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Not sure if it has been posted here already..but i found this interesting.
(Ed's comments denoted by *)
From T-Nation.com:
2001: A Dead Pool Odyssey
by the Bagel
Editor’s note: This is the 4th installment of The Dead Pool. For those of you who are new to the site, The Dead Pool began as a gruesome extension of the game where players bet on which Hollywood celebrity — based on either advanced age or plain old hard living — is going to die in the coming year. We took the same "game" and applied it to bodybuilders.
We get a lot of flack for this column, but if we can psychically slap one of the Pool’s members into reevaluating his fasttrack to death, then it’s worth it. As always, the names have been changed to protect the walking dead.
Here we all are in this glorious new millennium of wisdom, peace, and love. Most people filling the gyms of America want sculpted abs and just a little bit of muscle instead of the freakish physiques of professional bodybuilders.
The bodies of the latter have become so distorted and unattainable that the competitive side of the sport has dwindled down to a hardcore cult. Steroids, too, have lost the rampant popularity they once enjoyed, as bulk is no longer the revered trait to which most aspire. But there are always the diehard few who continue to worship at the altar of freakiness. For them, a human can never become too huge or too ripped. Health is of little or no concern when a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals are the sole means to facilitate these inhuman standards of physique development. These are the daredevils, the kamikazes who only see the end goal and ignore the dangers along the way.
For this reason they belong in the Dead Pool, as Death is surely watching their every move, waiting for the opportunity to snatch their last breath away and bring them into his dark domain. These are the ones to watch in the coming year, ladies and germs, the members of the 2001 Dead Pool…
Stuart Synthol (Gregg Valentino)
Fame wasn’t always such a sought-after commodity, but our generation believes that each one of us is entitled to our very own fifteen minutes of celebrity. For the majority who lack any talent in singing or acting, dubious achievements and criminal acts are the only viable alternatives. Some set out as bodybuilders to become pro’s and adorn the covers of their favorite physique mags. Harsh reality eventually sets in for most, as they realize that only a lucky few have the sufficient good looks and/or genetics for a physical package that magazine editors believe will sell issues. You either have to be a pretty boy like Frank Sepe or Mike O’Hearn, or a winner of pro events (and even many of them receive little coverage).
Stuart Synthol started out in earnest, competing at the regional level in what he hoped was the first step in becoming a famous bodybuilder. When "politics" kept him from advancing past this level, he realized that the conventional route to fame wasn’t going to take him there. Then along came Synthol, the MCT oil injected into muscles to create instant "size."
"What if," he wondered, "I injected so much of this stuff into my arms that they became the biggest in the world?" Surely fame would be his at last. And so it is. Stuart even secretly snickered to himself that he could represent these balloons as real arms and get away with it. He sent off pictures to all the major magazines, and several printed them. Musclemag has even run two whole features on the man, who now has shoulders and arms that resemble giant, cancerous tumors. Thus, he’s receiving more coverage than most of the roughly 100 men who currently hold IFBB pro cards.
What he’s denying to himself is that he is the laughingstock of the industry, ridiculed and reviled as a liar and a cheat. Worse, Stuart Synthol has quite possibly set himself up for a very sudden, premature death. Milos Sarcev nearly died when a glob of this stuff traveled into his bloodstream last year, and he had used perhaps five percent of the total amount that Stuart has. Nobody has dropped dead yet from Synthol, but he could very well be the first to usher in the wave of victims. Vegas odds put Stuart at the very top of the 2001 Dead Pool.
When he’s floating above that body he so abused toward the end of his relatively young life, will those fifteen minutes of "fame" seem worth it?
*Gregg is still alive and kicking in 2008, having given his arms a rest and worked his fingers into a gig at MD.
Part E. Animal (Chris Cormier)
Life is just one big party for this 33-year-old LA resident who everyone seems to think has a legitimate chance of dethroning Ronnie Coleman as Mr. Olympia. Of course, to be the top bodybuilder in the world, a great deal of sacrifices must be made. One thing I’m fairly certain of is that you don’t get there when your weekends are full of wild nightclubs, tab after tab of Ecstasy, and escapades with the Sex Cult of Venice Beach.
