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Count Your Blessings!
Blessing Awodibu Is Out for Redemption
Interview by Ron Harris
Blessing Awodibu was famous to the general public long before most bodybuilding fans ever heard of him, thanks to a series of hilarious videos he posted on YouTube that went viral with millions of views. When he prepped for his pro debut last spring, many fans took umbrage to him calling out Nick Walker, who he would face at the New York Pro. Nick was a hardcore freak who was all business, while Blessing seemed to be a prankster talking crap. When “The Boogieman” debuted at the Indy Pro and underwhelmed with a flat physique, he was roasted online and in social media. Going for a much fuller look at the New York Pro a week later, he showed up soft and smooth. Many wrote him off. But since then, Blessing has been on a mission for redemption. Now working with renowned coach George Farah, he is returning to the same two stages as last year, but working toward a very different outcome – victory.
You’ve had a lot of time now to digest your first two pro shows last spring, the Indy Pro and the New York Pro. Looking back, what were you satisfied with, and what do you wish had done differently?
Overall, it was a great experience and looking back, I’m so glad it went the way it did. Most of the time you actually learn more from failing than you do from winning. If you just win all the time, you can get lost in that. The best way to learn is to fall flat on your face. I look back and the biggest mistake I made with that prep is that I didn’t have to push my body that far and do a lot of the things that I did. I look back at all my data: my texts with Chad and my progress pictures to see where I looked my best and where my look started to go in the wrong direction. Chad is an amazing coach, but you just have to find someone that works best for you. What works well for one person won’t always work the same for another. It was a great experience working with Chad and that prep taught me so much about what my body needs and doesn’t need. Now I know what to do and what not to do. Last year my mindset was that I had to just keep push, push, pushing. But when you’re prepping for shows, you have to pay attention to details like how your body is adjusting to cardio, your metabolism, flattening out, just learning your body. It was a great lesson.
I remember at about four to six weeks out from the Indy Pro, you were looking fantastic: big, full, round and getting harder by the day. But by the time you got to Indy, you had flattened out and that “wow factor” was gone.
We pushed my body to the point where it was just too far gone. Coming back from that is very hard, and especially when you’re talking about a guy like me with an extremely fast metabolism. We did try to come back after Indy leading into New York. We started eating shit food, stuff that I don’t even eat in my off-season. My body didn’t know how to process it, so I ended up looking soft and watery. This prep is so much easier, because I was doing things that I didn’t need to do. And working with George? He’s the guru, he knows everything. He saw my stage pictures from last year and he knew immediately what the problem was. He said the key with you is to lose the body fat while keeping the size and fullness you have in the off-season. That’s a really hard thing for me to do. If I push a little too hard, that fullness is gone. Naturally, I’m a skinny guy. My body wants to be skinny, so I am extremely sensitive to dieting and cardio. The minute I start dieting, everything starts to go down and I can lose both fat and muscle if I’m not being careful.
How did you end up working with George Farah?
After the two shows, I did an off-season with Abdullah (note: Abdullah Alotaibi is the head coach for Oxygen Gym, currently coaches Brandon Curry and was Big Ramy’s coach for many years.) It was a great experience. I made tremendous progress and stayed relatively lean. I got up to 303 pounds. Right around when it was time to start prep, I was back in Ireland for Christmas. I had planned to go to Kuwait to work with Abdullah, but a couple of things happened. One, I could tell he was very busy and communication wasn’t always easy. Then, I found out Kuwait still had travel restrictions in place. They weren’t letting anybody in. We were supposed to meet in Dubai, because I had planned to go from Ireland to Dubai to Kuwait. The new plan was to just go to Dubai. I wanted Abdullah to see me in person. There was no way I was going to repeat the mistakes I had made last year.
When I got to Dubai, I felt Abdullah was so busy that there was no way he could come out to see me before I started my prep. I couldn’t take any chances with this prep. If I was going to work with someone, they had to really care. I know how much I believe in myself and how much damage I can do on that stage. Communication wasn’t great, and Abdullah was working with so many athletes already. I told him I don’t think I can go on with prep like this, and he was cool about it. It turned out the guy in Dubai who was helping me out with training and my meals had been working with George for a few years. He asked me if I’d considered him. I’m good friends with Kai Greene, and he had worked with George for years also. I said shit, this is a no-brainer! I remembered meeting George at an Olympia a year or two before, and he had great things to say about me. I reached out to George and he called me right back. He said, “It’s time for you to take things to the next level.” And boom! We started right then and there.
