you can't say that with any certainty. who knows how arnie would have responded to today's drug protocols. maybe he would have burned out early, maybe he would have gotten a giant gut like kovacs. maybe he would never have had good conditioning like today's pros (stage condition then is about 6 weeks out today).
That's a good point.
However, the most potent thing in Arnold's arsenal was probably Primo. No tren, no quality gH, no insulin, no IGF shit ... I could definitely see him carrying a good bit more muscle, and in better condition to boot thanks to the tren, clen, T3 and DNP, than he did in his prime.
I do grant that he didn't improve all that much from 20 to 27. He certainly didn't pull a Ronnie and add 50 lbs. of muscle in that time.
Then again, neither did Ronnie in his twenties. It took him 'til his mid-30s before he really hit his stride, but then he added gobs of muscle (unsightly as they often were; he carried 290 better than most, but the giant ass and gut were out of fucking control at that point) over the next few years.
The only thing I think that might hold Arnold back is his legs. Even with a good bit more beef in his thighs, he could have a kick-ass upper-body and I think his legs might let him down in a more modern competitive setting.
That said, I have to object to the idea that he was just "chest and biceps." His calves were insane, and his back ... well. How many guys in the last Olympia showed more detail and balance in the rear double-biceps than Arnold did in "Pumping Iron," when Waller remarked that Arnie's back looked like a "roadmap with fingers all over it"?
Contests are won by compulsories, and even old school Arnold had some very powerful mandatory poses. As driven as the fucker is/was and with modern drugs, I think he could still very much make an impact, at least from the waist up. Today's bodybuilding wanks off way too much to stupidly big thighs anyway