Part E. was even hospitalized in Mexico where he was booked for several appearances just before the 2000 Olympia and ended up missing the show. In this modern world of spin doctors, the incident was blamed on "exhaustion." Tell me, how exhausting is it to give a two-minute posing presentation every couple days and answer some generic training and nutrition questions?
The rumors of his excesses, particularly with the drug Ecstasy, are quite pervasive, coming from dozens of sources all over the country. Is everyone simply out to assassinate his character? His defenders point to his hard training and winning ways on stage as evidence that these are all lies perpetrated by jealous, spiteful assholes. However, Darryl Strawberry and Lawrence Taylor were still pretty darned good athletes even when hopped up on cocaine, were they not?
The reason that Part E.’s Ecstasy addiction puts him in the Dead Pool again is a simple mathematical formula. Steroids, which he uses in abundance, raise the blood pressure. So does Ecstasy, as it contains a variant of methamphetamine. Add these two together and mix in training with some of the heaviest weights any pro bodybuilder uses, and a heart attack or stroke can’t be too far away. Mr. Olympia? Very doubtful. Dead by 35? More likely. And so would end one of the most notorious "double lives" ever led by a pro bodybuilder, a pro bodybuilder who’s supposed to be a role model of health and fitness.
*Chris was hospitalized for an undisclosed illness in 2006 during which he lost 80 lbs. His comeback attempt in 2007 was short-lived.
Prince Pastrami (King Kamali)
He’s the new smack-talking, arrogant young pro on the block, and he’s stirring up controversy all over the sport. The Weider writers have even lovingly nicknamed him "The Royal Pain." Intentionally setting out to make enemies of his fellow pro’s to get some publicity is a risky enough proposition, but what may be even riskier is the gear this Persian Powerhouse must be taking.
We first heard about Prince back in 94, when he won the NPC Collegiate Nationals at 198 pounds. Five years later he turns professional at 225 pounds. For his pro debut a little less than a year later, Pastrami shows up shredded to the bone, weighing 245 pounds and with the deepest separations in the glutes and hamstrings ever seen in a human being! Add to this his habit of ballooning up to 300 pounds throughout the off-season (a weight which has to put a lot of extra stress on all the systems of the body) and we have a volatile situation. His dream is to rule the bodybuilding world, but let’s hope Prince doesn’t wind up having the best physique in the underworld!
*King may have peaked in 2001 but he has no physical ailments to show for his 300+ lbs other than a hot wife and baby daughter.
SuperCroc (Lee Priest)
Oh Croc, you almost managed to avoid being included in your fourth consecutive Dead Pool, but look what you went and did. While preparing for the 2001 Pro Ironman, SuperCroc experienced severe chest pains and went to the hospital. There it was determined that one of his heart ventricles was only operating at 37% capacity. What did Croc do? Did he say, "Damn, I’m not even thirty years old, I’ve got a great new wife, maybe it’s time to back off and count my blessings?" Nah! Instead, he drove directly from the hospital to World Gym in Marina Del Rey, California, slapped a thousand pounds on a leg press, and banged out twenty reps! This was meant to be some macho test to see if God intended him to live or die. Since he was still alive at the end of the set, he took that as a sign to keep on rollin’, baby!
Croc went ahead and did the Ironman and is on track now for the Mr. Olympia. His explanation is that a lot of people have this same heart problem and are doing just fine. Maybe so, but are they on steroids most of the year and blasting away with tons of weights six days a week? And do they let their bodyweight yo-yo up and down from 220 to 270 several times a year (a further stress on the heart)?
Croc, you’re one of the greatest bodybuilders we’ve ever seen, both in terms of your physique and your witty and brutally honest personality. The Bagel would truly hate to see anything bad happen to you. Please, make your health more of a priority and take it a bit more seriously so that you can get off this hellish list and live a long and satisfying life!
*Lee is still under IFBB suspension and recently moved back to Australia, seemingly ending his competitive career.
D-bol (Dennis James)
Getting steroids here in the USA sucks. If you buy them from a dealer, you never know when you’re getting ripped off with fake or underdosed gear. On top of that is a huge mark-up so that all the middle men involved get their cut. Smuggling it in yourself is an attractive alternative for some, but the danger of getting busted is high, especially when you’re a big meathead who the Customs officials can spot a half-mile away.
