At the time, was there good reason to believe he would do as well as he did?
Personally, I felt Hadi was bound to make the top four. Honestly, I did not see him winning. But I never thought he would get destroyed.
Regarding Dennis James' point - did Big Ramy look the same in both 2021 and 2022?
At the time no one had him winning MrO but people believed he'd stack up well in the open. Bob had him not even making the top 10
Hadi was a "big" 212 guy. The other 212 guys would all watch him weigh in as they couldn't believe someone so big could weigh 212. They'd joke that he must have hollow bones. He also sacrificed like 10 lbs of muscle to make weight. He is wide, has monster quads and is roughly the same height as guys like Bonac, Dexter and Branch. The argument that he'd look out of place in the open class were weak.
Hadi could also bring in a level of conditioning that's rarely seen in open bodybuilding and he had a crazy vacuum, both wow factors. If you knew all this or had it pointed out to you even by guys (Jose Raymond) who competed against Hadi, would you still argue like Bob did that Hadi wouldn't even make top 10 at MrO and should stick to 212?