He's the only BB who crossed over into mainstream. And the 2nd most famous BB Lou, became famous only because he was Arnold's Foil. I'd argue if not for Arnold he would not have made the radar to be cast as the Incredible Hulk.
All the other great body builders are completely unknown to the public. Every other sport has multiple, multi-generational stars. BB has Arnold. Who may be a bigger star than them all to boot.
Hm. Two reasons I can think of.
First of all, as far as crossover, today's guys lack personality and charisma. Seems they don't spend much time on other parts of life, maybe? Dunno. There's no one that strikes me as anything more than a guy with big muscles on the scene at the moment. Which is cool, but not much potential there.
What's the most interesting thing that Ronnie's ever said? "Light Weight, Baby!" LOL...Umm, yeah, ok...
Second, other sports don't really "evolve" like Bodybuilding has. Bodybuilding replaces it's stars. The old school guys wouldn't win competitions on the same level today.
But in Boxing, Football, Baseball for example. A great player back then would be great or very good today.
A 4.5 second 40 yard dash is always fast. A hard hit in Football was/is/will be hard. Home-runs if anything, have gotten easier than when the Babe did it. Making his record season all the more remarkable.
Can you imagine Jesse Owens running in 1000$ Nike's tailored to his tread? And getting hit by Muhammad Ali would suck today as much as in his heyday. Imagine him on modern drugs/diet/training...He'd be Mike Tyson with a higher IQ.
Most of all, guys in those sports DID other things, made headlines by saying or doing interesting things, not just getting arrested.