I know Chad often had guys, especially bigger guys, do a lot of cardio in prep and George is known for having his athletes do less. I assume you’re doing less cardio for this prep versus last year?
Definitely less cardio, and we are staying away from the StairMaster. That shit killed me last year. It did not help my legs at all. I wasn’t blessed with crazy legs, and 45 minutes on that StairMaster every day was too much for them. I was flattening out all over, but especially my legs. I was not able to get the fullness back in them for the stage. This time, cardio is just 35 minutes walking at a good pace on the treadmill. It's nothing crazy.
It’s funny when you say you have a fast metabolism and you’re naturally skinny, a lot of people won’t believe you. They see how huge you are now, but I’ve seen the pictures of you when you were a kid and you were in fact pretty thin. You had to work to build all that mass.
Yes. A lot of people don’t think I take bodybuilding seriously. They say he just makes all these goofy videos being this crazy character. But there are 24 hours in a day. You can get in all your training and meals and still have plenty of time to create content. Because I do other things like YouTube and social media, people think I’m not serious. They have no idea how much work I put into bodybuilding. I understand that people won’t take me seriously until I deliver on a pro stage. You have to earn that, and I will earn it.
You announced your plans that you would be returning to the Indy Pro to win it this time. Will you also be doing the New York Pro again? They’re only a week apart.
I don’t think there is any other show for me to do this year other than Indy. I’m going back there to prove myself. Dave Bowers did a great job promoting it and the athletes were treated very well. But I would love to do New York Pro as well.
** Note: On May 14, 2022 Blessing Awodibu took first place at the Indy Pro and clinched an Olympia qualification. He is still competing in the New York Pro on Saturday May 21, 2022
The whole storyline last spring was the rivalry between you and Nick Walker. It was a slow time for news because the Arnold Classic didn’t happen until the fall, so you and Nick going back and forth at each other in videos and comments were all everyone was talking about. The funny thing is, you two wound up becoming good friends and training partners.
Sports always have exciting rivalries, and it’s nothing personal. It was all for the fans to make things more exciting. At the end of the day, we’re all friends and brothers in iron. Until then, we’re trying to take each other’s head off! Let’s show the fans how much we want this. I’m trying to win that show and I’m not gonna let this guy stop me. The fans love that shit. They got excited and loved to pick their favorite and follow along, leaving comments on our Instagram and YouTube. Nobody expected me and Nick to come together and become friends, but it’s all good sportsmanship. That’s how it should be.
Did you already have similar training styles, or did you both have to compromise to be able to train together?
He loves volume, I love volume. We both love training heavy. Some days he leads the workout, other days I do. There’s no bumping heads. People love seeing us train together. We haven’t been working out lately because I’m just focused on Indy.
You had substantial time for an off-season. What type of improvements were you after?
I was working on overall mass and fullness. I trained very hard and stayed relatively lean. Off-season is always great. It’s all about the prep for me. As long as I can keep all the size and fullness I built in the off-season and get peeled, it will be lights out. Me at my best is a dangerous look.
I think that’s why there was so much negativity hurled your way right after last year’s Indy Pro. We had all seen how impressive you were in the off-season, and you showed up flat and far less impressive.
I don’t blame the people, because I was disappointed as well. I feel when they see me at my best this year they will really appreciate me and respect that I came back and proved myself. I know respect has to be earned.
Another thing I remember about that was how instead of responding with anger to the haters talking shit and mocking you, you were nice to them. You even thanked them!
This is what social media is. When you put yourself out there and you gain a lot of followers and supporters, it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. You get both good and bad responses. It’s all about balance. If you can’t deal with that, you won’t last. Either they love you or they hate you, but guess what? Either way they are still following you and tracking your every move. Even if they want to see you fail, they’re paying your bills! Without followers, you have no sponsors. If I post a picture and get thousands of likes and thousands of comments, it doesn’t matter if half the comments are negative. It’s a big number and it’s all part of engagement. You have to expect that a lot of people will talk shit. A lot of people out there aren’t happy. They’re miserable, and they don’t want to see other people succeed and be happy. And everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. A lot of times when these people make a mean comment, they really just want someone to notice them. A lot of times they would tell me I look like shit, and I would thank them. Then they would reply back, “Wow bro, thanks for replying to me!” And I am able to turn a lot of haters into fans that way. A lot of them tell me they didn’t mean it when they were being negative.