Why not just move to a country where the drugs are cheap and legal? That’s what D-bol did. Setting up residence in Thailand, he not only gained access to vast amounts of drugs, but also allegedly began a career as one of the most prolific exporters of the famous pink Thai Anabol tablets. D-bol supposedly like to pop about fifty to seventy-five grams a day of these tiny anabolic breath mints, and that’s on top of the usual Deca and GH.
Now he’s got his own gym and expensive cars in a country where most people live on a few dollars a week. And how did those Asian drugs work out for our man D-bol? Pretty well, I’d say, considering he came back to the USA and got his pro card within a couple tries, and he’s already won a pro show, beating Chris Cormier. At 5’ 8", he bulks up close to three bills and then trims it down to 250 come showtime.
All I can say is, I hope you can buy a new liver on E-bay with that prize money, because years of steady Dianabol use puts about the same toll on that organ as drinking a quart of rotgut whiskey a day.
*Despite being pinched by both Thai authorities and the DEA, Dennis James is still competing in the IFBB and far from dead.
Wolfgang Tool (Markus Ruhl)
If you’re like the Bagel, the first time you saw pictures of this German Giant, you feared one of those "Musclehedz" cartoons had somehow sprung to life in flesh and blood. It was just too perfect a comparison: the platinum-blonde flat top, the ridiculous proportions, even the big lantern jaw. This Deutchland Dandy is under the six-foot mark, yet comes into contests in shape at 285 freaking pounds! Off-season? Now you’re talking close to 330. How much gear does it take to support that type of mass? I don’t know, but then again, I don’t know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, either.
When I met him, he seemed like a big teddy bear, soft-spoken and exceedingly polite, even shy. He reminded me an awful lot of another German-speaking IFBB Pro I once knew — Andreas Munzer. Munzer was one of the reasons this here Dead Pool got off the ground, and it’s sad that Wolfgang could very well be on a similar path to a tragically young death.
His belly is already big enough to give birth to a 12-year-old, meaning that his internal organs have hypertrophied out of control. Tool claimed in an interview that using steroids isn’t so risky if you know what you’re doing and work with a doctor. Yes, De Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt, it’s a human defense mechanism too!
There’s no way you can tell me that the grams and grams of gear it takes to make a human being that large and freaky are in any way safe. That’s like saying driving in NASCAR isn’t risky if you know what you’re doing. Dale Earnhardt was one of the best drivers of all time, and he’s dead. When you dance with the Devil, shit can happen to anyone.
*Markus survived another 6 years at his massive size and after a series of disappointing placings, announced his retirement in 2007.
Canadian Colossus (Greg Kovacs)
Yes, this 420-pound freak of nature is no stranger to the Dead Pool, but now it seems something drastic has happened. Godzilla here only competes about once every three years since he lives off his contract with a Canadian-based supplement company. This only requires him to show up at expo’s, where the physical exertion caused by sitting there and drinking shakes, along with getting up once in awhile to pose for the occasional photo, is enough to make this human side of beef gasp for air.
Since he’s isolated from the rest of the bodybuilding world most of the time, he eventually started to think he can do well in a pro show. Why not? Hey, 27-inch arms, 70-inch chest, 85-inch waist… well, maybe nobody will notice that. At the recent Night of Champions, Colossus showed up looking as if he thought it were a guest-posing appearance, fat as a killer whale.
He must have run out of Synthol that week, because only one shoulder was inflated. The kicker was, he was seen crying in the lobby after prejudging. Apparently, he had dieted and done his cardio, but his body simply wouldn’t cooperate. I’m no doctor, I’m just a delicious breakfast food, but surely this is a sign of something very serious. When your body is rebelling against you in this manner, it’s usually an indication of an illness or organ failure at work. If you recall, Don Long’s inability to get in shape toward the end of his too-brief pro career was a foreshadowing of his eventual kidney failure. That would suck if that turned out to be the case here, eh?
*Kovacs never amounted to anything as a Pro, with a brutal combination of horrible shape, symmetry, aesthetics and an inability to wipe his own ass.
Triple P (HHH)
The last entrant in the 2001 Dead Pool isn’t a bodybuilder, but he’s certainly more famous than all of the Mr. Olympias except Arnold. A pro wrestler in the WWF, Triple P has a very powerful physique, ripped year-round at 280 pounds at 6-5 with lats, delts, chest, and traps that most of us would kill for. What the heck is he doing in here? When it comes to risk, Triple P is second to none, even including his bodybuilding cousins.
