Arnold Classic 2022

I've been watching the live stream of the Arnold Classic this weekend and it's been interesting. I missed a lot of the amateur shows on Friday, but caught the Friday night finals and men's open prejudging.

Terrence Ruffian came in and won the classic physique. I thought he looked great. I was curious to see how the young guy Urs Kalecinski would do. He came in 3rd and I thought he deserved that. I like his physique and he's young, so he's got plenty of time to make some improvements to go a long way.

The men's open prejudging was fantastic. There was a lot better conditioning across the board here than there was at the Olympipa. I think Brandon could have come in a little harder, but he looked awesome. Bonac was freaky and I think this was the best Steve Kuclo I've seen. You can see the improvements Regan has made since working with Milos. I think that's gonna be a good team going forward. Regan is young too and has plenty of time. Justin Rodriguez brought the freak factor. Huge and hard as granite.

Brett Wilkin looked great, but being brutally honest, it wasn't the "wow factor" I was expecting based on all the hype around him going into the show. He looked good when he came out individually, but once he was up there with the top guys you could see the advantages they had over him. He also looked out of breath and worn out going through the poses. As he was breathing heavy, I could see his midsection losing some control. Don't get me wrong, he looked good, but I think my expectations of him based on all the hype he generated were a bit too high.

However, that was just prejudging and so many things can change going into finals. Excited to see it tonight.

Brandon Curry for the win!

1. Brandon Curry
2. William Bonac
3. Steve Kuclo

It was close, Brandon and Bonac both looked great. I think Bonac was a bit tighter during finals, but prejudging is what set him back from Brandon. I don't think he was able to make up enough ground for the win. Brandon's physique flowed great. You could see he's been working on his legs. Hams could have been separated a bit more, but overall lots of improvement. Like I said in the first post, I think this was the best version of Steve Kuclo I've seen.

Brett came in 6th. He looked good, but just lacking overall. My personal opinion... I think he's tried to do too much too fast. He's put on a ton of size in the past few years. He really needs to work on that conditioning and posing. He seemed very shaky and out of breath.

I caught a little of the strongman, but didn't watch enough of it to review. The arm wrestling was fun to see. Arnold had some odd stuff this year like slap fighting and body painting. No clue where those types of events fit into the Arnold Classic, but ok. The slap fighting to me was kinda stupid. Just watching people slap each other in the face. Funny at first, but after about 5 minutes it's like WTF am I watching? And I turned off the body painting... that's not a sport and no clue why that was part of the show. Overall It was a great show and all the events gave me something to watch all weekend lol.