Mohamed El Emam believes no bodybuilder currently competing would be able to beat Ronnie Coleman at his best.
Whenever we have a chance to interview a pro bodybuilder for our GI Exclusives, we always ask them for their picks of the best bodybuilders of all time. Each person’s list can reveal some insight into their own goals and careers. At the same time, there is also often a commonality between each list. Certain competitors so impressive that they can’t be ignored. Ronnie Coleman is one of those athletes. For Mohamed El Emam, Ronnie is the absolute best of all time. He goes a step further by claiming that no modern bodybuilder today could defeat Ronnie in his prime. In our latest GI Exclusive, Mohamed El Emam claims Ronnie Coleman would easily win the Mr. Olympia today – including against current champ Big Ramy.
It’s no secret that Ronnie Coleman has the reputation as one of the sport’s best bodybuilders. That’s for good reason. Ronnie solidified the mass monster era and displayed a package so massive and so conditioned – that it seemed almost inhuman. To this day, few have been able to match that kind of shocking physique. It’s for this reason that Mohamed El Emam believes Ronnie is the single greatest bodybuilder of all time.
In fact, Mohamed El Emam believes that Ronnie Coleman’s physique is so impressive – that he would easily win the Mr. Olympia today if he were magically in his prime. That’s an example of how legendary Ronnie’s physique has become in bodybuilding. Some believe he has yet to be matched.
Big Ramy, our current and now two time Mr. Olympia champion, has often been compared to Ronnie Coleman. They both bring mass monster size (even compared to an entire division now packed with mass monsters). Both Ronnie and Big Ramy are unnaturally huge compared to the competition. In recent years, Ramy has also gotten his conditioning under control to look even closer to Ronnie’s impressive package during his prime years.
That being said, Mohamed El Emam cannot but Big Ramy on his list of best bodybuilders just yet. It’s only been a short while that Ramy has been champion – and it remains to be seen if he could maintain the conditioning needed to reign in the long term. El Emam believes that in five more years we can look back and more accurately evaluate Big Ramy.
Even still, Mohamed El Emam is very clear in his statement that Ronnie Coleman could “easily win the Mr. Olympia today.” That includes Big Ramy. So despite Ramy often being compared to Ronnie – El Emam still doesn’t quite put Ramy in the same category. In a way, that’s a major factor that’s been missing from the sport the past few years – a new mind blowing step forward in the form of a competitor.
In some ways, this makes for more exciting competitions. We’ve had more Mr. Olympia champions in the past four years than usual. Big Ramy just earned his repeat victory but before that each year brought us new champions including Shawn Rhoden, Brandon Curry, and most recently Big Ramy. There’s been no knockout champion. Even Ramy’s 2021 physique was a slight notch down from 2020. There were those who thought Brandon Curry would rise for revenge and reclaim his title. That didn’t happen – but the fact that it was close showcases how there is no “Ronnie Coleman level” monsters on the stage currently.
You can watch Mohamed El Emam break down his adoration for Ronnie Coleman in more detail (plus his other top bodybuilder picks) in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!