Better Than the Best

Off Topic
241

Also since someone was rolling with the ‘misquoting’ reference, the entire discussion started with a claim, an ask for a video, a defensive response, and then this quote:

Granted, even Lanky kind of expanded on that with this thread, but that was after it was derailed in the original.

That quote cannot possibly be interpreted in any other way than “the world record holder may not be the world record holder.” It is a claim that there may be at any given time, a person walking the planet THAT IS CURRENTLY(not potentially will be, not would’ve been with different life choices) “Better than the best.”

Sorry, that just doesn’t happen. The Musashi reference earlier in this thread was awesome, but the world is different now. Barring some very obscure pursuits of life, this just isn’t possible, and I would absolutely stand by that statement.

242

[quote]Quick Ben wrote:
Reading all this and the thread where it started has been mildly entertaining. One has to applaud a guy who writes over 30k posts on a message board, and THEN starts trolling. lol

I mean the guy is clearly not stupid, but yet will defend this kind of ridiculousness to the death? Trolling.

and when he totally backs himself into a corner? aah fuck it, ignore ignore. Next thread please…

Troll. A very dedicated troll, but green and hairy all the same.[/quote]

He’s not trolling, he does this shit every single day. This is who he is. Professor X has been posting on this damn message board for so fucking long that he expects, yes EXPECTS, everything he says to go without question.

Honestly, I think he just needs to be banned. He ruins the entire atmosphere of the forums. Every time he posts the thread is completely derailed and an argument starts over some bullshit thing he says. He’s not funny, closet racist, and HIS PHYSIQUE IS NOT EVEN IMPRESSIVE. He weighs damn near 300 pounds, of which 210 MIGHT be lean body mass. If he ever dieted down (which he wont, because the truth about his bodybuilding prowess makes him insecure) he’d be put to shame by a bunch of guys here.

Plus it’d be for his own good. Dude is in his 30s, no family, no friends. His entire world revolves around this message board. I might feel bad for him if he wasn’t such a flaming douche.

243

[quote]lemonman456 wrote:

[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:
Cliff notes?[/quote]
Durrrrr!![/quote]

Why, thank you. I understand what’s going on now. Carry on.

244

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]anonym wrote:

[quote]cueball wrote:
But I have to mention that Lew wrote “for 6-15”. You guys calling BS have gone straight to the end of range to argue with, though. Do you guys calling BS have as much problem with 495x6? If his working rep range was 6-15 and that’s all he was really talking about was a rep range, then maybe he never actually hit 15 for that top set. Granted, he hasn’t come back to qualify it in that manner though.[/quote]

One man’s ‘qualifying’ is another man’s ‘back pedaling’.

That boat has long since set sail, though.

The rest of the debate is rubbish because the people arguing against underground street ball phenoms are making an argument more analogous to Lew’s claim, whereas the people saying that there are individuals out there with potential who never follow through on it for one reason or another are arguing something completely different.

The latter has nothing to do with someone actually existing who can actually do better than the best.[/quote]

Good post…but if they accept that, then there is nothing left to argue about.

I think we can all see what the goal is.[/quote]

Umm. I know verbal skills are not your strong suit but yea… He didnt agree with you.

But I guess that’s as close as itll get to you admitting that you changed the topic to make up your own argument. [/quote]

He wasn’t agreeing with either of us…and the fact still stands that if people understood what he wrote and really understood what I wrote from the start, this thread would not exist.

But hey, feel free to keep up the “hate”.[/quote]

I actually agree with both ‘sides’.

I absolutely believe that there is a very strong possibility that for any given sport or endeavor, there is an individual out there in the world who is/was CAPABLE - whether they recognize(d) it or not - of achieving GOAT status. Whether they have/had a promising start and lost steam along the way for whatever reason (interests/priorities change, injury, etc.) or never even took a real step in the direction of their “calling” (maybe another activity paid more or held more interest), you can sure as shit believe I don’t think this is a ridiculous belief to hold.

Which was Professor X’s point.

That being said, it’s also just as ridiculous to believe that there are people out there who have pursued their interest to such a degree that they can DESTROY the current records and champions of that activity… yet choose to not do so for one reason or another. The level of skill and talent in virtually any activity - ESPECIALLY the ones where millions of bucks, fame and poon are not only available but THROWN at the best - is such that NO ONE can achieve that status without thousands of hours of disciplined practice and a fanatical eye on being the absolute best.

