RIP - Tom Prince - 02-05-22

[Rambone]

i would think an older man with money can do better than some washed up old convicted felon that was maybe a 5 at her best to begin with

E

I think you’re right

[Matt C]

I think you’re right

Rambone - you are NOT Japanese.

You are NOT a Tanaka!  This is a Tanaka:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_Tanaka

[Rambone]

Rambone - you are NOT Japanese.

You are NOT a Tanaka!  This is a Tanaka:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_Tanaka

“Okay, Thunder Bay!”









WooooooooSHHHHHH TA NA KA

[OneMoreRep]

A lot of people also don't know what Tom sounded like in real life. As opposed to what his forum picture would suggest, Tom was very soft spoken.

"1"

[wes]

How does jack daniels help you get ripped?

Help to dehydrate you to an extant plus helps to bring out vascularity.

[Humble Narcissist]

Help to dehydrate you to an extant plus helps to bring out vascularity.

Doesn't wine work better?

[Irongrip400]

Can someone give me a quick run down or when Tom turned pro, when he had the transplant/kidney failure, and when/what he looked like when he did his come back? Also, it was said he didn’t finish that contest. Was it due to some sort of fallout on stage like Dillet? Thanks.

[Dave D]

Nineties (or today's) builders do not work or train harder than Arnold or his contemporaries.
They just do more (and different sorts of) gear.

Tom Prince said in an interview that bodybuilding for him was not a full time job. In his prime he trained for 1 hour per day, and that was it.

Sorry Sky, you were right I was wrong.

I just watched the video OMR posted and Tom said he trained an hour a day while training to become a pro.


He also said he had an 85k a year deal with Metrx as an amateur. I wonder why he did the Colt shoot if he a good sponsorship deal?

[Primemuscle]

I know this is off topic but related to the link above (Titus murder), but what ever happened to Kelly Ryan? I googled and saw that she's out of jail but didn't know where she is or what she's doing or how she's making a living.

Without a doubt, she's keeping an extremely low profile.

[beakdoctor]

Help to dehydrate you to an extant plus helps to bring out vascularity.

Ahhh. Thanks.

[Matt C]

Can someone give me a quick run down or when Tom turned pro, when he had the transplant/kidney failure, and when/what he looked like when he did his come back? Also, it was said he didn’t finish that contest. Was it due to some sort of fallout on stage like Dillet? Thanks.

Hey Irongrip400,

Sure, I can do that:

Tom turned pro in 1997, by winning the heavyweight and overall at the 1997 NPC Nationals.  Some say he should have turned pro the year before, in 1996, where he placed 2nd at the NPC USA Championships.  Tom also placed 2nd in the heavyweights at the Nationals in 1996, but Jay Cutler beat him.  Tom was able to get his contract with Met-RX in 1996, despite not being pro yet - which really goes to show how good he was at the time, to be signed before he even turned pro.

Tom was diagnosed with kidney failure around Spring of 2003, but possibly a little sooner.  As for the kidney transplant - I'm not 100% certain on that...but from what I can recall, he was on the "RX Power Hour" radio show on RXMuscle.com in 2011, and at that time, he had already received his kidney transplant, as far as I am aware.

Unfortunately, it did not hold.  So...at some point in the past decade, he went back to dialysis.

Regarding Tom's comeback contest, that was at the 2004 Ironman Pro.  No one knows what Tom looked like at that contest, because there are no pictures of Tom.  Allegedly, his lungs started filling with fluid on the day of the contest, and Tom was forced to pull out.  At the time, on the now-defunct MuscleMayhem.com message board, Tom said that he felt he could have placed very well had he been able to continue [I think he said top three, which I read to mean 3rd place...as I can't imagine him doing better than 3rd...at the same time, I can't imagine how he could have beaten Gustavo Badell who placed 3rd that year].

I personally felt it was crazy for Tom to compete in that contest, but the explanation that he gave on MuscleMayhem was that he needed to give and ending to his 18-year story as a bodybuilder.  And had he not competed, he would have never known if he was able to do it one last time.

So who knows?  I think that reasoning is silly, given his health state at the time, but I suppose I can understand how as a professional bodybuilder, he wanted to give it one last chance.

