Put up or shut up!
Come on, don’t tell me you’re one of those. You know, the guys who can’t stand the trash talk, who can’t bear to listen to verbal warfare, who believe solely in the essence of competition and that talking has no place in sports. If you don’t enjoy trash talk there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s a matter of opinion. But if we’re being honest, you can’t help but get a little fired up by trash talk.
In almost every major sport, talking trash is as much a part of the game as the actual physical competition. You get inside your opponent’s head, trying to throw them off their game and hope their emotions get the better of them. We saw some trash talking between Phil Heath and Kai Greene at this past Olympia and no one can truly say that they weren’t chomping at the bit to see which man would come out on top. The verbal confrontation makes not only the competitors emotionally invested, but the fans as well. When it’s all kept under control, some pretty awesome competitions can be spawned from some well placed words.
Then there’s the situation that Branch faced at the 2011 British Grand Prix. In a recent exclusive interview with Generation Iron, Branch explained an interesting altercation that occurred at the 2011 competition.
“Nobody has ever trash talked me on stage. One time at the British Grand Prix in 2011, this guy was trash talking at the weigh-in. When we got on stage, there was a lot of pushing and shoving. No trash talking on the stage, but he was pushing and shoving me and it almost escalated into a fight. I mean, the guy was big but I was ready to fight because I wasn’t going to back down, not in front of that crowd of people. Nothing ended up happening and I ended up winning the entire show. Afterwards, Lee Labrada came up to me and said, ‘Great job, way to hold it together.’ It really meant a lot to me.”
If that’s not enough, we have a video of Branch and Ronny Rockel’s onstage shoving match:
Branch is no punk. When it gets to that level it’s safe to say that things were being pushed a bit too far. Branch had all the right to defend himself especially if someone is trying to physically impose themselves on their competition. But what’s key is that he kept his cool. He never snapped, he never tried to one up anyone. He just stood his ground and kept doing what he’s best at.
And this isn’t something new that’s come up with the new generation of bodybuilders. Arnold Schwarzenegger himself has admitted to breaking the “rules” and messing with his competitor’s minds in order to get the edge. Check out this highlight from a 1997 issue of Oui magazine:
“You’re not supposed to talk while you’re posing, for example, yet I used to do it all the time and it would blow the other guys’ minds. If we were going through the compulsory poses—a double-biceps pose, say—I’d just turn to the guy next to me and say, “What a shame, what a disadvantage for you,” or I’d psych him in reverse by aying that the disadvantage was mine, that he was definitely going to be the one to win. Once, I even sent a guy offstage. He was enormous, really fantastic, and the audience was screaming for both of us, so you knew it was going to be close. After about 15 minutes of posing, I told him I thought I’d had enough and that we ought to quit, just walk off. He agreed, turned around and left and I just stayed on. The audience immediately turned against him and I won—my first Mr. Olympia title, in 1970.”
– Arnold Schwarenegger talking to Oui magazine.
That’s how Arnold won his first Mr. Olympia competition. Is it fair? Who knows. But it’s an exciting part of the competition. Maybe the rules should be allowed to bend a little bit – as long as we can expect the athletes to have a high level of respect for themselves and each other.
Trash talking is like a good spice; a touch of it makes a recipe great, but too much of it is a recipe for disaster.
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Do you have any examples of trash talking during a competition? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