Because he’s on TV twice a week and is featured in an overly-hyped pay-per-view match every month, there is absolutely no time for him to get off the juice and clean out. His red face and popping veins are a giveaway of high blood pressure, and in what’s tantamount to pulling on the Grim Reaper’s cape, the guy is jumping off top ropes and getting thrown out of rings all the time, tangling with guys that weigh as much as 500 pounds.
It’s well-known that many of the men in "sports entertainment" are also addicted to painkillers, which allow them to continue their brutal schedule despite nagging injuries that are never given the chance to heal.
Since he appears in ads for Weider’s fat burners, maybe it isn’t so strange to see him wind up in this infamous list. Welcome to the Pool. Let’s just hope it’s not Game Over for you any time soon.
*Lots of Pro Wrestlers have croaked since 2001 but not Triple-H. Although down in size from his peak by about 40lbs., HHH continues to be a top wrestling/bodybuilding MC/Personality.
That’s our group of front-runners for 2001. As always, if anyone actually dies in the coming year as a result of the bodybuilding lifestyle, it’s more likely to be some poor fool at your local gym, taking three grams a week of gear, 52 weeks a year, in hopes of someday getting their picture in a bodybuilding magazine. When he goes, all he’ll get is two lines in the town paper’s obituary and life will go on for the rest of us.
What the Dead Pool is trying to point out is that steroids — although fairly safe in reasonable dosages and when cycled for limited durations — become drastically more dangerous when you up the dosage and stay on them for long periods of time.
For most of the men above, drug use and abuse might be considered mandatory because it’s what they do for a living. For the rest of you who’ll never see a dime from bodybuilding or even get a picture the size of a postage stamp printed of your physique, think long and hard when you consider your steroid stacks and use of recreational drugs like Ecstasy, painkillers, and cocaine. Just because we don’t talk about you in the Dead Pool doesn’t mean your number won’t be called. Stay alive until next time, everybody.
Bagel out.
(Ed's comments denoted by *)
From T-Nation.com:
2001: A Dead Pool Odyssey
by the Bagel
Editor’s note: This is the 4th installment of The Dead Pool. For those of you who are new to the site, The Dead Pool began as a gruesome extension of the game where players bet on which Hollywood celebrity — based on either advanced age or plain old hard living — is going to die in the coming year. We took the same "game" and applied it to bodybuilders.
We get a lot of flack for this column, but if we can psychically slap one of the Pool’s members into reevaluating his fasttrack to death, then it’s worth it. As always, the names have been changed to protect the walking dead.
Here we all are in this glorious new millennium of wisdom, peace, and love. Most people filling the gyms of America want sculpted abs and just a little bit of muscle instead of the freakish physiques of professional bodybuilders.
The bodies of the latter have become so distorted and unattainable that the competitive side of the sport has dwindled down to a hardcore cult. Steroids, too, have lost the rampant popularity they once enjoyed, as bulk is no longer the revered trait to which most aspire. But there are always the diehard few who continue to worship at the altar of freakiness. For them, a human can never become too huge or too ripped. Health is of little or no concern when a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals are the sole means to facilitate these inhuman standards of physique development. These are the daredevils, the kamikazes who only see the end goal and ignore the dangers along the way.
For this reason they belong in the Dead Pool, as Death is surely watching their every move, waiting for the opportunity to snatch their last breath away and bring them into his dark domain. These are the ones to watch in the coming year, ladies and germs, the members of the 2001 Dead Pool…
Stuart Synthol (Gregg Valentino)
Fame wasn’t always such a sought-after commodity, but our generation believes that each one of us is entitled to our very own fifteen minutes of celebrity. For the majority who lack any talent in singing or acting, dubious achievements and criminal acts are the only viable alternatives. Some set out as bodybuilders to become pro’s and adorn the covers of their favorite physique mags. Harsh reality eventually sets in for most, as they realize that only a lucky few have the sufficient good looks and/or genetics for a physical package that magazine editors believe will sell issues. You either have to be a pretty boy like Frank Sepe or Mike O’Hearn, or a winner of pro events (and even many of them receive little coverage).