And who the fuck puts in that kind of effort without wanting to capitalize? You put that much time into something you love and are GREAT at… it’s nuts to think there are people who NOT ONLY wouldn’t do whatever they can to make that their career, but would be content to have NEVER BEEN HEARD OF.

Which is the point of the ‘other side’.

Two very different arguments. While I agree with both, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that Professor X’s scenario isn’t relevant to the discussion of Lew being the strongest bencher of all time, which is where I think the confusion lies.

tl:dr fuck y’all I’m on Adderall right now.

245

[quote]red04 wrote:
Also since someone was rolling with the ‘misquoting’ reference, the entire discussion started with a claim, an ask for a video, a defensive response, and then this quote:

Granted, even Lanky kind of expanded on that with this thread, but that was after it was derailed in the original.

That quote cannot possibly be interpreted in any other way than “the world record holder may not be the world record holder.” It is a claim that there may be at any given time, a person walking the planet THAT IS CURRENTLY(not potentially will be, not would’ve been with different life choices) “Better than the best.”

Sorry, that just doesn’t happen. The Musashi reference earlier in this thread was awesome, but the world is different now. Barring some very obscure pursuits of life, this just isn’t possible, and I would absolutely stand by that statement.[/quote]

Exactly. Before potential was ever brought up Lew made a definitive claim and X supported that claim. After all, Lew is a pretty big guy, so it must be true!

[quote]anonym wrote:
Two very different arguments. While I agree with both, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that Professor X’s scenario isn’t relevant to the discussion of Lew being the strongest bencher of all time, which is where I think the confusion lies.

[/quote]

I don’t think there is any confusion. Just about everyone in this thread (X included) know what X was trying to do.

246

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
No matter how good you are, there’s always someone better.

Eventually.[/quote]

They are really arguing against this. Truly ridiculous.[/quote]

uh its ridiculous that that are comparing a natural guy with good genetics to a guy with good genetics on steroids.

BTW professor X do you think there are natural guys bigger and better conditioned than Ronnie Coleman out there?

247

well, this was just a pleasure…

248

Well I’m glad you got that all off your chest, Overstand. However, saying his physique is unimpressive is flat out retarded. He’s the biggest 5’10 natural(as far as I’ve read) guy I’ve ever seen. No one can take that away from him, even if he never diets down.

I still think he is trolling.

249

[quote]Quick Ben wrote:
Well I’m glad you got that all off your chest, Overstand. However, saying his physique is unimpressive is flat out retarded. He’s the biggest 5’10 natural(as far as I’ve read) guy I’ve ever seen. No one can take that away from him, even if he never diets down.

I still think he is trolling.[/quote]

This going to start a shit storm, but whatever.

Linemen are also big, but nobody is giving them a Sandow for their extraordinary physiques. IF he was carrying 210 pounds of lean body mass at 5’10 he’d be at the very top of the genetic spectrum. The remaining 75 pounds are just worthless FAT. Jeff Willet, one of the top natural bodybuilders in the world, competes at 5’8 ~200.

Actually, that’s probably why Professor X is defending his retarded position tooth and nail. Read a few of his posts and its clear he thinks that he’s genetically superior to other people. “Most people wont reach my level of development”, etc. He’s in denial.

If that’s how you want to look, by all means go for it. But that is NOT what a bodybuilder looks like. It gets really fucking old listening to him berate somebody, “This is a bodybuilding forum” when he’s never even entered a contest, let alone won one.

Dude needs an ego check for real.

250

[quote]thephantom wrote:

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:

Good post. Not sure how “LWH can’t really bench 495x15” turned into “there are better bball players on the street than MJ” though. While it is a very large claim, and I don’t particularly care if it’s true or not, I don’t find it as unreasonable as some here.

Here’s an example of a guy that nobody’s heard of that could probably outbench everyone except Hoornstra, Mendy, and Kennelly:

I think he posted this in the PL forum here a while ago.[/quote]

I agree that the main point has been derailed a bit, but here are my thoughts on the matter.

Is there the possibility that amongst the 6+ billion people on earth right now, that some random guy training in solitude is able to beat a world record holder in their respective lift? Yes, that is entirely possible. However, it is not very likely.

The difference in response that sincityiron and lew got was based on one thing - demonstrating said claims. If sincityiron had showed up stating (without any evidence) that he could manhandle 600x3 on bench, he would have most likely gotten a veritable shitstorm of internet hate. However, he just linked a video and let it do the talking. I know that that video certainly inspired me, and I often watch it before I go to the gym to bench press.

