Greg Kovacs - Downfall in Pictures

[Nirvana]

Who's the schmoe in the background taking pictures of Ruhls ass?

busted

[Donny]

busted

Great find 

[oldgolds]

Smith Machine incline presses with 600LBS, and he still didn't have massive pecs. How is that possible?

Cause inclines work the anterior deltoids.

[Skylge]

Kovacs should have stuck with big weights/powerlifting stuff and marketing his size. Competing in bodybuilding is very bad for your health: it chemically requires things that are useless everywhere else: extreme vascularity, dryness and hardness

[Davidtheman100]

Kovacs should have stuck with big weights/powerlifting stuff and marketing his size. Competing in bodybuilding is very bad for your health: it chemically requires things that are useless everywhere else: extreme vascularity, dryness and hardness

Not if you do it the right way...Powerlifting wouldn't be a walk in the park either...He had trouble wiping his ass on his own at his contest weight...Imagine him at 20+% bf about 50+ lbs heavier than that...How much he would have to eat....His body would not be able to handle that too long...

[Fallsview]

Gregg was a huge guy...his arms were bigger than my head. I think it was 1995 I came to Toronto for some business and met up with an old girlfriend. Her friends were having a BBQ, I believe it was in Thorold Ontario but not sure. I only knew a couple of her friends and asked her about the huge guy sitting with the woman by themselves. She said she went to school with him and he's a huge steroid user...her words. I have never seen someone that big and he barely fit into the white plastic lawn chairs. But anyways, he went up and got a piece of BBQ chicken and walked back over to his girl. Now we were all standing up talking in groups and all of a sudden Gregg was hunched over, looking like he was clearing his throat. The woman was just standing up next to him looking at him and asking what was wrong. He then stood up straight, huffing and puffing and then smacked the plastic cup of diet soda he had on the table. It went across the yard about 20 feet hitting another guy who was standing talking with his back turned to friends in the legs. He then walked out of the party looking pretty pissed with the woman trying to keep up. Our only guess is that he was choking from the dry chicken breast but no one was paying attention to him and we had no clue why the girl he was with never helped him.   

That was my first contact with Gregg. I met him several other times where he really didn't say much...as usual. People would come up and want photos with Gregg but he sometimes denied them and when he did, they had to be on his left side to the camera he refused to pose showing his right bicep or chest shot. 

[The Abdominal Snoman]

In retrospect it seemed like he had a short ride.  Was he happy in life?  Love?  Fulfilled?  Don't think he had any kids.  Aside from his parents did anyone care about him?  What did he leave behind?  Some muscletech ads?  Can't recall him ever coming in second or third place . . . never mind winning even one big show.  Dead at 44... and for what?

Bah!

Reports were that he couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without being completely out of breath...There's no one on Earth who is happy living like that...

[SquidVicious]

Word on the streets of Caracas is that Gregg's visit there in 2003 was the cause the nations toilet paper shortage that continues to this day. RIP Charmin.

[andreisdaman]

Word on the streets of Caracas is that Gregg's visit there in 2003 was the cause the nations toilet paper shortage that continues to this day. RIP Charmin.

  Good one

[Raymondo]

Rare photos of Greg

There is a picture of him at 19 bench pressing 585. His early pictures also show a very respectable bodybuilding physique.

[Skylge]

Not if you do it the right way...Powerlifting wouldn't be a walk in the park either...He had trouble wiping his ass on his own at his contest weight...Imagine him at 20+% bf about 50+ lbs heavier than that...How much he would have to eat....His body would not be able to handle that too long...

True. Powerlifting probably is very risky for joints/lower back etc. Why did he have to eat that much? Not because he was so active that he burned though that many cals per day? So a chemical reason?

[pellius]

I do not understand what drives any man over the age of 33 or so to kill himself & leave his children orphans all to hope to win a $5 plastic trophy proving nothing of any real value.  Life goes by so fast bb'ing is simply not worth it.  Chicks don't give a shit. 