Stuart Synthol started out in earnest, competing at the regional level in what he hoped was the first step in becoming a famous bodybuilder. When "politics" kept him from advancing past this level, he realized that the conventional route to fame wasn’t going to take him there. Then along came Synthol, the MCT oil injected into muscles to create instant "size."
"What if," he wondered, "I injected so much of this stuff into my arms that they became the biggest in the world?" Surely fame would be his at last. And so it is. Stuart even secretly snickered to himself that he could represent these balloons as real arms and get away with it. He sent off pictures to all the major magazines, and several printed them. Musclemag has even run two whole features on the man, who now has shoulders and arms that resemble giant, cancerous tumors. Thus, he’s receiving more coverage than most of the roughly 100 men who currently hold IFBB pro cards.
What he’s denying to himself is that he is the laughingstock of the industry, ridiculed and reviled as a liar and a cheat. Worse, Stuart Synthol has quite possibly set himself up for a very sudden, premature death. Milos Sarcev nearly died when a glob of this stuff traveled into his bloodstream last year, and he had used perhaps five percent of the total amount that Stuart has. Nobody has dropped dead yet from Synthol, but he could very well be the first to usher in the wave of victims. Vegas odds put Stuart at the very top of the 2001 Dead Pool.
When he’s floating above that body he so abused toward the end of his relatively young life, will those fifteen minutes of "fame" seem worth it?
*Gregg is still alive and kicking in 2008, having given his arms a rest and worked his fingers into a gig at MD.
Part E. Animal (Chris Cormier)
Life is just one big party for this 33-year-old LA resident who everyone seems to think has a legitimate chance of dethroning Ronnie Coleman as Mr. Olympia. Of course, to be the top bodybuilder in the world, a great deal of sacrifices must be made. One thing I’m fairly certain of is that you don’t get there when your weekends are full of wild nightclubs, tab after tab of Ecstasy, and escapades with the Sex Cult of Venice Beach.
Part E. was even hospitalized in Mexico where he was booked for several appearances just before the 2000 Olympia and ended up missing the show. In this modern world of spin doctors, the incident was blamed on "exhaustion." Tell me, how exhausting is it to give a two-minute posing presentation every couple days and answer some generic training and nutrition questions?
The rumors of his excesses, particularly with the drug Ecstasy, are quite pervasive, coming from dozens of sources all over the country. Is everyone simply out to assassinate his character? His defenders point to his hard training and winning ways on stage as evidence that these are all lies perpetrated by jealous, spiteful assholes. However, Darryl Strawberry and Lawrence Taylor were still pretty darned good athletes even when hopped up on cocaine, were they not?
The reason that Part E.’s Ecstasy addiction puts him in the Dead Pool again is a simple mathematical formula. Steroids, which he uses in abundance, raise the blood pressure. So does Ecstasy, as it contains a variant of methamphetamine. Add these two together and mix in training with some of the heaviest weights any pro bodybuilder uses, and a heart attack or stroke can’t be too far away. Mr. Olympia? Very doubtful. Dead by 35? More likely. And so would end one of the most notorious "double lives" ever led by a pro bodybuilder, a pro bodybuilder who’s supposed to be a role model of health and fitness.
*Chris was hospitalized for an undisclosed illness in 2006 during which he lost 80 lbs. His comeback attempt in 2007 was short-lived.
Prince Pastrami (King Kamali)
He’s the new smack-talking, arrogant young pro on the block, and he’s stirring up controversy all over the sport. The Weider writers have even lovingly nicknamed him "The Royal Pain." Intentionally setting out to make enemies of his fellow pro’s to get some publicity is a risky enough proposition, but what may be even riskier is the gear this Persian Powerhouse must be taking.
We first heard about Prince back in 94, when he won the NPC Collegiate Nationals at 198 pounds. Five years later he turns professional at 225 pounds. For his pro debut a little less than a year later, Pastrami shows up shredded to the bone, weighing 245 pounds and with the deepest separations in the glutes and hamstrings ever seen in a human being! Add to this his habit of ballooning up to 300 pounds throughout the off-season (a weight which has to put a lot of extra stress on all the systems of the body) and we have a volatile situation. His dream is to rule the bodybuilding world, but let’s hope Prince doesn’t wind up having the best physique in the underworld!
