[iromulus9]

Hi all!

Just got back from my first every pro bodybuilding show. Fairly stoked about that! The Omaha pro in Omaha, Nebraska had three pro divisions: Female Physique, Men’s Physique, and Women’s bodybuilding. In addition the NPC Nebraska Championships followed with many other categories.

It was really great to see some of the ladies that I’ve followed, or heard about from this forum, live on stage. Some of the ladies I knew there included:

Physique:
Collete Nelson
Dani Reardon – the reason I went

Bodybuilding:
Christine Envall (3rd) – man her legs are massive!
Anne Freitas (1st and qualified for Olympia)
Melody Spetko

Plus, Iris Kyle was in audience and was introduced.

Now I’m gonna vent a little, so you’ve been warned. There has always been a little talk on this forum and others about the decline of female bodybuilding. Attending this contest showed me a few reasons why. Here are my thoughts:

1. The P/R for this show was horrible! I didn’t know that it was happening until I saw a post by Shannon Courtney that she was 9 weeks out of the Omaha Pro. My first reaction was – “There is an Omaha Pro show?”. This was the fourth year for the show and I’ve never heard about it from the people that should be promoting it! No radio spots (at least on the stations I listen to), no billboards, no flyers, no media coverage really at all. I had to Google it instead, and the only reason I heard about it was from a competitor that wasn’t even there (much to my disappointment). I was also disappointed that I could not order tickets until the day of the show. Maybe that is because of the venue (a large ballroom in a convention center), but I would think knowing how many people to expect would be a great thing.

2. The show itself seemed to be a clusterf***. It started 25 minutes late! I can understand 5, maybe even 10 if something happens backstage, but 25?! It just seemed very unprofessional for a professional show. They got Bob Cicherillo to emcee the event. I really don’t know who that is, but evidently people in the profession do. Mr. Cicherillo did a o.k. job, but during the NPC event pre-judging he stepped aside and left an employee emcee and try to organize the people off and on stage at the same time. Now maybe his contract prevented him from doing this part of the show, but that poor woman doing three things at once. I felt so bad for her and it didn’t help make the second part run smooth at all, especially with NPC amateurs not knowing what to do. Also, background music was limited and repeated way to much! Hire a DJ!

3. Bodybuilding has a fundamental flaw, it is subjective. Like gymnastics or music contests, bodybuilding is judged by people in a subjective manner. There are rules and guidelines, but that still doesn’t keep two people from seeing different things. An example is Makayla Maroney’s vault in the 2012 Olympics in London. Now I’ll admit that I understand the judging criteria for gymnastics better than bodybuilding and when Makayla hit that vault I literally jumped out of my seat and yelled (that’s unusual for me by the way). Yet the judges found fault were I, and the commentators from NBC could not. Bodybuilding has the same flaw for the spectators. I felt that the winners for the Women’s physique came completely out of the blue. I wasn’t even looking at them to win! Plus I also felt that the winner, who is from Omaha, seemed a little suspicious.

4. Holy crap! Men’s physique is boring as hell! So is bikini and figure! It is just a parade in a meat market. A competitor comes out, strikes a few poses and lines up on the opposite side of the stage. Repeat ad nausium. At least the Women’s physique and bodybuilding had routines to perform. Those can be entertaining. I felt Colette Nelson did an excellent job with her routine, but she was snubbed from the winners podium, why? It also seemed that the only point of the routine was to entertain the crowd in attendance. The results came to the stage so quickly that I had a hard time believing that the routine was part of the them. Is pre-judging the only points given? I really think bodybuilding should put more emphasis on the creative side of bodybuilding. Some of the routines were very imaginative, to a point where one women even put a hidden message in edited sound clips. Creativity, choreography, motion to music could make these shows more entertaining and maybe put more butts in the seats. Maybe this explains the pole dancing. Creative, and puts horny butts in the seats.

Ok I’ll stop there, for now. I’d like to know if you guys have seen other show, did they have similar problems or is this just growing pains for Omaha as a host city?

Thanks for reading guys and keep it real!

[AlexG]

Thanks for the report from Omaha,
and your observational critique on the current state of contest-level physical culture. B)

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[jsimon]

“Anne Freitas (1st and qualified for Olympia)”.

That’s great. Now all they need is a FBB division in the Olympia. They didn’t do it last year, so unless there was a major uproar, there won’t be one this year either.

[jsimon]

I stand corrected. Apparently there WILL be a Ms Olympia this year. I thought they were eliminating it. Anybody get any dirt on this?

http://mrolympia.com/2014/ms-olympia

[fasola]

Thanks for that review iromulus, interesting things you point out.

Jsimon, the FBB show that was canned, was this year’s Arnold Classic/Ms. International (and most likely it will continue to be canned).

[Jim]

It would be great to win a big lottery prize. If I were so lucky, I’d definitely sponsor a female
bodybuilding contest, and award some decent prize money to the participants. Except I rarely
buy lottery tickets. If only…..

[Bane Dorrance]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teOOF92PVT0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_XhhJVxZFI

[Author]

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