Here is that 2011 Rx Power Hour radio show that Tom was on where he goes into details about many things:

http://rxmuscle.com/strongman/rx-power-hour/2997-jefftheproducer-rxpowerhour.html

Tom was a well-spoken man.  I definitely think he sounded intelligent enough to have a Master's degree in English Lit...he just, oddly enough, wasn't a great speller, lol.

[Rusty Trombone]

A lot of people also don't know what Tom sounded like in real life. As opposed to what his forum picture would suggest, Tom was very soft spoken.

"1"

Haha is that Chicko interviewing him?

[Matt C]

Haha is that Chicko interviewing him?

Yep - that's Bob Cicherillo.

I must say - Tom sounded different in person than you would expect based on his pictures/physique.  He was soft-spoken, for sure.  He was also fairly articulate.  I think he sounded smart, but wasn't a great writer...which is why I think the claims of him having a Master's degree in English Lit don't make sense.

[Spike]

Sorry Sky, you were right I was wrong.

I just watched the video OMR posted and Tom said he trained an hour a day while training to become a pro.


He also said he had an 85k a year deal with Metrx as an amateur. I wonder why he did the Colt shoot if he a good sponsorship deal?

going to take a stab at this one BUT I would assume the audience at the Mr Olympia isn't made up of females - they aren't the ones buying used posing trunks , photo shoot pics, or even colt mags

Tommy know his audience , like most pro bb'er do , and you pander/cater to them --

one would assume that a pro bb'er would make just as much money doing covers for romance novels ??  or modeling underwear ??  how the fuck the Fabio get so much money ?? was he g4P - why don't pros follow his path and stop the gay stuff

[Rambone]

Haha is that Chicko interviewing him?

One of the heavy-hitters of bodybuilding. Fair and honest bodybuilding journalism at its finest

[Taffin]

Tom turned pro in 1997, by winning the heavyweight and overall at the 1997 NPC Nationals.  Some say he should have turned pro the year before, in 1996, where he placed 2nd at the NPC USA Championships.  Tom also placed 2nd in the heavyweights at the Nationals in 1996, but Jay Cutler beat him.  Tom was able to get his contract with Met-RX in 1996, despite not being pro yet - which really goes to show how good he was at the time, to be signed before he even turned pro.

God - remember how hard it was to get a Pro card back then?  There used to be a real buzz about who'd pull it off each year.  Now I see so many people on IG with their username appended in this kind of manner John/JaneDoe-ifbb_pro that it seems commonplace

[Matt C]

God - remember how hard it was to get a Pro card back then?  There used to be a real buzz about who'd pull it off each year.  Now I see so many people on IG with their username appended in this kind of manner John/JaneDoe-ifbb_pro that it seems commonplace

Yes!  I absolutely remember the days.  In fact, I remember Greg Kovacs posting on Facebook saying the same thing - I think in Canada when he turned pro [1996] that it may have only been the overall CBBF champion who won.  So basically a country of almost 30 million people at the time, and here we were with only one IFBB pro card given out each year.

That's why Shawn Ray said "Welcome to the club" to Tom Prince when he turned pro, which is an expression that Tom later said to other pros [such as Frank McGrath on the MuscleMayhem message board, before it melted down to nothing].

Speaking of everyone on Instagram being IFBB pros - hahahaha...that is so true - I recall formally rotund movie star Ethan Suplee stating that he lost weight through the help of "IFBB pro Jared Feather".

Having never heard of this "pro", I had to check him out.  And just as I suspected, he is one of the many new pro cards awarded these days, for the Men's Physique Category:

https://www.instagram.com/jared_feather/

Don't get me wrong - he has a great physique, and it's not like a guy like this wouldn't know what he is doing...I mean, what's the difference between him and an IFBB pro, aside from more gear?:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZEIUChrvET/

^ He even explains in that post why he doesn't want to go in the open class, and his reasoning is sound.

These days, "IFBB pro" just doesn't mean as much though.

I mean, what next, the "Health Look" class, with a Master's [40-45] division, where I could be the only competitor locally, getting me to provincials, where I compete against two other guys aged 45, win, go to Nationals, then lose, but win the next year?

