Yep, he paid the piper. And yes 98 Coleman is the best (minus the gyno). Then 01 Arnold Classic Coleman. All around 245-252. I always wonder why guys feel they need to continue to pack on muscle after they've become Mr. O. Yates and Coleman being the biggest offenders. Even McGough when he was with FLEX Mag said the 03 Coleman was obviously bigger but he didn't believe it was better. Looking back I don't see how anyone could make a valid argument against that statement.
My theory is Yates ushered in the mass monster era, but didn't bring it to its zenith. Ronnie did that. He made his selling point the fact that he could hold, proportionally, more muscle on his frame than anyone else. After that, he couldn't turn the clock back and lower the dosages to downsize to his best weight for his height. It developed its own dynamic after 2000 and he was basically a prisoner to his own invented selling point.
Munzer's thing was being ripped to make up for modest size (compared to the others).
Ruhl's was his massive upper body.
These guys all find an angle to try to set themselves apart from the rest, and destroy their bodies in the process. That's the problem with bodybuilding. It's not about letting the best man win. It's about finding something unusual and exaggerating it out of all proportion so you can look different in the judges' eyes to the other 20 thong-wearing freaks on stage.
