by Christian Duque
I know the organization is salivating at the idea of having a showdown between Nick and Derek. They want this. They want this because Nick was supposed to be a big draw last year. They had Tony Doherty ask the stupid question if Nick thought he could beat Derek in Pittsburgh. And what did Nick do? He missed a second consecutive Olympia. You can attribute it to mental health or the price of rice in china, but the bottom line is he was not at the show. So even though they tried to create a rivalry out of thin air, they just couldn’t do it. It just didn’t work out.
Now it’s a little bit different. Now Nick is supposedly going to compete in Pittsburgh. And he’s (possibly) going to compete against Derek. And if that happens and Nick wins now they can create a real rivalry. The problem is Martin. Martin took number four in the world. And a lot of people, like yours truly, thought he beat Derek. This is not the same Martin that they screwed over at the New York Pro in 2024. This is a Martin with a major supplement company that actually has his back. This is a Martin that was top four at the Olympia, who beat Chris Bumstead, that has amassed a tremendous following in a very short amount of time. He has also done the business of bodybuilding by showing respect to the president, as well as to other high-ranking officials in the federation. He is not only in a better place on paper, but he’s also in a much better position in terms of the politics of it all. And please don’t get me started, of course politics are part a bodybuilding.
It’s completely different now. Last year when they did Martin dirty at the New York Pro he had only won one show. the Detroit pro. a contest that almost didn’t happen. A contest where he and five other guys were the only competitors on stage. It was a lot easier for them to screw him over. He had also never done the Olympia. He had never done the Arnold Classic. He was basically a nobody. So don’t tell me politics don’t factor in. What they did to Martin at last year’s New York Pro would never have happened to a seasoned veteran of the stage. They did it, because they could. and even still, you had a lot of big names in the industry saying Martin won. A lot of people said Nick looked like trash and after that very, very tight decision we didn’t see him get back on a stage again for the rest of the year.
Martin shook that guy to the pillars of his core. So now what is supposed to happen? This guy who has not competed in practically three years it’s supposed to ride into Pittsburgh and not just beat Martin but beat Derek Lunsford as well? Are you kidding me? Do you realize how absolutely preposterous that would be? Well unfortunately that’s what the writing on the wall seems to be saying. This is what they want. They want to create a rivalry because they want to sell tickets at the Olympia.
Samson proved to be a colossal letdown. He lost at the Arnold. he can no longer be marketed as the number one bodybuilder in the world. He may have the crown but nobody cares about his rule. He was toppled in Columbus and now is pretty much an afterthought. We had never seen this happen in the sport of bodybuilding. The only other time similar to this would have been Ronnie in 2002 but that was a bullshit show that nobody had ever heard of. Never in the history of bodybuilding has a Mr Olympia lost at the Arnold Classic right after winning the O. I has never been done before. So basically Samson is a non-factor.
At this point they need to create some real interest in the 2025 Olympia. Samson is not creating any kind of interest. It’s hard enough to even keep him in the conversation. He went from being number one to being basically a nobody. I hate to be so harsh about a man that has worked so hard to reach the pinnacle of bodybuilding, but unfortunately he lacks a lot intellectually. Only an absolute idiot would have done the Arnold Classic after winning just one Olympia. It is a colossal blunder and one for which Samson has only himself to blame. He fired his high profile coach and he was basically being prepped, if you can call it that, by his wife. Again super nice guy, but probably dumber than a bag of rocks.
Nonetheless, we are talking about Pittsburgh and come Pittsburgh everybody’s going to be focused on three men Derek, Martin, and Nick. I don’t care about Krizo and I don’t care about Regan Grimes. Everybody else might as well not exist. This is a three-man show and the only three men people care about are Derek, Martin, and Nick. The problem is, the one guy that creates the least amount of hype amongst those three is Martin. And that may be a major problem for him when it comes to the score cards. They are looking for entertainment, not the best physique. If we are talking about the best physique, Martin wins.
And yes I said it. Martin wins.
