Mr. Olympia – A New Contest in the Making
Excerpts from an Editorial by Joe Weider, Trainer of Champions, Muscle Builder, April 1965
When Alexander the Great at the age of 33 conquered the then-known world, he cried: “I have no new worlds to conguer!” The same applies to Larry Scott at 24 … Harold Poole at 20 … as well as Bill Pearl, Reg Park, Chuck Sipes and other greats. These men have already won the great physique titles … the MR. AMERICA … the MR. WORLD … the MR. UNIVERSE. They have no “new worlds” to conquer … they have won the great titles and in doing so have become ineligible to compete for the same titles again.
The Rules set by the IFBB, the AAU and the NABBA forbid a winner to re-enter the same contest and re-win that contest. While this is fair and just in that it “saves face” for such a man by not affording him the opportunity to lose the status and prestige that is already his, and while this encourages new competitors to vie for top honors, thereby “turning out” new champions at a steady pace to keep the Iron Game moving forward, it is unfortunate that it causes many champions to take layoffs and lose and not improve muscularity. The incentive is gone – the titles, the trophies, the glamor – and so the champions too often “retire”.
Bill Pearl cannot compete for titles he has already has .. nor can Park … Scott … Poole … Eiferman. How long can a champion be expected to remain on top without incentive? And even if he remains on top – what incentive has he to push harder and become even greater?
We need these champions … we want them to train harder – for personal benefits and for the knowledge they can give the world. We want to see just how far they can go … how big muscles can be built – and through this knowledge bodybuilding will be advanced and progress rapidly. We must establish a contest for the greats – and through this contest the greatest of the greats would emerge.
And so it has been decided to add this contest to our big IFBB shows annually. On September 18th – the date of this year’s 1965 IFBB MR. AMERICA and IFBB MR. UNIVERSE, you will also see another contest – a contest open only to the greats. This event will be held after the other two contests – so that the top winners of these can immediately enter and vie for top honors with the “old-timers”.
The Board of Directors of the IFBB has not yet determined an appropriate title for this contest – and we invite you to send in suggestions. We’ve thought of such titles as MR. OLYMPIC (the event would become advertised in June 1965 as the “MR. OLYMPIA” and would only be open to titleholders of major events e.g. MR. AMERICA, MR. WORLD, MR. UNIVERSE).