The world of professional bodybuilding is no stranger to controversy, and one event that continues to be debated to this day is Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s ultimate victory at the Olympia of ’80. While Schwarzenegger had already established himself as an iconic figure in the sport, his last win was met with mixed reactions and remains a subject of contention among fans, experts, and fellow competitors. Following the Olympia of 1980, many bodybuilders like Frank Zane and Mike Mentzer were not satisfied by the judging and have openly talked about this previously. 

Frank Zane was recently featured in a podcast on Muscle and Fitness YouTube channel along with Milos Sarcev, Dennis James, and Chris Cormier. The trio discussed many topics, among which Frank Zane revealed the controversy revolving around 1980s Mr. Olympia.

What happened in the 1980s, Mr Olympia? 

From 1970 to 1975, Arnold won the Sandow trophy for six consecutive years. He announced his retirement after that to focus entirely on his upcoming films. A short while before the 1980s, Olympia, Frank Zane, was in the best shape of his life. Zane suffered an unfortunate injury just weeks before the competition and was retrospecting his decision to participate in the Olympia. During this dark time, Zane discussed this with his friend Schwarzenegger who motivated him to participate. During the podcast, Frank said, “When I asked him, I said, Are you going to Australia to compete in the Olympia? And he said, No, I’m going to just, you know, to be there and to, you know, do some publicity for my movies and stuff, but he didn’t say he was going to compete.”

Continuing further, Zane revealed, “And then when I saw him there with his gym bag…he lied, that he was intending to compete all the time anyway. The problem with that was he wasn’t really in good shape for it, but he won anyway.” 

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Sarcev and Cormier both raised concerns about Arnold being the promoter that year, which could have influenced the judge’s decision. Agreeing to this, Zane said, “Well, you surely control the judges. Yeah. There was that happening.” 

Zane also disclosed that Schwarzenegger had notorious behavior offstage as well as during the press conference of that year. He joked and belittled his competitors to break their focus. Giving an instance of the same, Zane stated, “Arnold said something to Mentzer about his stomach hanging way out all the time and Mentzer lunged at Arnold.”

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In the aftermath of all this chaos in the 1980s, Mr. Olympia resulted in many bodybuilders calling out Arnold Schwarzenegger for playing dirty tricks. Zane still believes that the judging was biased. Mike Mentzer, on the other hand, revolted about this and took an early retirement.