Apparently, you didn't comprehend what I said. My initial statement was that Ray was too small in 1994, according to those judges. He was told he needed to be a bit bigger but keep his proportions; but he never did that in the mid 90s.
And that ties into the whole claim that Ronnie was simply a "dumb" guy who just did what he was told by his nutritionist/guru.
My point was (and remains) that Ronnie was SMART. Unlike Shawn Ray, he took the criticisms from the judges and his nutritionist. He needed to be bigger; he got bigger; he won the Olympia, leap-frogging over all the top guys.....including Shawn Ray.
Actually, Shawn was on record saying he did try to go up in weight, it was just that he couldn’t hold his condition and did worse, I think he went up to 215 at one point which affected his conditioning, so he reverted back to his 205/210 weight
Ronnie is a different beast, his physique and structure allowed him to carry more weight but still, his best was 1998/1999 and Arnold classic 2001
2003/2004 although bigger he wasn’t as sharp and unlike many others opinions I didn’t like those two years of Ronnie, massive , yes, and I saw Ronnie all the time in 2003 when he prepped for the O, so I saw his physique in person
I think you are misinterpreting what I mean when I said ronnie is dumb, what I mean is he didn’t even know what gear he was putting inside his body or what foods/carbs/proteins he was doing, he simply was just doing it, and I’m speaking from my encounters with Ronnie in person. I remember a short conversation I heard from him and Gus, the guy that was in his vids, and amateur competitor. Gus asked him something about dosages and Ronnie replied, “I don’t know, whatever Chad has me on and what to do, I just do it.” Does that sound like a smart guy? Haha 😂 Nice guy, yes, very laid back and chill, I give him that
Guys like Dorian and Shawn were meticulous and knew the science , and in and outs of gear, diet, everything. Shawn’s physique and limitations on genetics compared to Ronnie is a moot point, cause that’s out of his control. The guy was 5’7 in the era of mass monsters, there’s nothing he could have done better because he wasn’t made to carry massive amounts of weight no matter what he did. Same for flex wheeler