Titan Massacre at the Olympia

 

Four men will walk onto the Mr. Olympia 2025 stage with something the rest can only dream of: the weight of once being the best in the world. Samson Dauda, Derek Lunsford, Hadi Choopan, and Brandon Curry know that weight. They’ve carried it under the spotlights while thousands watched. Now they return to reclaim it or defend it, and that inner battle is more brutal than any set of squats.

The elite of bodybuilding is a very exclusive club. Only eleven names in the entire history of Mr. Olympia have won more than once. Eleven. In sixty years of competition. This year, four of those potential exclusive members will share the same stage, hunting one another. If any of them win, they’ll join Big Ramy as the only two-time champions of the past decade. Since Phil Heath dropped the crown in 2017, no one but Elssbiay has successfully defended the title the following year. Dauda has the chance to break that drought. What an enormous responsibility. The question isn’t whether he has the physique. The question is whether he can bear the pressure of being the man everyone wants to beat.

Ronnie Coleman, eight time Mr. Olympia, the man who redefined what it meant to be massive, chose Hadi Choopan as his favorite for this year’s title. That statement isn’t casual. Coleman understands something most don’t: winning the Olympia requires more than genetics or dedication. It requires hunger after you’ve already tasted everything. Choopan was at the top in 2022. Regaining that throne would place him in an almost mythological category: only Jay Cutler has done it. Cutler did it twice, beating Dexter Jackson in 2009 after losing in 2008. If Choopan wins, he’ll be just the second man in sixty years of history to reclaim the Sandow. That’s not history. That’s legend.

Derek Lunsford represents something different: the possibility of total domination. If he wins the Olympia this year, he will have conquered both the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia in the same season. Beyond that, Lunsford already defeated Dauda, the current champion, earlier this year at the Arnold. Winning in Las Vegas would mean beating the reigning Mr. Olympia twice. That kind of storyline builds dynasties. Lee Haney. Dorian Yates. Men who didn’t just win, but erased any doubt about who was in command. Lunsford has the chance to do it in one explosive night.

Choopan and Curry face a statistical challenge that few have achieved. If they place in the Top 5 this year, they’ll each tally seven Top 5 finishes at Mr. Olympia. That would put them ahead of Lee Labrada, Flex Wheeler, and Kai Greene, three of the most respected competitors never to win the Sandow. Curry and Choopan did win it. Staying in that elite zone year after year, while the body ages and young hungry athletes rise to prove there’s no turning back, is a form of torture only the obsessed can endure. Mike Mentzer said it best: “Bodybuilding isn’t about lifting weights. It’s about lifting your mind above the pain.”

Nick Walker is the great outsider no one wants to face. Currently ranked as the fourth best in the world, Walker has the kind of physique that makes judges reconsider everything they thought they knew about proportion and mass. If he wins, he’ll defeat four Mr. Olympias in a single night: Dauda, Lunsford, Choopan, and Curry. I searched the records and found no precedent for this. Four champions taken down by a man who has never won. That kind of victory doesn’t just change careers. It changes eras.

Arnold Schwarzenegger always said the Olympia isn’t won in the gym, it’s won in the mind. Physical preparation is just the price of admission. The mental war decides who takes the statue. Dauda must cope with being the favorite, with expectations, with knowing everyone is chasing him. Lunsford carries the frustration of having lost his title and the need to prove 2023 wasn’t luck. Choopan has spent years underestimated for his height, ignored until it’s too late. Walker is the young contender with everything to prove and nothing to lose. Those psychological dynamics are deadlier than any weakness in the lats.

My prediction for the Olympia: Lunsford takes the crown, Walker proves the future has already arrived, and Dauda learns the harshest lesson of elite bodybuilding: retaining is harder than conquering. Choopan, Andrew Jacked, and Martin Fitzwater round out the Top 5 respectively, reminding us that consistency is its own form of greatness. But predictions are for cowards. What matters is that on October, in Las Vegas, we’ll witness something rare: men who have already won it all risking it all again.

Because in the end, that’s what separates the greats from the immortals. The greats win once and retire with history secured. The immortals return knowing they could lose it all in front of the world, and still step onto that stage. Place your bets.