Kaz was the sport's most dominant pioneer, perhaps more dominant than Z, but he was like Royce in the early days of MMA; choking out plumbers who flunked out as Olympic talents in legitimate grappling sports, guys with no grappling backgrounds at all and therefore no chance, or worst of all, D-level talents who devoted their lives to Bullshido.
Great commentary on this:
Otherwise, why not go back further? Guys like Paul Andersen were perhaps among the greatest American talents untapped in the far more sophisticated and competitive sport of Olympic lifting during his prime. He was probably a bit too short for the Oly SHW category, but I wonder what he could have achieved if American training was anywhere close to Soviet training at the time, and if he had devoted his life to it.
Maybe you should watch the video in that post. I know guys get emotional about this stuff, because they're all superhuman to most of us, and many were heroes that inspired so many to follow, but those early decades were NOT tapping the world's top strength talent. It was still a fringe sport.
Maybe. Probably not. Let's be real, it's not about the training...it's about the chemistry, talent pool, and size. Big fishes in small ponds and all that.
You missed out. That movie rocked as a kid.Whenever I see stuff like this all I can think about is the VHS box cover art to the movie I wasn't allowed to watch at the time, but so desperately wanted to take home every time we visited the store (pre-Blockbuster era). My brothers and I were Hulkamaniacs...
That and during the Pudz era a lot of the top guys were not competing at wsm. i think it was IFSA a lot of them went with.
Not surprised to be honest. Age catches up to everyone and Shaw hasn't looked that good since he got injured. His time as one of the top dogs is over sadly. He's still one of the GOATS though.
Damn. I wasn't expecting to see JF score that low on the dead lift.
I thought the Numbers would be higher for the Vets since its essentially a Rack Pull.