That said, Derek looked phenomenal in Columbus but I don’t know if Derek can do it again in Pittsburgh. Once you hit your mark it becomes more and more difficult to peek again at that level. Basically, Derek is going to have to peak for Columbus, Pittsburgh, and then again for Vegas. That is putting the body through a tremendous amount of stress. He is hitting the protocols hard. I don’t care what anyone says, you cannot get to the condition carrying the amount of muscle on the frame of Derek Lunsford has unless you are blasting serious dosages. It is just not physiologically possible. So that being said, he is doing that to himself three times in 2025? Does anyone honestly think that come the Olympia he’s going to be able to give his best? Does anybody really think he can bring what he brought to Columbus again to Pittsburgh?
I don’t care how Derek he is and how much his body will bounce back, there is a limit. The body is not a machine. You can say it is if you’re trying to develop some kind of Ironclad motivation and you can say it to yourself to keep the discipline going, but the body is more of a temple and less of a machine. I would think that a seasoned pro like Derek would understand this, but apparently not.
There’s a very good possibility that Derek will not bring his best to Pittsburgh, if in fact he does the contest. If that happens and Martin is firing on all cylinders, you can mark my words, he will get robbed and Nick Walker will get the win. I think that even if Nick Walker comes into the contest looking like a pile of shit, just for the very fact he got on stage, he will win the show. They need this. They want this. This is going to happen. I am telling you, if Nick Walker doesn’t flake out, and actually gets on that stage, that title is as good as his.
Now what will that say about the sport of bodybuilding? Will it come down to Martin and Nick down to the wire, will it be those three or will they stick in somebody from outside to make it look like a different kind of contest. Maybe Martin gets relegated to fourth and they put Krizo in the top three. Maybe Martin gets pulled out of the top three and they put Regan Grimes in there. Maybe they put in some bum just to throw everybody off. But I would be absolutely shocked if The Martian emerges victorious if both Derek and Nick are on that stage. It’s nothing against him. It’s not like he’s persona non grata or anything like that. They like him. I do believe that. And I do believe that they see him as a team player and they see him as a potential Mr Olympia – one day – but that one day is not today. They have bigger fish to fry and apparently think they can make more money with guys like Nick and Derek than they can with him.
And while politics may not command the scorecards, I will tell you that money may very well have something to do with it. Bodybuilding is a business. The promoters are in business. The supplement companies are in business. The athletes make a small percentage in prize money but the vast majority they never see. Somebody is making this money and somebody wants to make as much of it as they can. And you make the most amount of money in bodybuilding when you have cutting edge contests. When you have drama, when you have rivalries, when you have guys elbowing each other on stage – you have entertainment.
You do not make money simply when you have the best physiques in the world posing on stage. That is why Pumping Iton wasn’t about guys simply competing. It was about guys stealing another guy’s towel, it was about guys psyching out the next, it was about arrogance, it was about self-centeredness, it wasn’t just about drinking protein shakes, eating steak, and building muscle. If that’s what it would have been about, we would not be talking about it in 2025. We probably wouldn’t have talked about it in 1980.
The bottom line is I’m not a gambling man but if I had to place a wager, I would bet that Nick Walker is going to win Pittsburgh. I don’t care if Jesus Christ comes back to Earth as a bodybuilder and competes in that show, if Nick Walker doesn’t flake out and gets on stage, Nick Walker is winning that show. And don’t forget Nick Walker needs to win a show to qualify for the Mr Olympia. Don’t forget 2024 when he said publicly that if he didn’t win New York Pro he wasn’t going to do the Olympia. Well by the same token he needs to win Pittsburgh. It would look way too corrupt if they tried to give him a special invite, so he needs to qualify. And he will qualify in Pittsburgh. I just want to see how bad the robbery is going to be.
If Martin wins, I will be the first to say I was wrong about all my suspicions and applaud the fairness of bodybuilding. But I think there’s a greater chance that I will regrow my hair than Martin Fitzwater winning the Pittsburgh Pro.
As always, what say you? I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments. As always, thank you for reading my article, here, at Iron Magazine. Be sure to copy and paste the link to this article on all of your social media feeds. It is guaranteed to generate lively conversation.