[quote]Liv92 wrote:
Jeff Hardy benches 500 for 4 reps.
OK I watched all 6 min and I must need to eat lunch because I really was waiting for a 500 bench. But I was happy with the craziness that followed felt like a kid again watching the Hulk run thru the gym doing curls.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Typo, and not a freudian slip 
You’re reading way too much into my post and in fact, it wasn’t directed to you per se but those that would deride the lift because of the bounce. And although of course one may be able to move more weight with the bounce technique (I actually cannot) and a bouncy bar, we apparently disagree on how much. I don’t think it’s very appreciable - I’d be surprised if it were as much as 50 lbs in Tank’s case and I think the greater benefit is not owing to any “physics” but to the stretch reflex that the pause in PL eliminates.
[/quote]
Did anyone deride the lift? I hadn’t thought so. If anyone had, I’d agree that they’d have been completely in error: his lift required, as I put it, a ton of strength.
[quote]Liv92 wrote:
Jeff Hardy benches 500 for 4 reps.
It would have been better if immediately after, the audience appeared in silhouette, an Oscar was presented and Jeff said, “You love me! You really, really love me!”
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
[quote]Liv92 wrote:
Jeff Hardy benches 500 for 4 reps.
It would have been better if immediately after, the audience appeared in silhouette, an Oscar was presented and Jeff said, “You love me! You really, really love me!” :)[/quote]
You know that cracked you up. They get the HAM award for that one.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Typo, and not a freudian slip
You’re reading way too much into my post and in fact, it wasn’t directed to you per se but those that would deride the lift because of the bounce. And although of course one may be able to move more weight with the bounce technique (I actually cannot) and a bouncy bar, we apparently disagree on how much. I don’t think it’s very appreciable - I’d be surprised if it were as much as 50 lbs in Tank’s case and I think the greater benefit is not owing to any “physics” but to the stretch reflex that the pause in PL eliminates.
[/quote]
Did anyone deride the lift? I hadn’t thought so. If anyone had, I’d agree that they’d have been completely in error: his lift required, as I put it, a ton of strength.[/quote]
Once technique gets raised in these parts, derision is soon to follow. That is simple history here. Again, the post wasn’t directed to you per se. It was a preemptive attack on those that would poo poo the lift in any manner b/c of form.
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
What does the chest have to do with it? If you put up in the high 500’s, you better don’t do it as a chest lift…
But yes, way too many in the high 500’s… And I call bs on most of the 600 and 600+, with very few exceptions (kaz etc).
There are excessively few people benching 600+ raw.
For comparison, many super-heavyweight bodybuilders and quite a bunch of heavyweights (IFBB) are good for about 495 for 3-12 (chest bench/crappy setup… Depends also on height/weight obviously… The 8-12 reppers are the guys with better setup and more gifted leverages ala the guy who competed against JJ in the strongest BB contest, he got 505 for 9 or 12 or something like that full ROM and is one of very few to achieve something like that… The low 500’s are the slightly lighter guys like McGrath back before his tricep tear, JJ, etc, pretty common actually among heavies and superheavies who love to lift heavy) and low to mid 500’s PL style… Some even in the high 500’s and you might find a couple of potential 600 lb benchers there but not many (Zack Khan is in the high 500’s I think, The Rhino obviously, and a few others).
You’ll find more such numbers among powerlifters obviously, but there are still not many who bench 600+ raw, and with only a mere handful exceptions (hoornstra, he’s also a bodybuilder I forgot to mention above, competes in the 242’s in PL and has done 615 in comp and 675 or so in the gym, maybe stronger now… Crazy! Probably one of the top 3 guys in terms of genetic gift for benching) they are usually very heavy.
Most pro-wrestlers don’t look like they could hold a candle to any of these guys… With very few exceptions.
Those pro-wrestlers looking like yesteryear’s pro bodybuilders are/were probably good for 405x10-12, perhaps a couple of reps at 495 for the really heavy guys, but rarely the numbers quoted in the OP unless they did their share of powerlifting/strongman etc.
