I think there's a mix of both world's here.
Did the hardcore badasses like Mike Francios diet on bland ass food, no cheat meals and get diced? Hell yeah.
Can you still get diced and not live life like a robot? Hell yeah.
Suffering for suffering's sake gets you no where and doesnt guarantee you a damn thing, so remember that.
Also, because i'm very tired of listening to people say how great yesteryear was—let me remind you that open bodybuilding was choice #101 in 1991 and is now choice #1001. Half the guys people talk about as being crisp and hard and dry cheated on their diets all the time and were the genetic freaks at that time. Stop using those 1% black guys as THE LOOK. They ate McDonalds and still killed the competition. Secondly, those freaks at that time did open bodybuidling because that was the only option. If you happen to have 1% genetics and want to get into fitness in 2020, you dont choose open bodybuilding. You choose mens physique, classic all that shit. Men's open BBing RIGHT NOW is filled with dudes with OK genetics pushing the drugs and food as hard as possible HOPING they look 1/2 as good as Flex Wheeler.
Just my 2 cents.