LAST SET
POSEDOWN
COLEMAN VS.
Elssbiay has hovered around the 300 mark in all five
of his Olympias. Coleman retired six years before
Elssbiay’s rookie campaign, denying us a 600-pound
clash of the titans. However, through the magic of
editing, we can contemplate a Big Ramy versus
Big Nasty callout. And we can see a road map for
how Elssbiay can, perhaps, chisel in enough cuts to
possess not just the quantity but also the quality
to become, like Coleman before him, Mr. Olympia.
RONNIE COLEMAN WASN’T the first
bodybuilder to stand on stage at (nearly) three bills.
Lou Ferrigno, for one, had done so more than a
decade before, but the Hulk is six inches taller than
the Big Nasty, and he didn’t come close to winning the
Sandow. Coleman, who was officially listed at 287 in
2003 and 297 in 2004—just a biscuit shy of 300—won
the Olympia eight times, including those two years.
Now we have the even bigger Big Ramy. Mamdouh
130
FLEX | JANUARY 2018