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The Greatest Olympia Rivalry That Never Was
By Peter McGough
Lee Haney was born on November 11, 1959. Less than 2 ½ years later, on April 19, 1962, Dorian Yates entered the world. Given the proximity of their birth dates the law of averages would seem to dictate that their athletic careers would have closely overlapped. As it was they only met in competition once: A titanic clash at the 1991 Mr. Olympia in Orlando.
The reason that these two battleships only passed that one night is because they took up the sport at different ages. Haney got serious about bodybuilding when he was 16 in 1975, and four years later he was 1979 Teen Age Mr. America. By 1983 he was a pro and notched his first pro victory that year at the Night of the Champions, six months before his 24th birthday. In October1984, a month before he turned 25, he was Mr. Olympia and would win the title a total of eight times before he retired after the 1991 event aged 31.
On the other hand Yates didn’t lift a weight with onstage intentions until the summer of 1983 when he was 21 years old. He entered his first contest in 1985 when he was 23, and earned his pro card at the 1988 British Championships aged 26. He made his pro debut aged 28 at the 1990 Night of Champions and entered his first Olympia in 1991. Thus at his Olympia baptism the Brit was 29 while at the same event the Awesome One was 31 and with eight Sandows said Sayonara to the sport.
Just think if Haney had started bodybuilding a few years later or Yates had started a few years earlier they could have provided bodybuilding’s version of the Ali vs. Frazier. As it was their one epic clash still lives in the memory of those who witnessed it.
The following is based on scribblings in my tattered notebook (in those days doing something digital would have been giving someone the finger), which accompanied me to the event.
DUEL IN DISNEYLAND
It was Saturday, September 14, 1991: a day of destiny in which Lee Haney would attempt to win his eighth Olympia crown and so eclipse the seven title haul of Arnold Schwarzenegger. At 4.25pm, as the prejudging was coming to an end the 3,000 muscle devotees present in the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel theatre, in Orlando did not know that they were about to witness bodybuilding’s equivalent of Gunfight at the OK Corral, High Noon and all the Rocky movies rolled into one.
A call-out involving Francis Benfatto, Thierry Pastel and Achim Albrecht had just been completed, and the judges were now set to make the last call of the muscularity round. For once the officials and audience were united: the only comparison anybody wanted to see required only two protagonists. The head judge duly obliged by calling out, “Lee Haney and …..Dorian Yates. [Ed’s note: In those days it was rare to see a two-man comparison, it was almost always three.]
The two athletes slowly emerged from their positions on either side of the 27-man line-up to begin the longish walk to centre stage. The decibel level threatened to lift the roof as the crowd bayed in drooling expectancy of this ultimate mano-a-mano clash. Halfway to the center, Haney shot a glance mixed with a half-grin in Yates’ direction. The Englishman’s stony expression duplicated his condition: this was war and he wasn’t about to be beguiled by his adversary’s good old boy smile. The combatants came closer, their strides purposeful and deliberate as they ominously made their way to ground zero. Each concentrated, unblinkingly, on the whites of the other’s eyes, like a pair of gunslingers who knew this particular town was just not big enough for the two of them. The duelists reached their assigned positions: Yates to Haney’s left, and the 1991 Mr. Olympia contest was about to reach its shrieking crescendo.
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
With all the marbles clearly on the line this is how I saw that historic seven comparison clash (the most muscular was not then a mandatory pose).
Front Double Biceps: Draw. (But hold on, Yates should have lost this one?)
Front Lat spread: Yates (jumping teres-major) Nobody’s out lat-spreaded Haney since kindergarten, and then it took the janitor to do it!)
Side chest: Haney thicker chest, but Yates better head-to-toe. Draw.
Rear double biceps: Haney. (A strange relief, in that the assessment verified I wasn’t looking at this set of comparisons through ‘Yates’ colored glasses’)
Rear lat spread: Yates just but call it a draw (He’s done it, he can’t lose the last two comparisons.)
Side Triceps: Yates. (He’s winning this going away)
Abs and Thighs: Yates.
