Prince
Board Sponsor
Do superstar bodybuilders have a moral obligation to keep their fans in check with regards to how they act with other competitors? This is a very interesting concept and one that I find to be foreign not only to bodybuilding but really to any other sport. Because just a few days ago former Mr Olympia Derek Lunsford took to the airwaves to more or less point out Nick Walker’s fans. And the way that he did it was very classy and it was also very professional, but it raised some questions in me as a writer that I would like to put into this article. Now I wrote an earlier version of this piece yesterday and decided to scrap it because I went off on a tangent. The tangent that I went on was more sarcasm and dry humor than actually tackling the topic at hand. And the reason why I did that is because I found it a little bit ironic that somebody like Derek who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars at shows, who has a tremendous social media following, and who is living his best life, would then complain about the woes of stardom.
To be fair, Derek had lost his grandmother and was on the receiving end of a lot of abuse by Nick Walker fans after the Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh was the show that was supposed to Nick’s return to glory. It was also supposed to be his springboard to the 2025 Mr Olympia. Now as we know, Nick did not win that competition. He brought a very good physique for the kind of physique that he is known for, but it wasn’t enough to beat Derek. And Derek was not at his best, either. He didn’t look as good as his win in Columbus just a couple of months earlier. That really infuriated Nic’s base.