[/quote]
Hey man, I hear you on the chest argument. But show me a guy who benches 600 raw and I will show you a guy who has better chest development than Steiner. Plus, as I alluded to before, the guy was pretty small before steroids, so I just don’t see 600 as even a remote possibility.
As for whether or not these lifts are geared, I think some of them are. There was a thread below this list and it seemed that some of the powerlifters’ numbers were geared. That could explain Henry’s 620 if he never did more than 500 raw.
I’m not saying I believe these numbers past the guys I mentioned. I would say at least 75% of that list is greatly exaggerated. But I’m too young to know who a lot of them are, so I thought maybe some people who were older than me could give some insight.[/quote]
Steiner suffered a horrendous throat injury in puerto rico and required emergency surgery, during said surgery they had to cut though his chest and rib cage. This was several years ago , He is missing some pertoral muscle tissue as a result. This is the reason for his “unimpressive chest development” Also he has huge triceps and shoulders which is what really powers a heavy bench I can believe 500 a few years ago quite readily
[quote]deadlift655 wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]dday wrote:
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Regardless that it’s not much above bodyweight for him, I find it hard to credit the Big Show with a 500 lb bench. [/quote]
NICE AVATAR Bill!!
This impresses me The Warlord - 575 for 6 reps (no pause)
OP why dismiss Steiner, Hogan and Goldberg?[/quote]
Steiner has a very small chest so I seriously doubt 525, let alone 600. He was also pretty small before he started juicing so I don’t think his strength base would have been very high. Goldberg supposedly stayed away from free weights and only claimed a 400 bench…I can’t imagine why he would lie about that unless that number is from his football days, but even then I don’t see him repping 5 plates.
And Hogan just didn’t have a physique that I see supporting a 550 bench, especially considering his height. Again, these are just my opinions, and the other guys are mostly unknowns to me, which is why I don’t have much to say about them. Taz’s 450 seems like a huge stretch to me as well. But a guy who wasn’t even mentioned is Cena, and I’ve seen videos of Cena repping 405. His strength is very impressive across the board.[/quote]
Where did you see a video of him repping 405? I read an interview where he claims he can barely get 315.[/quote]
That was probably after the shoulder injury he sustained. “John Cena Weightlifting Compilation” shows him squatting 500 and benching 405 for reps. Here’s the link:
John Cena Weight Lifting Compilation - YouTube
[quote]cromwell2007 wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
What does the chest have to do with it? If you put up in the high 500’s, you better don’t do it as a chest lift…
But yes, way too many in the high 500’s… And I call bs on most of the 600 and 600+, with very few exceptions (kaz etc).
There are excessively few people benching 600+ raw.
For comparison, many super-heavyweight bodybuilders and quite a bunch of heavyweights (IFBB) are good for about 495 for 3-12 (chest bench/crappy setup… Depends also on height/weight obviously… The 8-12 reppers are the guys with better setup and more gifted leverages ala the guy who competed against JJ in the strongest BB contest, he got 505 for 9 or 12 or something like that full ROM and is one of very few to achieve something like that… The low 500’s are the slightly lighter guys like McGrath back before his tricep tear, JJ, etc, pretty common actually among heavies and superheavies who love to lift heavy) and low to mid 500’s PL style… Some even in the high 500’s and you might find a couple of potential 600 lb benchers there but not many (Zack Khan is in the high 500’s I think, The Rhino obviously, and a few others).
You’ll find more such numbers among powerlifters obviously, but there are still not many who bench 600+ raw, and with only a mere handful exceptions (hoornstra, he’s also a bodybuilder I forgot to mention above, competes in the 242’s in PL and has done 615 in comp and 675 or so in the gym, maybe stronger now… Crazy! Probably one of the top 3 guys in terms of genetic gift for benching) they are usually very heavy.