The raw-boned kid I first saw as a novice six years previously had just beaten all-time great Lee Haney in the muscularity round and the judges were to see it that way also. To the deafening accompaniment of an inspired crowd howling, stamping and venting their gratification at witnessing – and being part of – maybe the greatest muscle showdown of all time. Haney and Yates had flexed their all in a head-to-head, no-prisoners-taken brutal war of Olympia attrition, in which seven poses had taken a full four minutes to complete.
After the prejudging Yates told me that he thought he was second and had no complaints if Haney won. Of course history records he was right, because despite the Brit taking the muscularity round, Haney took the symmetry and posing rounds and thus his eighth Sandow. But what an epic battle it was, and if timing of the onset of their careers had been closer who knows what fireworks we would have seen if they had met multiple times. Still we are left with the insolvable debate of would Haney have been able to handle a 1993 and onwards Yates, or he would he have been jolted into further improvement by a rival who matched him in height and muscle, and who could take him on in back shots? Let us know your thoughts.
Postscript 1:
In 1992 Yates ascended the Olympia throne and the 1993 event was scheduled for Atlanta – Haney’s hometown. I was a writer for FLEX magazine at the time, and they thought a piece in which Yates called out Haney to return to competition would add some spice to the event. An article was scripted along the lines of “Hey Mr. Haney, I’m calling you out to see if you have the guts to face me in your own backyard, or are you yellow?” Of course when the piece was shown to Yates he categorically refused to put his name to it, saying, “I have too much respect for a great champion to issue a challenge like that and that sort of in-your-face-stuff is not my style.”
Postscript 2:
Even taking the preceding into account Yates always regretted that he and Haney never had a return. At the '93 Olympia in Atlanta, he told Haney, "It's about time you got back into competition again." Lee laughed and said, "You keep doing what you're doing and I'll keep doing what I'm doing -- going fishing."
Postscript 3:
At the 1990 Olympia Haney gained his seventh title to tie Arnold Schwarzenegger’s record haul of Olympia wins. So the only reason he entered in 1991 was to gain an eighth title and edge clear of Arnold. If he had been in the lead with seven he wouldn’t have entered in 1991, and bodybuilding would never have seen such a war of attrition as Haney and Yates provided.
By Peter McGough
Lee Haney was born on November 11, 1959. Less than 2 ½ years later, on April 19, 1962, Dorian Yates entered the world. Given the proximity of their birth dates the law of averages would seem to dictate that their athletic careers would have closely overlapped. As it was they only met in competition once: A titanic clash at the 1991 Mr. Olympia in Orlando.
The reason that these two battleships only passed that one night is because they took up the sport at different ages. Haney got serious about bodybuilding when he was 16 in 1975, and four years later he was 1979 Teen Age Mr. America. By 1983 he was a pro and notched his first pro victory that year at the Night of the Champions, six months before his 24th birthday. In October1984, a month before he turned 25, he was Mr. Olympia and would win the title a total of eight times before he retired after the 1991 event aged 31.
On the other hand Yates didn’t lift a weight with onstage intentions until the summer of 1983 when he was 21 years old. He entered his first contest in 1985 when he was 23, and earned his pro card at the 1988 British Championships aged 26. He made his pro debut aged 28 at the 1990 Night of Champions and entered his first Olympia in 1991. Thus at his Olympia baptism the Brit was 29 while at the same event the Awesome One was 31 and with eight Sandows said Sayonara to the sport.
Just think if Haney had started bodybuilding a few years later or Yates had started a few years earlier they could have provided bodybuilding’s version of the Ali vs. Frazier. As it was their one epic clash still lives in the memory of those who witnessed it.
The following is based on scribblings in my tattered notebook (in those days doing something digital would have been giving someone the finger), which accompanied me to the event.
DUEL IN DISNEYLAND
It was Saturday, September 14, 1991: a day of destiny in which Lee Haney would attempt to win his eighth Olympia crown and so eclipse the seven title haul of Arnold Schwarzenegger. At 4.25pm, as the prejudging was coming to an end the 3,000 muscle devotees present in the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel theatre, in Orlando did not know that they were about to witness bodybuilding’s equivalent of Gunfight at the OK Corral, High Noon and all the Rocky movies rolled into one.