*King may have peaked in 2001 but he has no physical ailments to show for his 300+ lbs other than a hot wife and baby daughter.
SuperCroc (Lee Priest)
Oh Croc, you almost managed to avoid being included in your fourth consecutive Dead Pool, but look what you went and did. While preparing for the 2001 Pro Ironman, SuperCroc experienced severe chest pains and went to the hospital. There it was determined that one of his heart ventricles was only operating at 37% capacity. What did Croc do? Did he say, "Damn, I’m not even thirty years old, I’ve got a great new wife, maybe it’s time to back off and count my blessings?" Nah! Instead, he drove directly from the hospital to World Gym in Marina Del Rey, California, slapped a thousand pounds on a leg press, and banged out twenty reps! This was meant to be some macho test to see if God intended him to live or die. Since he was still alive at the end of the set, he took that as a sign to keep on rollin’, baby!
Croc went ahead and did the Ironman and is on track now for the Mr. Olympia. His explanation is that a lot of people have this same heart problem and are doing just fine. Maybe so, but are they on steroids most of the year and blasting away with tons of weights six days a week? And do they let their bodyweight yo-yo up and down from 220 to 270 several times a year (a further stress on the heart)?
Croc, you’re one of the greatest bodybuilders we’ve ever seen, both in terms of your physique and your witty and brutally honest personality. The Bagel would truly hate to see anything bad happen to you. Please, make your health more of a priority and take it a bit more seriously so that you can get off this hellish list and live a long and satisfying life!
*Lee is still under IFBB suspension and recently moved back to Australia, seemingly ending his competitive career.
D-bol (Dennis James)
Getting steroids here in the USA sucks. If you buy them from a dealer, you never know when you’re getting ripped off with fake or underdosed gear. On top of that is a huge mark-up so that all the middle men involved get their cut. Smuggling it in yourself is an attractive alternative for some, but the danger of getting busted is high, especially when you’re a big meathead who the Customs officials can spot a half-mile away.
Why not just move to a country where the drugs are cheap and legal? That’s what D-bol did. Setting up residence in Thailand, he not only gained access to vast amounts of drugs, but also allegedly began a career as one of the most prolific exporters of the famous pink Thai Anabol tablets. D-bol supposedly like to pop about fifty to seventy-five grams a day of these tiny anabolic breath mints, and that’s on top of the usual Deca and GH.
Now he’s got his own gym and expensive cars in a country where most people live on a few dollars a week. And how did those Asian drugs work out for our man D-bol? Pretty well, I’d say, considering he came back to the USA and got his pro card within a couple tries, and he’s already won a pro show, beating Chris Cormier. At 5’ 8", he bulks up close to three bills and then trims it down to 250 come showtime.
All I can say is, I hope you can buy a new liver on E-bay with that prize money, because years of steady Dianabol use puts about the same toll on that organ as drinking a quart of rotgut whiskey a day.
*Despite being pinched by both Thai authorities and the DEA, Dennis James is still competing in the IFBB and far from dead.
Wolfgang Tool (Markus Ruhl)
If you’re like the Bagel, the first time you saw pictures of this German Giant, you feared one of those "Musclehedz" cartoons had somehow sprung to life in flesh and blood. It was just too perfect a comparison: the platinum-blonde flat top, the ridiculous proportions, even the big lantern jaw. This Deutchland Dandy is under the six-foot mark, yet comes into contests in shape at 285 freaking pounds! Off-season? Now you’re talking close to 330. How much gear does it take to support that type of mass? I don’t know, but then again, I don’t know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, either.
When I met him, he seemed like a big teddy bear, soft-spoken and exceedingly polite, even shy. He reminded me an awful lot of another German-speaking IFBB Pro I once knew — Andreas Munzer. Munzer was one of the reasons this here Dead Pool got off the ground, and it’s sad that Wolfgang could very well be on a similar path to a tragically young death.
His belly is already big enough to give birth to a 12-year-old, meaning that his internal organs have hypertrophied out of control. Tool claimed in an interview that using steroids isn’t so risky if you know what you’re doing and work with a doctor. Yes, De Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt, it’s a human defense mechanism too!
