Tag: Melle Mel
Melle Mel: Shaun Clarida Had A Better Physique Than Big Ramy At Olympia 2020
Melle Mel explains why he believes Shaun Clarida was the best bodybuilder of the entire night at Olympia 2020.
Melle Mel previously stated in one of our interview segments that the quality of the Men’s Open bodybuilders were impressive but not ideal. By that he means that there was no Ronnie Coleman, Phil Heath, or Dorian Yates type of brilliance on display. In his mind, Big Ramy was no better than anyone in the top 10 at Olympia 2020. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Melle Mel goes a step further. He believes that Men’s 212 champion Shaun Clarida had a better physique than Big Ramy and anyone else on the Men’s Open stage.
Melle Mel loves bodybuilding but he falls into the camp of people who think Men’s Open has become too bloated with size. While he does enjoy the freak factor, he laments the loss of beauty in more conditioned and aesthetic physiques. Which is why he was happy for the creation of Classic Physique.
Somewhat ironically, it wasn’t the Classic Physique Olympia 2020 champion that stood out to him this past year. It was the Men’s 212 champion – Shaun Clarida. Known for his small height, Clarida was a Men’s 212 bodybuilder that often got overlooked. He proved the world that they should start paying attention with a truly career defining physique at Olympia 2020. He won and became champion.
Melle Mel believes that Shaun Clarida is the ideal phyisque that bodybuilders should all aspire towards. He goes as far to claim that if Clarida stood on stage next to Big Ramy – that Clarida would have won the Mr. Olympia overall. That’s how much Melle Mel was impressed by Clarida’s physique.
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Check out our GI Exclusive segment with Melle Mel above!
Of course, the sheer height and size difference would be a challenge for Clarida to overcome. But Melle Mel believes that size should not always matter. Bigger is not always better. He believes that Clarida should be able to stand side by side with Big Ramy – and fans and judges should be able to award Clarida victory regardless of his smaller size.
“Now had he stood beside Big Ramy, I guarantee you he would look better than Big Ramy,” Melle Mel states in our interview. He goes on, “He just wouldn’t be bigger. So you would probably overlook him. Absolutely he was in better conditioning than Big Ramy.”
The point Melle Mel seems to be making here is that it’s natural for us to overlook smaller stature people. Even if Clarida held a better conditioned physique – it would be less noticeable when an elephant is standing next to him. That being said, if it was possible to really let the crowd evaluate each of them honestly – Melle Mel thinks it’s clear that Clarida was superior in every single way.
There was a time in bodybuilding’s younger era, where the lightweight and heavyweight bodybuilders would ultimately battle on stage side by side for an overall winner. That has disappeared with the removal of traditional weight classes and the creation of divisions. Perhaps one day the IFBB and NPC can open up special crossover categories.
Imagine the Mr. Olympia standing next to the Men’s 212 Olympia and so on. Would it always be guaranteed that the Men’s Open competitor wins? Or would we have some surprise upsets? Melle Mel wants to believe that someone like Clarida can win overall – but we’ll never know unless these sort of crossover events are allowed to happen.
You can watch Melle Mel’s full comments on Shaun Clarida and Big Ramy in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!
Melle Mel: Dexter Jackson Should Have Won Mr. Olympia 2020
Melle Mel doesn’t believe any of the bodybuilders were vastly superior at the Olympia 2020 and that Dexter Jackson should have won
By and large, the Mr. Olympia 2020 was not a very controversial one. After many years of close calls and fans contradicting the judges’ decisions – this past Olympia was pretty straight forward. Most fans and experts agree that Big Ramy was the clear cut victor. And that’s exactly what the judges gave him. But hip hop artist and bodybuilding enthusiast Melle Mel doesn’t quite agree. He doesn’t think Big Ramy looked vastly superior to anyone else in the top 10 on that stage. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Melle Mel explains why he believes Dexter Jackson should have won the Mr. Olympia 2020.
Most fans of bodybuilding didn’t argue with Big Ramy winning the Mr. Olympia 2020. By most accounts, it was clear that he was the superior athlete on stage. Melle Mel isn’t a man who falls in this category. In fact, he thinks that Big Ramy’s excellence was a bit overrated.
This isn’t to say that Big Ramy didn’t bring his A game. Far from it. In fact, Melle Mel believes that most of the bodybuilders in the top 10 had incredible physiques. His problem is that not one of them stood out from the other clearly. It was so close in his mind – that any of the top 10 could have been claimed champion and no one would have a problem with it.
With that in mind, Melle Mel believes that Dexter Jackson should have been claimed the champion of the Mr. Olympia 2021. He has two reasons for this belief. First, it was Dexter’s last show and sending him off with a victory would have been a nice bookend to his career. Second, his aesthetic represents the true goal of bodybuilding more than anyone else on stage. At least, that’s what Melle Mel believes.
