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5 Reasons Big Ramy Will Win the 2021 Mr. Olympia Title
Why We Could See the First Repeat Champ in 4 Years
By Ron Harris
The Long Ascent to the Top of Mount Olympus
Big Ramy was someone nearly all of us pegged as a future Mr. Olympia from the moment he stormed the stage at 285 pounds in May of 2013 to win his professional debut at the New York Pro. His climb up the steep terrain of Mount Olympia was steady in his first five attempts: eighth, seventh, fifth, fourth, and then second place. Then came a tumultuous tumble down to sixth in 2018, which upset Elssbiay so much that he left Kuwait and the Camel Crew and returned to his native Egypt to regroup, deal with a nagging shoulder injury, and come up with a new strategy. He didn’t even qualify for the 2020 Mr. Olympia but was instead granted an invitation due to extenuating circumstances. Ramy had prepared for the Europa Pro in Alicante, Spain where the top two finalists would earn a qualification for the O on the very last weekend before the Olympia lineup would be solidified, and no further entrants would be allowed. Certainly that was virtually guaranteed to happen, except that Ramy tested positive for COVID-19 and was not allowed to travel to Spain to compete. Earlier that year, he had been stranded in Dubai for five months away from his wife and children in Egypt due to travel bans. Luckily, there is a longstanding tradition of allowing one special invitation to the Mr. Olympia, which is up to the discretion of the promoter and the IFBB Pro League and is not always exercised. After the gamut of misfortunes that had befallen Ramy, it was granted to him for the 2020 edition of the contest. You know the rest of the story. A best-ever Big Ramy finally fulfilled the prophecy made seven years prior and became the 16th man since 1965 to hold that coveted title that defines a man as the absolute best bodybuilder on planet Earth at that moment. Now that Ramy has the Mr. Olympia title, the big question on everyone’s mind is, can he keep it? No one knows the answer to that yet, but I can make a convincing case as to why it’s more than likely Big Ramy will successfully defend his title and be crowned Mr. Olympia once more on the night of October 9 in Orlando, Florida.
Who’s Bigger?
Bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to physiques, but still, the Mr. Olympia has a pattern of champions who overwhelmed their opponents with mass. Think of Sergio Oliva, Lee Haney, Dorian Yates, and Ronnie Coleman. Each of those legendary champions had the biggest and most complete physiques of his respective era. At its essence, competitive bodybuilding will always be about the biggest muscles, the “freak factor” if you will, assuming all else is equal. That’s why it’s been said for decades that a good big man always beats a good smaller man. At 5-foot-10 and 290 pounds, Big Ramy is the biggest man heading into the 2021 Mr. Olympia. Others have plenty of size too, no doubt. But with his height, width, and the sheer volume of thick muscle on his frame, Ramy will once again be the biggest man on that stage. Certainly he would have met his match in terms of mass against Ronnie Coleman, Nasser El Sonbaty, or Markus Rühl in their primes, but right now, the biggest man on the mountain is the one with Big already in his damn name.
He Figured Out His Conditioning
I must preface this by saying that I as both a fan and critic still want to see far more detail and separation in Ramy’s physique. I believe if he had that insane level of muscle maturity and grainy hard condition that played a major role in Phil Heath winning seven Mr. Olympia titles, Ramy would win for as long as he wanted to, assuming he remained healthy and injury-free. But I give the man credit. At a few shows over the years, Ramy showed up looking enormous and almost comically full to bursting, but his condition was what I would consider four to six weeks out. It now seems that he has gotten a handle on how to get properly ripped. It’s true that we still need to see him repeat that feat a few more times to say for certain he’s mastered his conditioning, but all signs currently point to the fact that Ramy will likely never disappoint us with a lack of cuts again. That leads us directly into the next reason Ramy will hold on to his title this year.