Lew, when asked about his lifts, mentioned 495 on incline for 6-15 reps. Quite an impressive claim, as a strength feat such as that has not been seen by the lifting community at large. Such a claim warrants investigation (similar to a scientist claiming that he successfully regrew a man’s severed limb, and the rest of the scientific community making inquiries about the experiment). It is within the realm of possibility that Lew performed this lift, but some measure of proof is logically required to believe a lift that is beyond the best ever recorded.

Is there any doubt in my mind that Lew is a beast of a man from whom I could learn a whole multitude of things about training? No. My main interest in this is seeing something so mind-bogglingly awesome that it would inspire me to push my own training to new heights.
[/quote]

The other difference is that LWH didn’t sign up on T-Nation just to make the claim that he benched 495 for 15. Someone MADE A THREAD ABOUT HIM, asking him how he trains, and then others had to drag the numbers out of him. There were like 2-3 posts asking him about numbers before he posted 495x6-15. I could speculate that maybe he padded this stat by 50 lbs or so, maybe more, but seriously, who cares?

251

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]USMCpoolee wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]USMCpoolee wrote:

Because if someone has that natural ability they will (most likely) be driven to it.[/quote]

Bullshit. That may happen in many cases, but not all. There will always be that guy with the talent who lacks the desire…or the guy with the talent who chooses another pursuit.

[/quote]

Hence the “(most likely)” still waiting for some proof of these outlandish claims[/quote]

Outlandish claims? Like “it is possible for someone to exist with great talent and NOT be thrown into pro sports”? Claims like that?

Yeah, I can see how outlandish that is.[/quote]

That’s not what the other side is arguing though. They are claiming that the chances of some random individual being better than MJ(or any other GOAT) right now without training is very close to zero.

252

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:

[quote]thephantom wrote:

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:

Good post. Not sure how “LWH can’t really bench 495x15” turned into “there are better bball players on the street than MJ” though. While it is a very large claim, and I don’t particularly care if it’s true or not, I don’t find it as unreasonable as some here.

Here’s an example of a guy that nobody’s heard of that could probably outbench everyone except Hoornstra, Mendy, and Kennelly:

I think he posted this in the PL forum here a while ago.[/quote]

I agree that the main point has been derailed a bit, but here are my thoughts on the matter.

Is there the possibility that amongst the 6+ billion people on earth right now, that some random guy training in solitude is able to beat a world record holder in their respective lift? Yes, that is entirely possible. However, it is not very likely.

The difference in response that sincityiron and lew got was based on one thing - demonstrating said claims. If sincityiron had showed up stating (without any evidence) that he could manhandle 600x3 on bench, he would have most likely gotten a veritable shitstorm of internet hate. However, he just linked a video and let it do the talking. I know that that video certainly inspired me, and I often watch it before I go to the gym to bench press.

Lew, when asked about his lifts, mentioned 495 on incline for 6-15 reps. Quite an impressive claim, as a strength feat such as that has not been seen by the lifting community at large. Such a claim warrants investigation (similar to a scientist claiming that he successfully regrew a man’s severed limb, and the rest of the scientific community making inquiries about the experiment). It is within the realm of possibility that Lew performed this lift, but some measure of proof is logically required to believe a lift that is beyond the best ever recorded.

Is there any doubt in my mind that Lew is a beast of a man from whom I could learn a whole multitude of things about training? No. My main interest in this is seeing something so mind-bogglingly awesome that it would inspire me to push my own training to new heights.
[/quote]

The other difference is that LWH didn’t sign up on T-Nation just to make the claim that he benched 495 for 15. Someone MADE A THREAD ABOUT HIM, asking him how he trains, and then others had to drag the numbers out of him. There were like 2-3 posts asking him about numbers before he posted 495x6-15. I could speculate that maybe he padded this stat by 50 lbs or so, maybe more, but seriously, who cares?[/quote]

That’s basically what I said in the thread.

If you think he’s bullshitting stop posting in the thread.

253

[quote]Loudog75 wrote:

I just like to see people lift heavy weight.

I don’t know either of these guys lifting and if someone had told me that moving that kind of weight was possible I would have lol. But having been in a weight room and seeing other people move tremendous amounts of weight allows me to open my mind to possibilities.

