined up against all 24 imposing fellow competitors. Where others fidgeted and shifted weight from foot to foot, Cicherillo remained poised, with chin up and eyes periodically acknowledging friends and fans in the audience.
"It's good to be the king," an exhausted Cicherillo joked between mouthfuls of hamburger au gratin at Tribeca's trendy French eatery, Odeon, in the wee hours following his win.
Although King Chick's ascendance to the ranks of bodybuilding royalty may not have been entirely unexpected--he was a precontest favorite--the rest of his royal court's placings raised more than a few eyebrows, of both audience members and viewers of bodybuilding.com's live webcast.
In the days following the contest, a good deal of talk centered around the plight of Rusty Jeffers. With classic lines, full muscles and a posing routine that paid homage to Frank Zane, Boyer Coe, Ed Corney and Schwarzenegger, Jeffers was a big fan favorite throughout the evening's proceedings. He may have been a tad smooth by today's unforgiving standards, but in a way, Jeffers' lack of freaky detail worked to his advantage by driving home the message that his is a throwback physique--and very much by design. A number of outside observers would later comment that they had him comfortably in the top three. In the end, eighth was his allotted placement. He deserved better.
Jeffers' poor callouts during the day's prejudging may have kept his final placing from being a total surprise, but Nathan Wonsley's finish surely must have had his supporters scratching their heads raw. Wonsley received first callouts in both the symmetry and muscularity rounds, and both were well deserved. He brought his best-ever package to bear in New York and seemed to be headed for a second- or third-place finish after prejudging. He would instead end up sixth.
As for the rest of the best: fifth-place finisher Stan McCrary displayed an incredibly rugged, if not entirely aesthetic, physique--his freaky upper-body mass made him a crowd pleaser. In fourth was the man who had won the IFBB's last over-40 show, 2003 Masters Olympia champion Claude Groulx. No one came to the contest more peeled than the Montreal native. His legs may have been the best in the entire show, but anomalous biceps and lats would keep him from placing higher.
In third was Pavol Jablonicky, who pulled a Jekyll and Hyde. During prejudging, he displayed a physique that was lean and dry, but flat and generally underwhelming. He looked like a top-fiver, but not like a man in contention for first-place honors. Then came nightfall, and an entirely new Jablonicky emerged from the theater wings. This one was full and vascular, while still dry as a bone. Whatever he ate during the five-hour span between prejudging and the finals did the trick. When his placing was announced, the night-show audience, many of whom had not been present that morning for prejudging, vigorously voiced dissatisfaction. If only they had seen the Dr. Jekyll version of the more formidable Mr. Hyde they were viewing, they might have better understood his fate.
In what might have been the show's most unexpected turn of events, Johnny Stewart took the runner-up spot. The 2002 NPC Masters National overall winner is, quite simply, a human fireplug. As wide as he is tall, the man packed more raw mass onto his frame than any other competitor in the show. His underdog status made him a crowd favorite, and as fellow top-five finalists were knocked off, the decibel level raised a notch in anticipation of a historic upset.
It was not to be, however, as the most suave senior in muscledom proved that there's more to Cicherillo than just a well-coiffed 'do and a string of one-liners. There's also a very, very good physique.
BY SHAWN PERINE
SENIOR WRITER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY IAN SPANIER
2006 MASTERS PRO WORLD RESULTS
April 15, 2006; New York, New York
COMPETITOR PRIZE MONEY
1 Bob Cicherillo $10,000
2 Johnny Stewart $4,000
3 Pavol Jablonicky $3,000
4 Claude Groulx $2,000
5 Stan McCrary $1,000
6 Nathan Wonsley
7 John Simmons
8 Rusty Jeffers
9 Joseph Palumbo
10 Alberto Bistocchi
