Gunter Schlierkamp goes into great detail as to why he believes Lee Haney is the undisputed greatest bodybuilder of all time.
There are only two people who earned the world record of most Mr. Olympia wins. Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman have yet to be matched in the years since their bodybuilding careers. But for the most part, it seems history has favored Ronnie Coleman of the two. He is often considered the greatest bodybuilder to ever live. This is due to his unfathomable mass monster size. A size that still has not been matched to this day. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Gunter Schlierkamp explains why Lee Haney, and not Ronnie Coleman, is the undisputed greatest bodybuilder of all time.
Gunter Schlierkamp is an old school kind of guy. That becomes clear in the beginning of our latest interview segment. We discuss bodybuilding’s popularity in mainstream culture and how the internet influenced it. Schlierkamp goes into detail as to why he feels something has been lost in all the technological change.
There are too many options for things and consumers seem to favor cheaper items over high quality items. It’s a quantity not quality world. He finds this to affect bodybuilding itself. It’s evident in the supplements people buy, the influencers people follow, and the number of divisions the sport now has.
So it makes sense that Gunter Schlierkamp considers Lee Haney his favorite bodybuilder of all time. Haney was the first bodybuilder to achieve a world record eight Mr. Olympia wins. This was later matched by Ronnie Coleman. Often times, Coleman gets more of the spotlight. This is due to his inhuman physique that would make Haney look small in comparison.
But Gunter Schlierkamp has very good reasons for favoring Lee Haney as the greatest of all time. Side note – he also puts Ronnie Coleman in his top five, just one notch behind Haney. We asked Schlierkamp why he felt Haney is the ultimate best bodybuilder of all time. In a refreshing move, he gave a very detailed answer. The answer is so convincing – that it might perhaps cause others to pause and reconsider their own “best of” list.
Gunter Schlierkamp first defines what, in his opinion, makes a bodybuilder the best. Who did it and was the most dominant at the end, who is still healthy today, and who did it the right way. These may seem like vague terms – but what he’s talking about here is the past, present, and future of a bodybuilding icon.
Lee Haney was the first to change the game of bodybuilding. He was the first to win eight Mr. Olympia competitions. Schlierkamp also believes that Haney could have won more if he hadn’t decided to retire. And that’s exactly the point, Haney went out on top instead of slowly dwindling down into a has-been. This is rare in the bodybuilding world.
Gunter Schlierkamp also points out the Lee Haney is healthy and active in his twilight years after bodybuilding. Ronnie Coleman, on the other hand, has had a massive amount of health issues – very possibly due to how hard he pushed his body. We covered it extensively in our documentary film Ronnie Coleman: The King.
Lastly, Gunter Schlierkamp believes that Lee Haney “did it right.” Meaning that he knew his own limitations, knew how to keep his achievements as healthy as possible, and still changed the game in memorable way. It’s the reason we still talk to him today. Perhaps by today’s standards, if you simply compare physique to physique – you would be more impressed by a mammoth like Ronnie Coleman. Again, Coleman’s achievements are incredible. But for Schlierkamp – Haney gets a notch above for doing everything perfectly right.
You can watch Gunter Schlierkamp go into full detail about Lee Haney in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!