Most pro-wrestlers don’t look like they could hold a candle to any of these guys… With very few exceptions.
Those pro-wrestlers looking like yesteryear’s pro bodybuilders are/were probably good for 405x10-12, perhaps a couple of reps at 495 for the really heavy guys, but rarely the numbers quoted in the OP unless they did their share of powerlifting/strongman etc.
[/quote]
Hey man, I hear you on the chest argument. But show me a guy who benches 600 raw and I will show you a guy who has better chest development than Steiner. Plus, as I alluded to before, the guy was pretty small before steroids, so I just don’t see 600 as even a remote possibility.
As for whether or not these lifts are geared, I think some of them are. There was a thread below this list and it seemed that some of the powerlifters’ numbers were geared. That could explain Henry’s 620 if he never did more than 500 raw.
I’m not saying I believe these numbers past the guys I mentioned. I would say at least 75% of that list is greatly exaggerated. But I’m too young to know who a lot of them are, so I thought maybe some people who were older than me could give some insight.[/quote]
Steiner suffered a horrendous throat injury in puerto rico and required emergency surgery, during said surgery they had to cut though his chest and rib cage. This was several years ago , He is missing some pertoral muscle tissue as a result. This is the reason for his “unimpressive chest development” Also he has huge triceps and shoulders which is what really powers a heavy bench I can believe 500 a few years ago quite readily[/quote]
Again, I understand the dynamics of a powerlifting bench or just a heavy bench, but I’m not talking about a few years ago. I’m talking about 10 years ago when I actually watched wrestling, I think a 600 bench is laughable from Steiner. 500 back then, maybe.
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]deadlift655 wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]dday wrote:
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Regardless that it’s not much above bodyweight for him, I find it hard to credit the Big Show with a 500 lb bench. [/quote]
NICE AVATAR Bill!!
This impresses me The Warlord - 575 for 6 reps (no pause)
OP why dismiss Steiner, Hogan and Goldberg?[/quote]
Steiner has a very small chest so I seriously doubt 525, let alone 600. He was also pretty small before he started juicing so I don’t think his strength base would have been very high. Goldberg supposedly stayed away from free weights and only claimed a 400 bench…I can’t imagine why he would lie about that unless that number is from his football days, but even then I don’t see him repping 5 plates.
And Hogan just didn’t have a physique that I see supporting a 550 bench, especially considering his height. Again, these are just my opinions, and the other guys are mostly unknowns to me, which is why I don’t have much to say about them. Taz’s 450 seems like a huge stretch to me as well. But a guy who wasn’t even mentioned is Cena, and I’ve seen videos of Cena repping 405. His strength is very impressive across the board.[/quote]
Where did you see a video of him repping 405? I read an interview where he claims he can barely get 315.[/quote]
That was probably after the shoulder injury he sustained. “John Cena Weightlifting Compilation” shows him squatting 500 and benching 405 for reps. Here’s the link:
John Cena Weight Lifting Compilation - YouTube
Thanks for that. I guess that interview was before this.
I can’t watch videos on my work computer, but I really wanted to see that Jeff Hardy benching 500 video to see how fake it is. Most of those numbers seem believeable to me, just like mwaltaccept said, most, if not all these guys have a history of weightlifting under their belts before they started wrestling.
I believe Hogan’s, he’s a huge guy still and was even bigger during his younger years when he was in his prime. Eddie Guerrero’s seemed low to me, too, even though he was a cruiser weight, he was way more built than the majority of the others in his class, even making me think he was easily too big to not be a heavyweight.
Since Batista is from this area, he gets interviewed by one of the local morning show guys here (Elliot in the Morning) and during one interview I heard, he said before he started wrestling, he was a bouncer and juicin big time and got to a point where he weighed 375 and was eating 11 meals a day. I can believe the number for him after hearing that (didn’t seem like a lie to me, but I’m sure many will think he was).