A call-out involving Francis Benfatto, Thierry Pastel and Achim Albrecht had just been completed, and the judges were now set to make the last call of the muscularity round. For once the officials and audience were united: the only comparison anybody wanted to see required only two protagonists. The head judge duly obliged by calling out, “Lee Haney and …..Dorian Yates. [Ed’s note: In those days it was rare to see a two-man comparison, it was almost always three.]
The two athletes slowly emerged from their positions on either side of the 27-man line-up to begin the longish walk to centre stage. The decibel level threatened to lift the roof as the crowd bayed in drooling expectancy of this ultimate mano-a-mano clash. Halfway to the center, Haney shot a glance mixed with a half-grin in Yates’ direction. The Englishman’s stony expression duplicated his condition: this was war and he wasn’t about to be beguiled by his adversary’s good old boy smile. The combatants came closer, their strides purposeful and deliberate as they ominously made their way to ground zero. Each concentrated, unblinkingly, on the whites of the other’s eyes, like a pair of gunslingers who knew this particular town was just not big enough for the two of them. The duelists reached their assigned positions: Yates to Haney’s left, and the 1991 Mr. Olympia contest was about to reach its shrieking crescendo.
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
With all the marbles clearly on the line this is how I saw that historic seven comparison clash (the most muscular was not then a mandatory pose).
Front Double Biceps: Draw. (But hold on, Yates should have lost this one?)
Front Lat spread: Yates (jumping teres-major) Nobody’s out lat-spreaded Haney since kindergarten, and then it took the janitor to do it!)
Side chest: Haney thicker chest, but Yates better head-to-toe. Draw.
Rear double biceps: Haney. (A strange relief, in that the assessment verified I wasn’t looking at this set of comparisons through ‘Yates’ colored glasses’)
Rear lat spread: Yates just but call it a draw (He’s done it, he can’t lose the last two comparisons.)
Side Triceps: Yates. (He’s winning this going away)
Abs and Thighs: Yates.
The raw-boned kid I first saw as a novice six years previously had just beaten all-time great Lee Haney in the muscularity round and the judges were to see it that way also. To the deafening accompaniment of an inspired crowd howling, stamping and venting their gratification at witnessing – and being part of – maybe the greatest muscle showdown of all time. Haney and Yates had flexed their all in a head-to-head, no-prisoners-taken brutal war of Olympia attrition, in which seven poses had taken a full four minutes to complete.
After the prejudging Yates told me that he thought he was second and had no complaints if Haney won. Of course history records he was right, because despite the Brit taking the muscularity round, Haney took the symmetry and posing rounds and thus his eighth Sandow. But what an epic battle it was, and if timing of the onset of their careers had been closer who knows what fireworks we would have seen if they had met multiple times. Still we are left with the insolvable debate of would Haney have been able to handle a 1993 and onwards Yates, or he would he have been jolted into further improvement by a rival who matched him in height and muscle, and who could take him on in back shots? Let us know your thoughts.
Postscript 1:
In 1992 Yates ascended the Olympia throne and the 1993 event was scheduled for Atlanta – Haney’s hometown. I was a writer for FLEX magazine at the time, and they thought a piece in which Yates called out Haney to return to competition would add some spice to the event. An article was scripted along the lines of “Hey Mr. Haney, I’m calling you out to see if you have the guts to face me in your own backyard, or are you yellow?” Of course when the piece was shown to Yates he categorically refused to put his name to it, saying, “I have too much respect for a great champion to issue a challenge like that and that sort of in-your-face-stuff is not my style.”
Postscript 2:
Even taking the preceding into account Yates always regretted that he and Haney never had a return. At the '93 Olympia in Atlanta, he told Haney, "It's about time you got back into competition again." Lee laughed and said, "You keep doing what you're doing and I'll keep doing what I'm doing -- going fishing."
Postscript 3:
At the 1990 Olympia Haney gained his seventh title to tie Arnold Schwarzenegger’s record haul of Olympia wins. So the only reason he entered in 1991 was to gain an eighth title and edge clear of Arnold. If he had been in the lead with seven he wouldn’t have entered in 1991, and bodybuilding would never have seen such a war of attrition as Haney and Yates provided.
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