In fairness, he was not a high level strongman competitor when he took that photo.
That having been said, I DO agree with the sentiment that you can’t be as lean as possible and perform as well as possible, but the issue is people take that and run WAY too far with it. You can start lean and then start slowly adding quality muscle with a controlled diet and make solid progress that way, and yes, in doing so, your abs should get blurry and may completely vanish by the end. However, you don’t need a spare tire and a c-cup to get strong.