There really is no controversy. This ongoing myth really needs to die now. Controversial? Not really, big guys always have the advantage. Dorian over Ray and mostly Cutler over Dexter etc. Arnold was big and developed while the other competitors were tiny compared to him. Bigger is better in the real world.
First up. The story of CBS sports, which was covering the event, had supposedly Mentzer pegged as the winner before the contest results were announced. After the contest, they pulled their crew and never aired the coverage and never covered the O again. Well that’s all a lie.
The reality is there was never any statements by CBS about a fix or anything at all. No footage was broadcast because the filming crew had run out of tape. That’s all it was. They never filmed the whole thing. The story about CBS pulling because of a "fix"was conjured up by Coe and Mentzer since they were bitter losers and wanted to discredited Arnold. The story is still being kept alive by fans of Mentzer’s training philosphy who want to rewrite history, because what else do they have to hang on to? Nothing.
Secondly. Mentzer was never a contender. Mentzer still would have been in 4th place even if Arnold never entered. This whole Arnold vs Mentzer thing was created years later he was never a real threat onstage. He was a footnote and nothing more. Revisionist history. He became a contender years after the fact when he had a resurgence of popularity from his HIT training system. Back in 1980 he was just a footnote now somehow he was better than Arnold. People can’t seperate their need to embellish his brief competitive record because they like HIT. So they make it seem like Arnold and Mentzer were rivals, when Arnold barely knew Mentzer existed most of the time. Arnolds only rivals were Sergio and Ferrigno. Mentzer just wasn’t worth noting as competition and no one would remember him if he hadn’t become an author of HIT books later in life.
Mentzer couldn’t even beat Zane or Dickerson and they were pretty small. HIT devotees want to deify their idol though so they won’t stop claiming he was the rightful winner despite the evidence. Ludicrous. Mike Mentzer places lower than he felt and spends the rest of his ‘career’ whining about it.
And another thing about Mentzer- his HIT is BS. Did he train like that? Nope. First he says train 4 days a week, then his HIT gets more minimal over the years so he can get some attention. Finally, how often did he advocate training a bodypart- once every 12 days or something? Just a pile of BS to generate money. Nothing more.
As for Arnold not being at his best is he didn’t need to be. He didn’t have to be at his best. Do you know why Arnold risked his legacy to compete one more time? Because it was a WEAK line-up. All the major contenders were gone like Sergio, Ferrigno and Nubret and all Arnold had to do was beat a bunch of B-Listers who were half his size. None of them could be a dominate Mr Olympia they were just keeping the seat warm until a guy like Haney showed up.
Zane beat Mentzer at the 79 Olympia but both guys were pretty small, and in 1980 Mentzer finished a distant 5th while Zane got 3rd. There were a lot of guys in the contest but they were all B-list or C-list in some cases so stacked doesn’t mean much at all just a lot of filler. Now if an A-list guy like Sergio had of competed Arnold may not of entered. Only Samir had the potential and drive but he finished 15th in 1980. So yeah full but weak line-up at this contest.
The big guys had moved on, and the second tier guys were left or do you really think a small guy like Dickerson could have beat Sergio? Nope. Between the Arnold and Haney years was the rise of the smaller, skinnier Olympians who put more emphasis on conditioning rather than mass.
Anyway Zane was way off, Dickerson was too small and Samir was a long way from achieving his potential so none them posed a significant threat to Arnold which is why he entered and won.
And finally, people tend to believe what other people tell them about the 1980 contest, that is until they get to see the actual evidence for themselves and realise it was really was much ado about nothing. For some people it can be quite a surprise to realise that the judging wasn’t some great scandalous betrayal of everything that was good and holy like Mentzer constantly claimed in his articles up until death finally let him get over it. It’s funny how people always say how Arnold’s prestige affected the results, when all this “controversy” is due to Mentzer’s constant crying about the result! It was MENTZER who has created a hype around himself! He didn’t like Arnold’s training style, so he didn’t like Arnold. Mike just could not stop acting like a little child, very bad sport.
