Muscle Wars

Muscle Wars is an insider’s account of the sport, the business, and the stars of competitive bodybuilding. In the last twenty-five years bodybuilding has become America’s fastest-growing sport with over 5 million hard-core fans. Now Rick Wayne, himself a bodybuilding champion and longtime journalist for Joe Weider’s Flex and Muscle & Fitness, tells the inside story of the fights, feuds, and friendships that have shaped the sport. Muscle Wars is crammed with fascinating stories, such as how Arnold Schwarzenegger psyched defending titlist Sergio Oliva into walking off the stage during their dramatic confrontation for the 1970 Mr. Olympia crown. Here are riveting sketches of the sport’s dominating personalities from Larry Scott and the legendary Oliva to Franco Columbu, Frank Zane, and Schwarzenegger, and - backstage - Ben and Joe Weider. Included is the real story behind the blistering controversy of the 1990 Mr. Olympia held in Sydney, Australia, and the contest held the following year in Columbus, Ohio, called by Wayne “The Greatest Booing Contest of All Time.” Muscle Wars provides wickedly entertaining backstage gossip as well as inside accounts of the controversies that have marked and occasionally almost wrecked the International Federation of Bodybuilding. Already hailed (and assailed) as the Rex Reed of bodybuilding,Wayne writes with bite and panache. Not since Pumping Iron has there been such a revealing look at the world of bodybuilding and the remarkable, temperamental characters who are its stars.