Who does King Kamali pick for the top 5 bodybuilders of all time?
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, King Kamali holds nothing back with his opinions on bodybuilding. That’s why we wanted to ask him – who are the best bodybuilders of all time? To be clear, we asked King to make his picks not on historical relevance or number of Olympia wins. Instead, we wanted to know who he personally thought had the best physique regardless of trophies. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, King Kamali lists his top 5 bodybuilders in the history of the sport.
Looking back through the history of bodybuilding, it can be hard to make a definitive list of the best competitors to ever step on stage. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of excellent bodybuilders since the sports inception. What makes it even more challenging is how much the sport and physiques have changed from each era. How do you decide the top 5 bodybuilders of all time spanning across different body types?
Ultimately, it’s all down to personal opinion. King Kamali is a man who has no problems sharing his own opinion with blunt honesty. When we asked him who his picks were for the top 5 bodybuilders of all time – he didn’t even take long to come up with his list.
Ultimately, King Kamali’s list is based off of five athletes that each represent the best in their given talents. His top five picks are: Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman, Kevin Levrone, Flex Wheeler, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Each name on this list represents a different concept of excellence in bodybuilding. King Kamali then goes through each name one by one to explain what they represent to him and why they made his list.
For example, Lee Haney represented the first bodybuilder to bar none stand out against all of his competitors. Each one of his eight Olympia wins were obvious blow outs. There was no grey area about his victories. No other competitor who could have conceivably won. It was the first time someone had dominated so completely.
On the other end, Ronnie Coleman represented the perfect marriage of good genetics and excellent focus. Ronnie combined his favorable genetics with a work ethic that took him to levels never seen before and hardly seen since.
Those are just two examples – but you can watch King Kamali break down his entire list in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above.