You really think that all a pro bodybuilder wins is a $5 plastic trophy?

[da_vinci]

I love lifting, I love gear, but I don't care about competing and it just blows my mind trying to imagine the amounts guys like Greg were pumping into the body. My 500mg test "blasts" suddently seem like a childs play.. Lookig at these pics brings some kind of strange oldshool feeling, it must've been very different during that time, very small circle activity with some very extreme minded guys. It is extreme today, no doubt, but I'd like to believe that today guys have more knowledge and conscience while usign massive amounts of drugs. Greg doesn;t look healthy in any of his later pics, he probably was already insecure about the flaws that became more apparent and tried to overcome that by upping the doses even more. Your typical oldschool antisocial big insecure fella, counting his meals, living and breathing an activity that probably was a personal "escape" from reality that he did not like, it was the substitution for it, an accomplishment, something that made him "respected".

[SuperTed]

I always used to feel sorry for him. He seemed like a really nice guy but you could tell that he always felt inadequate no matter how big he got.
I remember OTH saying how he saw Greg rep out 400lbs on the bench like it was nothing. A legit behemoth for sure.

[Raymondo]

I always use to feel sorry for him. He seemed like a really nice guy but you could tell that he always felt inadequate to matter how big he got.
I remember OTH saying how he saw Greg rep out 400lbs on the bench like it was nothing. A legit behemoth for sure.

A common story about Greg is the one about a powerlifting contest he went to when he was young. He was just in the crowd, not competing. The winner benched 500lbs then Greg came out from backstage sat on the bench and pressed the bar 19 times.

[da_vinci]

A common story about Greg is the one about a powerlifting contest he went to when he was young. He was just in the crowd, not competing. The winner benched 500lbs then Greg came out from backstage sat on the bench and pressed the bar 19 times.

After that he demonstrated a legit levitation, just hovered above the ground for good 20 seconds. crazy shit.

[SuperTed]

A common story about Greg is the one about a powerlifting contest he went to when he was young. He was just in the crowd, not competing. The winner benched 500lbs then Greg came out from backstage sat on the bench and pressed the bar 19 times.

I think some of the stories surrounding Greg were made up by MuscleTech in order to boost his image and thus, their products. He would have been ridiculously strong though - the sheer size of the guy combined with the amount of drugs he was using would have made sure of that. I remember reading somewhere that he never use to squat or deadlift, which makes it hard to gauge how successful he would have been at powerlifting or strongman.

[Fortress]

A common story about Greg is the one about a powerlifting contest he went to when he was young. He was just in the crowd, not competing. The winner benched 500lbs then Greg came out from backstage sat on the bench and pressed the bar 19 times.

So the exaggerations begin.

I believe it was 420 or something; not 500.

I knew Greg. Ate with him. Even hit a workout with the guy. Him, Nasser and me.

Paul Gardiner of MuscleTech stretched the truth about Kovacs' strength capabilities. The man was STRONG, but nowhere what was stated in all those MMI articles.

At an Arnold, Kazmaier and Coan told Greg he should enter a powerlifting meet if he's as strong as is claimed. That his feats would instantly place him amongst the elite of the sport.

Of course, this was never gonna happen.

His thing was the Smith machine, leg press, etc. Like I say, a colossally strong man, but far from an ability to run with guys like Bill and Ed. Perhaps if he had trained towards that end. Who knows.

He was a true giant. Always appeared uncomfortable, though. At around 400 pounds, this would seem about right. The dude was simply staggering in sheer body mass and muscular bulk.

[BBSSchlemiel]

A common story about Greg is the one about a powerlifting contest he went to when he was young. He was just in the crowd, not competing. The winner benched 500lbs then Greg came out from backstage sat on the bench and pressed the bar 19 times.

This might yield an estimate of a mid-700s  raw bench press, which at the time of this supposed powerlifting contest was not done yet. Actually, if memory serves me correctly, the current raw record is 722 pounds.