A situation like that actually DID happen to someone I know - he was the only person who competed locally, and was only 1 of 3 guys competing provincially, so he went to Nationals.  He's not a pro yet...but give it until the next CBBF Nationals, and nothing would surprise me.

Ron Harris was stating that he wanted a pro card, having competed so long, and given that pro cards are given so freely now.  John Meadows got his pro card this way also, by winning the NPC Master's Universe.  Meanwhile, back in the day, you had guys like Jeff King winning the Universe, and he wasn't even able to get a pro card, without going through the full process again:

[Humble Narcissist]

Jeff King was a pro, just not IFBB pro.

[Rambone]

God - remember how hard it was to get a Pro card back then?  There used to be a real buzz about who'd pull it off each year.  Now I see so many people on IG with their username appended in this kind of manner John/JaneDoe-ifbb_pro that it seems commonplace

TaffinDoe-ifbb_bro










Bro!

[njflex]

Yes!  I absolutely remember the days.  In fact, I remember Greg Kovacs posting on Facebook saying the same thing - I think in Canada when he turned pro [1996] that it may have only been the overall CBBF champion who won.  So basically a country of almost 30 million people at the time, and here we were with only one IFBB pro card given out each year.

That's why Shawn Ray said "Welcome to the club" to Tom Prince when he turned pro, which is an expression that Tom later said to other pros [such as Frank McGrath on the MuscleMayhem message board, before it melted down to nothing].

Speaking of everyone on Instagram being IFBB pros - hahahaha...that is so true - I recall formally rotund movie star Ethan Suplee stating that he lost weight through the help of "IFBB pro Jared Feather".

Having never heard of this "pro", I had to check him out.  And just as I suspected, he is one of the many new pro cards awarded these days, for the Men's Physique Category:

https://www.instagram.com/jared_feather/

Don't get me wrong - he has a great physique, and it's not like a guy like this wouldn't know what he is doing...I mean, what's the difference between him and an IFBB pro, aside from more gear?:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZEIUChrvET/

^ He even explains in that post why he doesn't want to go in the open class, and his reasoning is sound.

These days, "IFBB pro" just doesn't mean as much though.

I mean, what next, the "Health Look" class, with a Master's [40-45] division, where I could be the only competitor locally, getting me to provincials, where I compete against two other guys aged 45, win, go to Nationals, then lose, but win the next year?

A situation like that actually DID happen to someone I know - he was the only person who competed locally, and was only 1 of 3 guys competing provincially, so he went to Nationals.  He's not a pro yet...but give it until the next CBBF Nationals, and nothing would surprise me.

Ron Harris was stating that he wanted a pro card, having competed so long, and given that pro cards are given so freely now.  John Meadows got his pro card this way also, by winning the NPC Master's Universe.  Meanwhile, back in the day, you had guys like Jeff King winning the Universe, and he wasn't even able to get a pro card, without going through the full process again:

TRUE MATT.....go into any nationals or usa in 90's and count in the classes how many future pros were in there and were taking 10 place or lower and took few turns to get in..

[wes]

Doesn't wine work better?

I`ve heard it does but I think it`s the alcohol no matter what form you ingest it in that does it.

[wes]

Ron Harris didn`t do all that many contests,and nothing against him but he would have never made pro unless he was the only guy in the show....I did a couple contests with him in Boston.....Meadows was far superior

A far as Jeff King goes, correct... in essence  he said fuck Weider.

[Walter Sobchak]

TRUE MATT.....go into any nations or usa in 90's and count in the classes how many future pros were in there and were taking 10 place or lower and took few turns to get in..

Shit….remember what Liedelmeyer and Mendenhall went through trying to get their Pro Cards?

[wes]

Shit….remember what Liedelmeyer and Mendenhall went through trying to get their Pro Cards?

^^^The caliber of competiition in their weight/height classes was insane....now they give human bags of shit a fucking card.

[AbrahamG]

^^^The caliber of competiition in their weight/height classes was insane....now they give human bags of shit a fucking card.

@Wes - For the Masters Nationals, do the top two placers of each class get pro cards or do you have to win your class?