Neither of these guys look intimidating so pics wouldn’t support the lifts to me.[/quote]

LOL, you might not know those guys but you just posted the all time record holder for the equipped bench press. He might not look intimidating to you for some reason, but Kennelly is 6"2" over 300 lbs and has bench pressed more than anyone in the history of power lifting.

For your question later in the thread, the world record for raw bench press is 715 by Mendelson. For equipped bench press, Kennelly did 1075. I believe his best raw bench was 665 so the bench shirt makes a huge difference.

254

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:

[quote]Loudog75 wrote:

I just like to see people lift heavy weight.

I don’t know either of these guys lifting and if someone had told me that moving that kind of weight was possible I would have lol. But having been in a weight room and seeing other people move tremendous amounts of weight allows me to open my mind to possibilities.

Neither of these guys look intimidating so pics wouldn’t support the lifts to me.[/quote]

LOL, you might not know those guys but you just posted the all time record holder for the equipped bench press. He might not look intimidating to you for some reason, but Kennelly is 6"2" over 300 lbs and has bench pressed more than anyone in the history of power lifting.

For your question later in the thread, the world record for raw bench press is 715 by Mendelson. For equipped bench press, Kennelly did 1075. I believe his best raw bench was 665 so the bench shirt makes a huge difference.
[/quote]

Did he say kennelly doesn’t look intimidating?

255

Yeah, definitely un-intimidating.

256

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:

[quote]kothreat wrote:

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]kothreat wrote:
Yeah, and if you would actually read anything I’ve written then you wouldn’t have to resort to name calling. Fucking steroid monkey. Yeah, I went there. Don’t resort to names cunt puncher. Fucking now, that’s juvenile, and if you want to get juvenile I can do it with the best. Not once did I resort to such douchebaggery. You can go fuck yourself if that’s what you feel you need to resort to. Prick. I may respect you in the lifting game, but you can get fucked asshole.
[/quote]

How would The International Trivial Pursuit Federation (ITPF) feel about their Champion using such language? [/quote]

HA! Probably get kicked out. I feel bad for it now, and would like to apologize to Waylander. I took it a bit too personally.
[/quote]

lol I don’t take anything to heart on these internet arguments dude, no worries. Now.

Waylander: “what is the capital of Thailand?”
kothreat: “Bangkok”

nut checks kothreat

Fuck off mr. trivial pursuit.

<3 lol jk man[/quote]

257

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
Yeah, definitely un-intimidating.

[/quote]

And if he had an account on here and made a claim would he be questioned by all? Would he be flamed and degraded?

258

[quote]Gaius Octavius wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]USMCpoolee wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]USMCpoolee wrote:

Because if someone has that natural ability they will (most likely) be driven to it.[/quote]

Bullshit. That may happen in many cases, but not all. There will always be that guy with the talent who lacks the desire…or the guy with the talent who chooses another pursuit.

[/quote]

Hence the “(most likely)” still waiting for some proof of these outlandish claims[/quote]

Outlandish claims? Like “it is possible for someone to exist with great talent and NOT be thrown into pro sports”? Claims like that?

Yeah, I can see how outlandish that is.[/quote]

That’s not what the other side is arguing though. They are claiming that the chances of some random individual being better than MJ(or any other GOAT) right now without training is very close to zero.
[/quote]

Lol dude it doesnt matter, x will just bring up some random variable that hasn’t been mentioned yet.

259

[quote]DJHT wrote:

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
Yeah, definitely un-intimidating.

[/quote]

And if he had an account on here and made a claim would he be questioned by all? Would he be flamed and degraded? [/quote]

Assuming people didn’t know who he was… Of course he’d be questioned. The thing is he has lots of videos backing his lifts.

He is really strong… For a fat guy :slight_smile:

260

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]DJHT wrote:

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
Yeah, definitely un-intimidating.

[/quote]

And if he had an account on here and made a claim would he be questioned by all? Would he be flamed and degraded? [/quote]

Assuming people didn’t know who he was… Of course he’d be questioned. The thing is he has lots of videos backing his lifts.

He is really strong… For a fat guy :)[/quote]

Yes Greg but if he just had that photo and made a claim, people would not just say “Damn you are a big guy, I want to be a big guy, can you show us your lifts so I can learn to be a big guy” No you would get the childish STFU, Pics or it didnt happen etc. I know its trivial and its the internet, but even people who have obvious size and strength are belittled.

I would still give my left nutt to be that guys size, but I would not want to have his cholesterol or blood pressure. Carry on just thought I would interject.