I believe the Rock’s and actually think Brock’s number is a little low. Both those guys had a lot more muscle weight on them when they were wrestling than they do now, and they’re still pretty big as it is. I also heard, don’t remember who told me, that Kurt Angle could bench crazy weight for his size.
There’s a lot of factors that can’t be seen simply by watching someone wrestle on tv that go into how much you can bench. Also, during the 80s, according to Bret Hart at least, pretty much everyone in the biz was juicin. It got to the point where they were doing it simply to be able to keep up with everyone else. If there was that much competition among them all, I’m sure they were all able to push up very goood numbers.
[quote]Jereth127 wrote:
[quote]youngoldguy wrote:
While living in Birmingham (where Dr. James Andrews practices and where Triple H was being treated for a knee injury, I believe), Triple H was re-habbing in the same gym where I worked out. I can verify that he hit 500 in the bench, as a bunch of us were standing around watching it. I can also say that I called him out for not stripping the bar after doing shrugs. Yes, I’m that guy.
[/quote]
Did he strip the bar…?[/quote]
Actually, yes, after he apologized.
[quote]TDub301 wrote:
I can’t watch videos on my work computer, but I really wanted to see that Jeff Hardy benching 500 video to see how fake it is. [/quote]
He made sure you’d have not the slightest doubt that it was fake.
So how much can Hornswoggle bench?
[quote]youngoldguy wrote:
[quote]Jereth127 wrote:
[quote]youngoldguy wrote:
While living in Birmingham (where Dr. James Andrews practices and where Triple H was being treated for a knee injury, I believe), Triple H was re-habbing in the same gym where I worked out. I can verify that he hit 500 in the bench, as a bunch of us were standing around watching it. I can also say that I called him out for not stripping the bar after doing shrugs. Yes, I’m that guy.
[/quote]
Did he strip the bar…?[/quote]
Actually, yes, after he apologized.[/quote]
I’ve seen Triple H at a 24 here in Houston. I was surprised at how little weight he was using. Guess he was just maintaining or taking it easy or something. I also remember how god-awful his form was. It looked like he was just slinging weights around, but it obviously works for him. He’s one of the bigger dude’s I’ve ever benn around. Not just muscularly, he’s just a big guy.
[quote]youngoldguy wrote:
[quote]Jereth127 wrote:
[quote]youngoldguy wrote:
While living in Birmingham (where Dr. James Andrews practices and where Triple H was being treated for a knee injury, I believe), Triple H was re-habbing in the same gym where I worked out. I can verify that he hit 500 in the bench, as a bunch of us were standing around watching it. I can also say that I called him out for not stripping the bar after doing shrugs. Yes, I’m that guy.
[/quote]
Did he strip the bar…?[/quote]
Actually, yes, after he apologized.[/quote]
Ha, awesome…
Found this from a few months back. Sammartino talks training. He is 74 yo:
Some people think I'm nuts that I still get up in the morning and train with the weights three days a week,'' said Sammartino. I do about two hours and 15 minutes in each session. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I pump iron. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I do six miles of roadwork out there. I keep my weight down. I’ve gone from 275 to about 220.
``I’ve had three major back surgeries, hip replacement, knee surgeries, but at this stage of my life I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to do all the things I’m able to do and feel really good about it.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
[quote]youngoldguy wrote:
[quote]Jereth127 wrote:
[quote]youngoldguy wrote:
While living in Birmingham (where Dr. James Andrews practices and where Triple H was being treated for a knee injury, I believe), Triple H was re-habbing in the same gym where I worked out. I can verify that he hit 500 in the bench, as a bunch of us were standing around watching it. I can also say that I called him out for not stripping the bar after doing shrugs. Yes, I’m that guy.
