Heroes ... Bodybuilding & Boxing

16/6/15

The following is an excerpt from my book The Novice

Even now I really know nothing of the bodybuilding community on the local, national or world stage. I have never attended a bodybuilding show as a spectator and had never met a competitive bodybuilder until I met Chris, my trainer. If asked I could probably name three current bodybuilders at most, growing up and still even now none of my heroes are bodybuilders.
Of course I was aware of Arnold Schwarzenegger but that was through the Terminator movies and not what he had achieved as a bodybuilder. It was still some time before I got around to watching Pumping Iron, the 1977 film that turned the obscure sport of male bodybuilding into an overnight phenomenon and made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star.
For most people of my generation, the first contact with a bodybuilder would have been from the cartoon advertisements in the back of comic books in the early 1970’s. The “Hey , quit kicking sand in our faces” comic strip advert for the Charles Atlas programme promised to build muscles fast and make you a hero of the beach in no time at all. There he was, Mr Atlas himself posing in his trunks in full black and white glory and beside him it proclaimed “The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man.” Today he would barely get a second look and might pass as a rugby or American football player, compared to some of the freaky bodybuilders of today, Charles Atlas looks like the average guy you can see in any gym anywhere in the world.
The first time I was vaguely aware of a famous bodybuilder would have been as a ten year old watching The Incredible Hulk on a Saturday evening before my favourite shows of The Dukes of Hazzard and Starsky and Hutch. Even then I had no idea that Lou Ferrigno who played The Hulk was a bodybuilder, he was just the Hulk and was never seen without being green, again as with Arnold, only after seeing Pumping Iron some years later did I connect the two.
 My heroes were boxers, I was spoilt for choice growing up in an era with the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran and later Mike Tyson. This was before the multiple champions with multiple belts of today spoilt the sport and devalued the title champion, this was a time when there was only one champion at each weight and they were undisputed.
 My lifetime hero and the man I have always drawn inspiration from is the former undisputed middleweight champion Marvellous Marvin Hagler. Hagler never had it easy, he had to have fifty fights before being given a shot at the title, most fighters have around 20 fights and retire, he then went on to hold the title for six years. Known in boxing circles for his bald head, goatee, menacing stare, and muscular physique, a ring announcer once told Marvin Hagler that if he wanted to be announced as "Marvelous Marvin," he should go change his name. So Hagler did just that, legally changing his name to Marvelous Marvin Hagler!

The Novice is available on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Novice-Skinny-Journey-Competitive-Bodybuilding-ebook/dp/B00R05L0FM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418585027&sr=8-1&keywords=clint+purches