I always found the joking to basile to be funny and deserved, but never understood the downright hate for the man.
If you look at his total online record, he is funny when he is trying not to be, intelligent(sometimes too smart for his own good which gets him into trouble) and he is a legendary getbigger, more so than 90% of us who insult the man.
I don't think he is bitter, I just think he is a guy who just blurts what he thinks and does not sugarcoat what he saw in his own opinion with bodybuilding. Honestly sometimes I think the people who run bodybuilding are more thinned skinned than the people who compete, and that says alot.
Gotta give the guy credit, back in the day he got offered to get more success in bodybuilding by selling his soul(ie pose for fa gs, kissing ass etc) and walked away from it.
The guy competed, owned gyms, helped with shows/promoting, took some of the legendary photos of the day and designed equipment. Certainly even if getbig thinks he does not deserve competitor blue stars he certainly deserves expert stars beside his name as he has done more expert wise than most of the people here with expert tags that I have seen that are mostly schmoes who never even competed or anything.