[/quote]
Did he strip the bar…?[/quote]
Actually, yes, after he apologized.[/quote]
I’ve seen Triple H at a 24 here in Houston. I was surprised at how little weight he was using. Guess he was just maintaining or taking it easy or something. I also remember how god-awful his form was. It looked like he was just slinging weights around, but it obviously works for him. He’s one of the bigger dude’s I’ve ever benn around. Not just muscularly, he’s just a big guy.[/quote]
Keep in mind at the time he was rehabbing so he could go as heavy as he wanted since he had nothing but time on his hands. Once back on the road, wrestlers usually train light since they have little time to recover and are banged up.
I’d like to see the bench press max of the coach here on T-Nation
I know for CT, it’s about 435. Anyone knows what are the others? Dan John, Poliquin, TC?
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
I was curious about this subject and did a little research on the old interweb. This is the biggest list I found:
‘Superstar’ Billy Graham - 585
BRAWK! Lesnar - 475
Eddie Guerrero - 275
Taz - 450
‘British Bulldog’ Davey Boy Smith - 550
Doug Furnas - 600
Scott ‘Flash’ Norton - 650
‘H2O’ Ron Waterman - 500+
Bruno Sammartino - 565
The Ultimate Warrior - 500
Road Warrior Animal - 550
‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snuka - 525 (in his bodybuilding days, before he became a wrestler)
Sting - 365
Chyna - 310 (she once claimed she could bench 375, but looking at other female lifters, I find that HIGHLY unlikely)
Kurt Angle - 420
‘relliK’ Johnny Stamboli - 495
Bill Kazmaier - 660
Tony ‘Ludwig Borga’ Halme - 600
‘Total Package’ Lex Luger - 530
Bulldog Brower - 500
Bryan ‘Crush’ Adams - 585
‘The Big Show’ Paul Wight - 500 (when challenged in the weights room - he did it without too much apparent effort and didn’t bother going any higher)
Dino Bravo - 570
Chris Benoit - 450
Shane Douglas - 420
The Barbarian - 550 for 3 reps (no pause)
Iron Sheik - 345
Tank Abbott - 600
Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart - 415
‘Big Bully’ Nick Busick - 605
Nikolai Volkoff - 600+
Ole Anderson - 405
Dynamite Kid - 450
Ted Arcidi - 700
Reggie Lisowski - 500
‘Polish Power’ Ivan Putski - 600
‘Ravishing’ Rick Rude - 405 for 3 reps (no pause)
Skandor Akbar - 500
The Rock - 425
Batista - 525
Ahmed Johnson - 520
Chris Candido - 400+
The Warlord - 575 for 6 reps (no pause)
Road Warrior Hawk - 515
‘Lethal Weapon’ Steve Blackman - 550 (in his weightlifting days, before wrestling)
Bill Goldberg - 495 for 5 reps (but has claimed in interviews that he only does 400)
Triple H - over 400 (no figure stated beyond that)
Scott Steiner - 525 (he claimed he could do over 600 in the dying days of WCW BUT Steiner was heavily into kayfabe back then and had stated in previous interviews that he avoided the benchpress where possible, owing to injuries)
Austin Idol - 505
Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart - 550 (with ease and just fooling around)
Mark Henry - 620
Magnum TA - 350 (for 10-12 reps)
Hulk Hogan - 550
Kevin Sullivan - 350
‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair - 500 (in his days as a 280lb powerlifter before his plane crash)
Mike Graham - 440
Tony Atlas - 600
‘Cowboy’ Bill Watts - 500
Steve Keirn - 425
The Crusher - 500
Bill ‘Ax’ Eadie - 450 (estimated)
Jos LeDuc - 600
Kane - 405 (for sets - no max recorded)
Obviously, guys like Kazmaier have their maxes on record, but I wanted to see what people thought about some of the others. I immediately dismissed the numbers for Steiner, Goldberg, and Hogan, but a lot of these guys are way before my time.[/quote]
Don’t believe a single one unless they were a reputable lifter. for example, big John Studd claimed a 700 lb bench in the 80s. Witnesses in a local gym said it was more mid 300s.
I’m sure are legitimate, but wrestling is probe to exaggeration.