In every sport, the stars have their peak careers and then younger athletes move in once the veterans retire. We are seeing a real changing of the guard now with younger men like Nick Walker, Hunter Labrada and Regan Grimes on the rise. You would fit into that category as well.
I feel extremely lucky for all the tools we have available to us now. Social media has given us this huge platform where we can earn our own money instead of having to rely on others to pay our bills. Back in the day, the guys didn’t have that and a lot of them struggled financially and often had to leave the sport to make a living. It’s a blessing to come up in this era with so many more opportunities. What you put in is what you get out. We have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and so on. If an athlete is willing to work hard and utilize all these platforms, he or she can do very well, and a lot of them don’t even compete.
I know a lot of people were bitter because you were so popular without competing. You had millions of followers and were better known than most pros, and you were able to parlay that into a nice contract with Redcon1.
I do get a lot of hate because people look at me and say, “He hasn’t even won anything! Why does he have a big sponsor?” I know I won’t have the support of the hardcore bodybuilding fans until I start winning shows and go to the Olympia. But maybe they will hate on me more. They say if no one is hating on you, you ain’t doing shit.
But you could have done very well for yourself without ever using your pro card. Why was it important for you to compete again?
People don’t understand that bodybuilding is my life. I’m just using social media to get myself out there and market myself; build a brand for myself. When I left Africa, when my parents sent my brother and me to Europe at age 9, they told me to go there and become a doctor. Make some money, come home, and help us. That didn’t happen for me, and I was heartbroken. I studied hard and got good grades. I was accepted to college for pre-med but I couldn’t get the government grant to attend college because I wasn’t an Irish citizen, and of course I couldn’t afford tuition. I wanted to help my mother and father out of poverty but had no idea how I could. It was a tough time.
I didn’t choose bodybuilding. Bodybuilding chose me. I loved lifting weights, and I started doing personal training. One of my friends basically forced me to compete. I had no idea what bodybuilding was. At my first show in 2011, the judges told me I had great potential and so did the guest poser, Toney Freeman. I won my next show and a few more in a row. Then I won at the Arnold Amateur Europe in 2014 as a junior. That’s when I decided this is what I want to do with my life, and I want to be the best at it. I decided I would do whatever it took. I got my pro card in 2017 while working as a security officer. I knew if I wanted to go to the next level in this sport, I would have to focus on it. I couldn’t do that working 12-hour shifts, training twice a day and getting six to seven meals in. The money was shit, too.
Then I discovered social media. I thought, I love working out hard, but I’m also a funny guy and I love doing goofy shit to make people laugh. I quit my job and started working hard on social media content to give me the freedom to focus on being the best bodybuilder I could be. Within a year, I was able to get a great sponsor with Redcon1 and move to America. I believe I have what it takes to be the best in bodybuilding. Everything else I do that you see on social media is to help make it possible for me to do that.
Were you able to help your family?
Yes, I pay their rent every month and help as much as I can. I’m grateful to be in this position where I am doing well and have that opportunity. But make no mistake. Nothing was handed to me. I had to grind for all of it. Now I’m ready to prove how good I really am as a pro bodybuilder. I’m in it to win it!
Instagram @blessing_awodibu
YouTube: Blessing Awodibu
Also featured on Redcon1 YouTube channel
Blessing’s Redcon1 Stack
Isotope®
GI Juice®
Grunt®
Total War®
Big Noise®
Cluster Bomb
Double Tap®
MRE®
Fade Out®
Immune Gummies
Sleep Gummies
For more information, visit redcon1.com
Contest History
2013 IFBB Arnold Amateur Europe - Junior, did not place
2013 IFBB European Amateur Championships - Seventh, Junior Heavyweight
2014 IFBB Arnold Amateur Europe - Junior Champion
2015 IFBB European Amateur Championships - 14th, Light Superweight
2017 IFBB Arnold Amateur Europe - Super Heavyweight and Overall
2017 IFBB World Amateur Championships - Second, Super Heavyweight
2017 IFBB Diamond Cup Portugal - Super Heavyweight and Overall
2017 IFBB Diamond Cup Czech Republic - Super Heavyweight and Overall
2021 Indy Pro - Third Place
2021 New York Pro - Sixth Place
2022 Indy Pro - First Place
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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