He’s Got the Dream Team Now
The Camel Crew did a fine job with Big Ramy, no doubt. Under the watchful eye of Bader Boodai and his coaches in Kuwait, Elssbiay transformed from a 200-pound fisherman and aspiring bodybuilder to a 300-plus-pound beast who won the Amateur Olympia in only one year’s time – then nurtured his talent through multiple pro wins and high placings for five more years. But something was missing. Ramy needed a different approach and a new strategy. He found that in Chad Nicholls and Dennis James. Chad of course is the prep coach/guru who took Ronnie Coleman to eight Mr. Olympia wins, so obviously he knows how to dial in men of monstrous size and weight. That was a powerful new advantage, and the Dennis James connection sealed the deal. Several weeks before the 2020 Mr. Olympia, Ramy arrived in Arizona to stay with James in what was later dubbed “Camp Menace.” Dennis personally oversaw that homestretch of prep, putting him through as many as five grueling posing sessions a day, training him on every set and rep in the gym, and making certain Elssbiay stayed 100% on track with his diet. Dennis would later remark that the Camel Crew had always wanted Ramy to be as big and full as possible, and they also hated to see him suffer on ultra-low calories and carbohydrates, so they probably allowed him to eat more than he should have if the end goal was shredded condition. Ramy suffered mightily in those final weeks as both Chad and Dennis “dropped the hammer” and took him to places he had never been before, both mentally and physically. This year, Chad is again at the helm for Ramy’s diet, and Ramy is arriving at Camp Menace much further out from the contest than he did last year. With this dream team in his corner, all signs point to Ramy repeating the win.
Ramy Has a New Confidence
Many who have personally encountered Big Ramy remarked as to how he was just about the nicest and most humble guy you could ever hope to meet, as the assumption is often that anyone with a body so massive and imposing would be a mean jerk, possibly even a bully. But Ramy is a soft-spoken family man and not a raging bull. Unfortunately, being “nice” isn’t the best attribute in high-level bodybuilding competition where every man is hungry to beat every other man on the stage. Many times over the years I have observed Ramy being “too nice” in competition, gracious and polite, which can make it seem as if he either didn’t want to win badly enough or that he didn’t truly believe he could win. It was a new Ramy that we witnessed last December in Orlando, and I’m not talking about his muscle definition. He smiled with a totally new confidence and self-assurance, as if he finally saw himself as the best in the world even before the judges confirmed that fact. It can be psychologically devastating to fail to reach you goal year after year despite all your best efforts, but the opposite is also true. Now that Ramy is Mr. Olympia, he knows he is “good enough,” in fact he’s better than all the rest! Even Ronnie Coleman has said that he never thought it was possible that he could be Mr. Olympia until he won that first time in 1998. The win instilled new self-esteem and changed the way he looked at himself and his standing in the sport. I strongly suspect it has done the same for the huge Egyptian.
Who Can Beat Him?
The list of men in this world who even stand a chance of beating a ripped Big Ramy is a very short one indeed. At the top of that list would be the 2019 Mr. Olympia and 2020 runner-up, Brandon Curry. Brandon looked fantastic last year, but the one area he’s been criticized for the most is his legs. They have improved a great deal over the years, but Ramy has some of the freakiest legs ever built. In particular, his quad volume and their crazy outer sweep expose Curry’s chink in the armor even more. As of this writing in late August, Phil Heath has not announced that he will compete. Phil at his career best in my opinion beats Ramy, but we haven’t seen that version of Phil Heath for at least four years and it’s uncertain if he can ever regain that winning form again. Multitudes of Hadi Choopan fans are sure he will win the Olympia this year. The man from Iran does have more detail and separation and can match Ramy in terms of muscle thickness and density, but the fact remains that he’s a half-foot shorter and has a much more compact bone structure. William Bonac can’t be ignored as a threat, as the two-time Arnold Classic champ and Mr. Olympia runner-up has beaten Ramy numerous times in the past. I wouldn’t write him or anyone else off as being incapable of knocking Ramy off his throne, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Big Ramy is Mr. Olympia, and I believe in just a few weeks Bob Cicherillo will be announcing in his booming baritone: “And STILL your Mr. Olympia champion, Big Ramy!”
Eras of Change
We talk about how crazy it is that we have had a different Mr. Olympia champ every year for the past four years, but there was a span of six years from 1979 until 1984 where the title changed hands every single year. These are the winners from that era:
1979 - Frank Zane
1980 - Arnold Schwarzenegger
1981 - Franco Columbu
1982 - Chris Dickerson
1983 - Samir Bannout
1984 - Lee Haney
Ironically, Lee Haney’s win in 1984 began another unique epoch we may never see again. Lee won eight titles from 1984 until he retired in 1991. Dorian Yates followed Haney with six consecutive wins from 1992 until 1997, which then began the eight-year reign of Ronnie Coleman. That means the Mr. Olympia went from having six champs in six years to just three men keeping a stranglehold on the Sandow for 22 years! Will Ramy be able to keep the Mr. Olympia title for many years to come as that vaunted trio of Lee, Dorian, and Ronnie did, and Heath after them? Only time will tell.
Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. Facebook Instagram
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