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Check out our latest GI Exclusive segment with Melle Mel above!
Bodybuilders like Big Ramy, Brandon Curry, and even Phil Heath certainly have more mass than Dexter Jackson. But Melle Mel doesn’t see Men’s Open bodybuilding as a battle of mass. The goal is to bring in mass, conditioning, and aesthetic into a perfect package. He believes most bodybuilders today fall short on the aesthetic side of things. Everyone except for Dexter Jackson.
“How many of those guys gave a better body than Dex?” Melle Mel states in our interview. “They don’t. But they’ll [the judges] find reasons to not give it to Dex.”
Melle Mel goes on to explain how Dexter Jackson won the Mr. Olympia one time previously by beating Jay Cutler. And Jay Cutler became Mr. Olympia after defeating Ronnie Coleman. So if Dexter was able to be Cutler – how was he not able to beat Ronnie before Cutler became champion? In Melle Mel’s mind it’s because the judges didn’t want to give Dexter Jackson the victory.
Of course, it must be said that bodybuilder’s physiques change year after year. Just because Jay Cutler beat Ronnie Coleman one year (after Ronnie had already been slowly fading), doesn’t mean Cutler was the same quality years later when he lost to Dexter Jackson.
And that brings up the ultimate disconnect that can happen with bodybuilding fans, judges, and athletes. Bodybuilding is ultimately subjective. Even with a set of rules and standards. Even with images of past champions to give a benchmark for what excellence is – the mind’s eye sees what it wants to see. We all walk through life with different perspectives. It flavors our judgement.
So maybe Melle Mel is right. Maybe we’ve all bought into the size game and the narrative that Big Ramy was vastly superior at the Olympia 2020. Or perhaps Melle Mel is simply falling victim to his own subjective viewpoints. At the end of the day, it’s that kind of debate that can make the sport of bodybuilding so exciting and dramatic.
You can watch Melle Mel’s full thoughts on the Olympia 2020 in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!
Melle Mel: “Frank Zane Is Hands Down The Best Bodybuilder Ever”
Melle Mel explains why he thinks Frank Zane stands tall as the greatest bodybuilder of all time.
During our Generation Iron interviews, we always make sure to ask who the top five bodybuilders are of all time. Each person has a different list that reveals something about how they view bodybuilding. This held true for rapper and bodybuilding aficionado, Melle Mel. He not only picked a diverse top five – he placed a wild card for the very top of his list. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Melle Mel details why he believes Frank Zane is the greatest bodybuilder ever – even above the likes of Ronnie Coleman.
Frank Zane is truly a legendary athlete. This much is known throughout the bodybuilding community. But if you were to start discussing the greatest bodybuilder of all time, Zane might not be at the very top of the list. That is usually reserved for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronnie Coleman, or Lee Haney among perhaps a few others.
Melle Mel thinks it’s time for Frank Zane to get his due. Again, there is no one who undervalues Zane as a whole. He has gone down in history as a true legend in the sport. But for Melle Mel – that’s not enough. Zane should be noted as the single greatest bodybuilder of all time.
Of course, this comes back down to the debate of size versus aesthetic. Bodybuilders like Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman changed the game. The limits were pushed into inhuman levels and created the term mass monster. Ever since then, the broader and heavier look has reigned supreme.
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Check out our latest GI Exclusive with Melle Mel above!
For Melle Mel, Frank Zane represents a perfect physique before the world turned towards mass monsters. His aesthetic, conditioning, and size all came together into something perfect. More reminiscent to a Roman statue than The Hulk. It showcased a true mastery of bodybuilding without the bigger health risks.
Melle Mel believes that health should still be more of a consideration in pro bodybuilding. He prefers classic physiques of yesteryear because they still mastered muscle without taking it to extremely unhealthy places. It’s an opinion that he shares with a sub category of fans. Their outcry eventually led to the creation of the Classic Physique division.
Melle Mel even draws direct comparisons to Ronnie Coleman. Typically, Coleman is placed as a contender for the greatest bodybuilder of all time. Melle Mel thinks this is misplaced. Coleman certainly is one of the greatest but the sacrifice he paid for that physique promotes unhealthy choices. To Melle Mel, that’s not what bodybuilding should be about.
“Everybody loves Ronnie Coleman. He’s a great guy. I met him, I love him,” Melle Mel states in our interview. He continues:
“The difference between him and Frank Zane is like… I could look like Frank Zane… But you’re never going to look like Ronnie. And if you do there’s a price to be paid to look like Ronnie. And he’s paying the price and he’s a great man because he don’t shy away from it… but there’s a price to be paid because to look like Ronnie Coleman you will pay the price.”
You can watch Melle Mel list off his top five bodybuilders of all time and go more in-depth on Frank Zane by checking out our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!