When we saw each other in the warm-up room, we barely said hello. The competition felt awkward for everybody. The judges were uncomfortable. The fans were uncomfortable. Normally before a contest, other bodybuilders will come up and tell you, “You’re looking great, you’re going to win.” But the people who liked us both didn’t know what to say to one of us with the other man standing right across the room.
The reality is that a bodybuilder simply cannot train as hard when he’s over forty as he can when he’s twenty-three. I was in better shape than Reg—not even necessarily because of effort but just because of youth. His skin wasn’t as fresh, his muscles were slightly in decline rather than in bloom. A few years earlier, it might have been different, but now it was my turn to be king. Reg was good enough that day to beat all the other contestants, including a former Mr. Universe who was only twenty-eight. But he was not good enough to beat me.
I felt good about winning but at the same time sad. My sights were set on Sergio Oliva, and I didn’t need to defeat Reg Park to reach my dream.
The Volkswagen jet that Jim Lorimer had promised was waiting for us on the tarmac in New York the next day. Private jets were much less common than they are now, and for me and the other bodybuilders, it was a thrilling moment; we felt like we were finally getting the royal treatment like other big-time athletes. We flew to Columbus and drove to the Veterans Memorial Auditorium, walking in as the other bodybuilders were already in the middle of pumping up.
I was totally shocked to find Sergio Oliva there. He was a secret entry that nobody had told us about. “Fuck!” I said to myself. He looked like he was in top form, too. I was expecting a showdown with him in two weeks, not now.
It took me a few minutes to snap out of it and figure out what an opportunity this was. Although I hadn’t known that Sergio was coming, I realized he had known about me. That meant he had come to Columbus in order to surprise me and take me out, so that I’d be beaten even before we reached New York, and he would have a clear victory in Mr. Olympia.
But, I reasoned, what could work for him could also work for me. “If I beat him today,” I thought, “that’s it for him in New York.”
I needed to kick it into a higher gear. It was like when you have a superfast sports car with a nitrous injector on the engine: you press a button and get an extra hundred horsepower when you need it. I needed to hit that racing button now.
I took off my clothes, put on the oil, and started pumping up. They called us, and we went out on stage.
Mr. World was by far the biggest bodybuilding event I’d ever seen. Five thousand spectators packed the hall, twice the size of the crowd at the championships in London and New York. What was more, there were lights and cameras and announcers from ABC’s Wide World of Sports; this was the first bodybuilding competition ever to be taped for national TV.
It did not matter if it was five thousand or five hundred seats, I knew that if I could get the crowd going using my salesmanship and charm, that would influence the judges and give me the edge. Sergio was playing the same game, strutting and waving and blowing kisses to his fans; he had a big following, and it was obvious that several dozen had shown up. The four top competitors were me, Sergio, Dave Draper, and Dennis Tinerino. We all came onstage at the same time to let the panel of seven international judges get a first look at us. The emcee asked each of us to show off a few of our favorite poses. The crowd clapped and cheered seeing us all perform at the same time. The energy was tremendous.
Compared with all the other bodybuilders I’d ever faced, Sergio really was in a class by himself. I was struck by that again the minute we were onstage. It was so hard to look impressive next to him with those extraordinary thighs, that impossibly tiny waist, those incredible triceps. I thought that I might have a little extra edge in the judges’ minds because I’d just come from winning Mr. Universe. Or maybe Sergio had a slim edge because he was much more accomplished in Olympic weight lifting, and most of the judges came from that world.
To psych myself up, I looked for the slightest possible advantage. Now that we were in the bright TV lights, Sergio seemed a little soft to me. That was encouraging. I found that I really could anticipate his moves, and I started matching each pose. The crowd loved it, and you could see the TV cameras swiveling from him to me and back again. When we left the stage, I felt like I’d won that round.
It only got better from there. Sergio had been too free with the oil backstage, it was dripping off him when he posed and made him look more smooth than cut. Also, during his individual routine, he went through the poses a little too fast for people to fully take them in. When my turn came, I made sure I took the time to connect with crowd, so that each pose made them cheer a little louder, and they didn’t want me to leave. It was like Sergio was onstage competing for the first time, and I was totally composed and comfortable.
In the final pose-off, I was 100 percent on. No matter what shot Sergio did to show his strength, I had a matching shot to show my strength. More important, I was the one who was willing to go all out. I was more eager than Sergio. I wanted the title more than he did.
The judges gave me first place unanimously. That shouldn’t have been a surprise, but Sergio had been the champ for so long that he was really shocked. I stood there for a minute repeating to myself, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I just beat Sergio.” The prize was a huge silver trophy, a high-tech electric watch, and $500 in cash—and new popularity and momentum to carry to New York.
When I walked offstage with my trophy, I was careful to do two things. First, I thanked Jim Lorimer. “This is the best organized competition I’ve ever seen,” I told him. “When I retire from bodybuilding, I’m going to call you, and you and I will be partners. We’ll be right here on this stage running the Mr. Olympia contest.” Jim just laughed and said, “Okay, okay.” It was probably the weirdest compliment he had ever heard, especially from a kid.
Second was to mess with Sergio’s head. It’s foolish to leave anything to chance when you’re trying to unseat a three-time reigning Mr. Olympia. If the contest in New York was close, I told myself, the judges would give it to him. I had to blow him away onstage and make it easy for them to pick me. So I told him I thought I’d won today because I’d gained a lot of muscle size since he’d beaten me in New York the previous year. He was a little light, and that’s why he lost, blah, blah, blah. I wanted him going away thinking he’d have to gain a few pounds to compete. He was soft today, and I wanted him softer in New York.
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Mr. Olympia was scheduled two weeks later for a cushy Manhattan theater, and around noontime that day a bunch of us got together at the nearby Mid City Gym. The minute I saw Sergio, I started teasing him about eating, and Franco joined in, asking him if he’d lost weight. That made everybody laugh except Sergio. In fact, as I was soon to see, he had taken the bait. He’d added ten pounds in the two weeks since Columbus, and nobody can gain ten pounds in two weeks and still look cut.
The Town Hall theater had 1,500 seats, and it probably had never seen a crowd as rowdy as this. His fans were chanting “Sergio! Sergio! Sergio!” and mine trying were to outshout them, chanting “Arnold! Arnold! Arnold!” At the end of a long afternoon, the judges called us back for a final pose-off onstage. Sergio went through his standard repertoire, and, just as I’d planned, I went into high gear, ripping off three poses to every one of his. The crowd really loved this.