There’s no way you can tell me that the grams and grams of gear it takes to make a human being that large and freaky are in any way safe. That’s like saying driving in NASCAR isn’t risky if you know what you’re doing. Dale Earnhardt was one of the best drivers of all time, and he’s dead. When you dance with the Devil, shit can happen to anyone.
*Markus survived another 6 years at his massive size and after a series of disappointing placings, announced his retirement in 2007.
Canadian Colossus (Greg Kovacs)
Yes, this 420-pound freak of nature is no stranger to the Dead Pool, but now it seems something drastic has happened. Godzilla here only competes about once every three years since he lives off his contract with a Canadian-based supplement company. This only requires him to show up at expo’s, where the physical exertion caused by sitting there and drinking shakes, along with getting up once in awhile to pose for the occasional photo, is enough to make this human side of beef gasp for air.
Since he’s isolated from the rest of the bodybuilding world most of the time, he eventually started to think he can do well in a pro show. Why not? Hey, 27-inch arms, 70-inch chest, 85-inch waist… well, maybe nobody will notice that. At the recent Night of Champions, Colossus showed up looking as if he thought it were a guest-posing appearance, fat as a killer whale.
He must have run out of Synthol that week, because only one shoulder was inflated. The kicker was, he was seen crying in the lobby after prejudging. Apparently, he had dieted and done his cardio, but his body simply wouldn’t cooperate. I’m no doctor, I’m just a delicious breakfast food, but surely this is a sign of something very serious. When your body is rebelling against you in this manner, it’s usually an indication of an illness or organ failure at work. If you recall, Don Long’s inability to get in shape toward the end of his too-brief pro career was a foreshadowing of his eventual kidney failure. That would suck if that turned out to be the case here, eh?
*Kovacs never amounted to anything as a Pro, with a brutal combination of horrible shape, symmetry, aesthetics and an inability to wipe his own ass.
Triple P (HHH)
The last entrant in the 2001 Dead Pool isn’t a bodybuilder, but he’s certainly more famous than all of the Mr. Olympias except Arnold. A pro wrestler in the WWF, Triple P has a very powerful physique, ripped year-round at 280 pounds at 6-5 with lats, delts, chest, and traps that most of us would kill for. What the heck is he doing in here? When it comes to risk, Triple P is second to none, even including his bodybuilding cousins.
Because he’s on TV twice a week and is featured in an overly-hyped pay-per-view match every month, there is absolutely no time for him to get off the juice and clean out. His red face and popping veins are a giveaway of high blood pressure, and in what’s tantamount to pulling on the Grim Reaper’s cape, the guy is jumping off top ropes and getting thrown out of rings all the time, tangling with guys that weigh as much as 500 pounds.
It’s well-known that many of the men in "sports entertainment" are also addicted to painkillers, which allow them to continue their brutal schedule despite nagging injuries that are never given the chance to heal.
Since he appears in ads for Weider’s fat burners, maybe it isn’t so strange to see him wind up in this infamous list. Welcome to the Pool. Let’s just hope it’s not Game Over for you any time soon.
*Lots of Pro Wrestlers have croaked since 2001 but not Triple-H. Although down in size from his peak by about 40lbs., HHH continues to be a top wrestling/bodybuilding MC/Personality.
That’s our group of front-runners for 2001. As always, if anyone actually dies in the coming year as a result of the bodybuilding lifestyle, it’s more likely to be some poor fool at your local gym, taking three grams a week of gear, 52 weeks a year, in hopes of someday getting their picture in a bodybuilding magazine. When he goes, all he’ll get is two lines in the town paper’s obituary and life will go on for the rest of us.
What the Dead Pool is trying to point out is that steroids — although fairly safe in reasonable dosages and when cycled for limited durations — become drastically more dangerous when you up the dosage and stay on them for long periods of time.
For most of the men above, drug use and abuse might be considered mandatory because it’s what they do for a living. For the rest of you who’ll never see a dime from bodybuilding or even get a picture the size of a postage stamp printed of your physique, think long and hard when you consider your steroid stacks and use of recreational drugs like Ecstasy, painkillers, and cocaine. Just because we don’t talk about you in the Dead Pool doesn’t mean your number won’t be called. Stay alive until next time, everybody.
Bagel out.
