Breon Ansley clarifies his past comments about Chris Bumstead.
On August 26, Breon Ansley made some comments regarding his loss at the 2019 Classic Physique Olympia. During a video interview with Bradley Martyn, Ansley appeared to criticize his rival Chris Bumstead. He stopped just short of using Bumstead by name but appeared to agree with Martyn – who claimed Bumstead was lacking in certain body parts. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Breon Ansley clarifies his past comments and confirms that he believes Chris Bumstead has underdeveloped body parts.
Breon Ansley is and always has been a respectful and confident pro bodybuilder in the Classic Physique division. So it came as a shock to some when he seemingly agreed with Bradley Martyn – who claimed that Chris Bumstead was lacking in certain areas of his physique despite winning the Olympia 2019.
The video clip went viral and made headlines across many bodybuilding media outlets including Generation Iron. After this – it seemed that Breon Ansley was unhappy on how he was presented in the news stories, making comments on social media that the headlines were misleading.
To clarify the entire situation, we connected with Breon Ansley via video chat to discuss not only his past comments but the upcoming Olympia 2020 and the future of Classic Physique as a whole. In this first segment, Breon and Vlad Yudin discuss Ansley’s rivalry with Bumstead and his previous comments during the Bradley Martyn video.
Breon Ansley makes it clear and puts emphasis that he has extreme respect for Chris Bumstead. He’s been on the record that their rivalry is a friendly one and that he and Bumstead have no ill will towards each other.
That being said, Breon Ansley does confirm directly that he thinks Bumstead is lacking in certain areas of his physique. First he confirms that, in the Bradley Martyn video, Ansley was definitely talking about Bumstead when he made his original comments. He then continues:
“Well, I do think Chris has underdeveloped body parts. But yet again I will say that’s not taking anything away from Chris. He’s a great champion. He deserves to be the champion. And he’s the champion for a reason.”
So it seems that Breon Ansley does confirm his original comments. It’s more likely that he was unhappy in how aggressive certain headlines made his original comments to be. Ultimately, Ansley is in it to win it. He has extreme confidence in his physique and later further claims that he believes his physique to be superior to Bumstead’s.
That being said, he does not believe this to mean that Chris Bumstead is undeserving of his title. Nor does he think that this means Bumstead is a weak competitor by any means. Ansley is simply being critical on a competitive level. He speaks his mind as respectfully as possible in order to maintain his confidence. That confidence is a big part in being mentally prepared to win a competition as big as the Mr. Olympia.
You can watch Breon Ansley’s full comments in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above.
