Steve Weinberger discusses Brandon Hendrickson’s Olympia 2020 win, how Raymont Edmonds almost won, and Hendrickson’s legacy.
With two Olympia Men’s Physique wins and an Arnold Classic win under his belt, Brandon Hendrickson is the only to hold champion titles in both competitions. While Jeremy Buendia holds more Olympia wins at four consecutive titles, he doesn’t have the same depth of wins across other major competitions. This begs the question, is Hendrickson now the greatest Men’s Physique competitor of all time? In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Steve Weinberger comments on the legacy of Brandon Hendrickson and his potential future in the division.
With his second Men’s Physique win at the Olympia 2020, Brandon Hendrickson not only made a comeback after losing the title in 2019 – he also solidified his dominance in the division as a whole. Brandon Hendrickson is now the only competitor to have both an Arnold Classic victory and an Olympia victory. These are the two biggest bodybuilding events of the year.
Does this position Brandon Hendrickson as the greatest Men’s Physique bodybuilder of all time? It depends on who you ask and how you quantify such a claim. Some judges solely on physique and don’t pay attention to competition wins. Others use big events such as the Olympia or Arnold as statistical proof of an athlete’s dominance.
While the question is certainly a subjective one, we turned towards a man who’s job is to be as objective as possible. Steve Weinberger is the IFBB pro head judge and often oversees the judging for big events such as the Olympia and the Arnold Classic. His job is to take subjectivity out of the equation as much as possible and spearhead the judging for IFBB pro competitions.
So when Steve Weinberger looks at Brandon Hendrickson’s track record, does he see an athlete who is the greatest of all time in Men’s Physique? We asked Weinberger this very question.
“Those guys are so close it’s hard to label anyone the best of all time,” Steve Weinberger states in our interview. He continued:
“Especially only after three wins. I mean, that’s… Raymont is real good. There’s a lot of good guys out there. I mean, I wouldn’t say that. I’d say he’s excellent. He’s the guy to beat right now but I wouldn’t’ call him greatest of all time. That class is stocked. Stocked with great competitors.”
Spoken like a true judge. Perhaps he’s simply trying to be impartial or maybe this is his honest objective-as-possible truth. Regardless, he does have a point regarding how close and talented the Men’s Physique division is at this current moment.
He states earlier in the above interview clip that Raymont Edmonds was winning in the morning but fell behind by the finals. That’s how close the competition was at the Olympia 2020. Brandon Hendrickson certainly has a wide variety of big competition wins – but he’s still early in his win streak. He has to win three more Olympia competitions to beat out Jeremy Buendia’s record.
So it seems that, if anything, Brandon Hendrickson is on the cusp of earning the title of greatest of all time in Men’s Physique. This win was a big comeback for him. If he keeps the streak going, he’ll make a good case for further solidifying his legacy.
You can watch Steve Weinberger’s take on Brandon Hendrickson and the entire Men’s Physique division in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above.
