Brandon Curry at the 2011 Toronto Pro where he placed 3rd.
It's interesting looking back as bodybuilders climb up the ranks, how in some ways they look better even at times when they were much less competitive and placed much lower. In some cases, there are examples like Branch Warren and Dennis Wolf, who were placing low early on in their careers, yet had much better placings later in their careers when Palumboism was setting in. A good example of exactly that would be when Branch Warren won the 2012 Arnold Classic, beating Dennis Wolf, when most people disagreed with that decision.
Then, in the few years to follow that, Dennis Wolf started to get such gift placings, placing 4th in the 2015 Mr. Olympia, when he placed 5th in the 2007 Mr. Olympia, and looked better in 2007 by just about any objective standard.
I guess judges notice when bodybuilders get the shaft [when they don't get the elevator to the ice machine on floor 7 of the Mirage Hotel], and then start to get placings that are undeserved because judges see that previously unknown or lesser known bodybuilders effectively "paid their dues", and start to sort of retroactively make it up to them with undeserved better placings, due to undeserved lower places earlier in their careers. I'm not exactly sure how any judge with eyes wouldn't have noticed that Dennis Wolf looked amazing in 2007 though. In my opinion, Dennis Wolf was 2nd that year, to Victor Martinez, who I felt should have won.
Brandon Curry in 2011: