Date: Mon, 28 Oct 96 From: (Rick Silverman) Subject: NPC Nationals I think I just woke up from my mother's worst nightmare. If you've read some of my previous posts, you'll understand what I mean. I just got home from the NPC Nationals in Dallas, where I had the pleasure of seeing one of the greatest "freak" shows ever. And as bodybuilding, at least at that level, seems to be favoring freaky size, freaky cuts, and freakiness overall, the crowd played the roll, many appearing nearly as freaky as the competitors. I felt awfully normal (and skinny, by the way--dieted for the ANBC Nationals in 3 weeks) wandering around the Fairmount Hotel and the Dallas Convention Center. The first signs of where I was headed appeared on my connecting flight out of Memphis...Three competitors, tanned and tired looking. Arriving at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, an ever growing number of "fitness" types in oversized clothing with perpetual tans were scattered throughout the corridors, some obviously competitors, others the support staff. Often, especially with the women, I observed a variety of gangly looking older guys--who must spend time on the stairmaster, but forget to eat between workouts--hanging within the "inner circle". I was advised that these guys were probably the women's "dressers", so to speak. Interesting concept. Once I got to the Fairmount Hotel, where I was staying, I thought of my poor mother. She'd have run from the lobby in terror to hide from these exceptionally muscular, short haired men, all with traps reaching out of their sweatshirts, with veins popping from their arms and legs, with pectoral muscles stretching the very fibers of their t-shirts...get the picture?! And just as some of the larger-than-life women bodybuilders had their following of "dressers", the men had their support staff as well, often headed up by a blonde bombshell type, who could have been born and raised in Worcester or Revere or any other town famed for "big hair" and perfect nails. Whoa, baby...a plastic surgeon's dream! I was tempted to drop a stack of cards near the registration desk, but I showed great restraint. I was wandering around the weigh-in area on Thursday night, and happened to catch the women's light-weight and heavy weight weigh-ins. The light weight women are impressive with their small size but solid musculature. Aesthetically, these women and the middle-weights look a bit more like women, for the most part. The heavy-weights, on the other hand, had me a bit scared, and intrigued. Nicole Bass weighed in at 199.5--I think she must be a touch over 6 feet. In other words, this woman competes at a weight slightly heavier than my own competition weight. Granted, she carries a little extra water on her chest (read: 350-400cc/side--guessing at a distance...(:-)) Incredible. My vote for the heavies went to Ann Marie Kruck (sp?), a black woman who weighed in around 180--She looked to be about 5'10". I just thought she has a very aesthetic physique, albeit large and muscular, and her facial features are attractive. Worked for me. Prejudging for both men and women was impressive in terms of the speed with which it was accomplished. Most of the classes had over 15 competitors, requiring a first cut which followed quarter turns and mandatories. The 15 who made the cut then did their 60 second posing routine, followed by comparison rounds. Men's prejudging took about 5 hours for the 5 classes, but they motored right on through each class. This in spite of the fact that some of the classes, such as the light-heavyweights, were exceptionally competitive. Some of the judges maneuvering was self-explanatory, some was confusing. Overall, by the time things were done Saturday night, I agreed with most of the decisions (not that I know enough to agree or disagree anyway!), but there were a few surprises. Enough of the scene setting. A bit of the nitty gritty. I apologize for having limited information regarding names of winners, and perhaps someone else will post that information for those who care. I should have hung on to a placing sheet, but I didn't know where to get one that I could keep. In the women's classes, Rene Johns took the lightweight, and she looked great. A woman named Gayle won the middle weight, can't remember her last name, and Betty Parisen (??) won the heavies with Nicole Bass 2nd and my pick, Ann Marie, in a surprising 3rd. Leza Lewis took 4th. (The heavyweight decision was the most surprising to me and also to people who know something about women's bodybuilding.) Gayle won the overall. I wasn't sure what I thought of that either, though she looked good. I was just generally more impressed with the light weights overall, and with a few of the heavyweights, though not particularly the woman who won. (She did look good, by the way, and she's got a teenaged kid--impressive, in my opinion.) The men. The bantam, light and middle weight winners were all quite impressive. Unfortunately, I didn't know their names, but I'll guess, except the bantam weigh, where I'm clueless. Light was Jack "the giant killer" ......want to say Smith or something simple. The middle weight was Andy (?) Dinetto. Light-heavyweight winner was an impressive Willie Stallings, and the heavyweight winner was the reason I was there--Jay Cutler. The "talk" Friday night at prejudging expressed disappointment over the heavyweights, Tom Prince, in particular, who was expected to win but took 2nd, being slightly off-peak. A guy named Orville Burke from New York, whose girlfriend spent much of the day with me cooking potatoes in the microwave, took third in the heavies. Fourth place in the heavies went to Dave Palumbo, who had won the Junior Nationals, but had some trouble holding in his belly in Dallas. He weighed in at a huge 266, biggest guy there, and ripped to shreds. His routine was fun, especially watching this absolutely enormous guy run around the stage almost on tiptoes. The overall went to Stallings, even though by Saturday night, Jay was hard as a rock and enormous (he'd weighed in at 247, just under 5'9", though Saturday night he was guessing that he was about 244). Comparing the two at that point, even objective observers (myself not included) felt that Jay should have won on size, obviously, but also on symmetry and shape. The decision, however, may have been made at prejudging...or that's how it seemed to me. Lots of politics, from what I understand. Remember, though--I'm not objective. Stallings is formidable. As impressive as what was happening on stage were the happenings in the auditorium. You name 'em, they were there: Lenda Murray, Laura Creavalle, Vince Taylor, Ronnie Coleman, Vickie Gates, Kim Chizevsky, Don Long, Dave Fisher, Sue Price, Edgar Fletcher, Frank Sepe, Dale Tomita, Troy Zuccolatto...and those are just the ones that I recognized or met. There were lots of other big people who must be someone too, but I didn't know who they were. I left feeling very skinny and much more worried about getting as ripped as I possibly can for the ANBC Nationals in 3 weeks. Of course, all of those guys in the hotel kept wondering why this skinny guy was eating all of these funny bodybuilder foods, even after the contest was over. Let 'em wonder!! Rick Silverman, M.D. rsilver@umassmed.ummed.edu