WSM & Giants Live Corruption

There isn’t a WSM 2022 thread yet. So let’s kick it off with this:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd6HzyyhdLi/

I know @T3hPwnisher’s opinion will not have changed. He’s still (rightfully) upset about Kaz. And others.

But dam. It’s right out in the open now. And it is pretty bad.

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Wow. That really sucks. I knew there were a lot of politics involved, but I didn’t know it was that bad.

You should see the size of Tom Stoltman’s hotel room compared to the size of Luke’s this year.

Apparently, that was Brian Shaw’s room last year LOL.

So, do we now believe that Eddie Hall’s 500kg “in competition” was not really “in competition”, but in a “tailored to Eddie Hall competition”? And that Thor’s accusation of events being changed last minute during Hall’s one WSM win were not biased?

Also, Shaw is in the “death group” this year. What did Shaw do to piss the powers that be off I wonder.

Eh, not upset. Politics is what my Masters is in. None of this shocks me; what shocks me is that it shocks others.

From day 1, WSM was a TV show: not a sport. Great title. So is “American Gladiator”, haha

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This is the absolutely most important thing to remember. We have a South American athlete added to this years line up when another athlete pulled out. This athlete doesn’t have anywhere near the pedigree of many other strongmen not invited to the show but having someone from South America broadens the audience and helps promote the brand. People shouldn’t get caught up thinking this is a fair sport with qualifications etc. It is not. If it was going to be fair, not random and calibrated it would end up being powerlifting.
And in some ways it is better for it, we get to see 30 seriously strong dudes to some crazy events and someone gets to be called the worlds strongest man. Just embrace it for what it is.

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I totally get what you’re saying, but there are a lot of people competing in the event who don’t see it that way. I like watching it, but it’s sad to hear that people who give it their absolute all get hamstringed by corrupt organizers.

Shouldn’t be surprising to anyone given all the info that’s always been out there, though. The reference to what they did for Eddie was funny, though.

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I totally agree that is is sad and there would be better or fairer ways for athletes for them to run things. My comment wasn’t so much a support of what happens, merely just saying that it does. Eddie ref was indeed funny but again not a surprise.

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I’ve always known there was something too good to be true about Ed’s win in 2017 by the way he aggrandized the shit out of himself for years after as if he was some incredible anomaly to the sport yet only won once and barely managed to do so with catered events.

I like to think the politics were less prominent perhaps in the late 90s-early 2000s era, due to the absence of Colin Bryce, but given the Kaz ordeal, guess not.

There seems to be more hype in predicting who the event is rigged for rather than who will win.

So, who is WSM 2022 rigged for and who is the underdog? Lets place bets!

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Yeah, things were definitely tailored toward Pudz at that point, but honestly, you couldn’t ask for a better poster-boy for the sport. At least they rigged it in a way that made things BETTER, haha.

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In a way it breeds a dichotomy of champions who are tailored to win and ones who have an undying fire to overcome all obstacles.

I kind of see that with the lax nature of the Stoltmans compared to perse, Licis, Novikov, and Mateusz.

The outing of corruption is going to help the sport. Kudos to Mark Boyd, the cajones on that fucker!

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This is very upsetting! If only they’d taken notes from the Olympia competitions on how to judge fairly :wink:

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Not sure I agree with the timing though. I feel for Luke having this come out a day before the competition. Maybe there was a better way to tackles this. We also only have one side of a three sided story. Although I doubt we will hear more from Luke or from Colin.

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Yeah, this was my second thought after reading more about it.

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Oh for sure, the timing warrants Mark’s actions detestable, and I feel for Luke, but I’m the type of person where I cannot prolong greed and corruption and just summing it up to baggage that comes along with business enterprise.

This type of shit in small sports where the payouts aren’t even large is completely ridiculous. Gatekeeping payouts only gives those handpicked the luxury of feeling like a professional athlete while the big man at the top snorts up all the money like a savage.

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agreed

I see a lot of people downplaying this like it’s not a huge deal but I wouldn’t be upset if half the athletes boycott the comp next week. :man_shrugging:

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Remember when O.D.Wilson got screwed out of the contest in 1990? He was well ahead in points and just needed to not do poorly in the final event, unfortunately that event was a ridiculous 200 meter distance race with a measly 200lb load, which greatly favored the much lighter Sigmarsson over the 400lb+ O.D.

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…and Eddie Hall are supposedly business partners now; no idea if that was the case in 2017.

Imo, this stuff is obviously known by the competitors, and why the Arnold Strongman Classic is the top contest, not WSM. Conspicuously absent from the list of Arnold winners…one guess…

Big Z is easily the greatest of the post Kaz era.

100% - or all pull up injured after the first event. They still get paid that way.

If we know about it - they’ll know about it. I mean we can sit here and list a years events where changed during the show to suit a particular athlete. But I bet there are horror stories from behind the scenes. Stuff that goes beyond “unfavourable events”.

Persaonlly I feel shit for Luke. As this is the end of his career in WSM I would think. Maybe Tom will stay on. Who knows. And maybe I’m wrong.
Either way - its not the best prep. It is going to be on his mind. And you know if somewhere down the line he needs a touch of luck - its not coming.

Luke has put a video out on his own YouTube channel. I will let people watch and hear his explanation.