by Christian Duque
Well of course Chris Bumstead is retiring – he said so. He said so at the 2024 Mr Olympia and said so again at the Prague Pro where took 2nd to Martin “The Martian” Fitzwater. So what’s happened since to warrant this article?
Well it’s a combination of factors and it’s something that we really need to address as fans of bodybuilding. Chris is without a doubt the greatest classic physique competitor of all time and as a result the fans don’t want to see him go. This is why leading up to the Prague Pros so many fans were hoping that not only would he win but that new life would enter into his career. They hoped that he would then embark on an Olympia prep that would last the whole year and they would get to see their favorite star once again on the biggest stage in physique-based sports.
I mean I can never play down the fact that I witnessed lines of more than six blocks of people waiting in the cold, in New York, to meet the one and only Chris Bumstead. So you can imagine how so many fans are hoping that any talk of retirement was just that. But today I can report based on what I’ve seen on Chris’s own social media updates that the champ is actually following through with his commitment to retire and spend more time with his family. And the way we see this is because he has downsized considerably from the Prague Pro in his most recent social media update. It’s one thing if an athlete gets heavy and then has to lose it to get on stage but it’s quite another one if an athlete loses muscle.
And that’s what’s going to happen if in fact Chris is going to come off of everything and is going to take it a lot lighter moving forward. There’s a big difference between being in season and even being off season knowing you’re going to compete again.
I think once Chris is able to make a full transition to being a dad and an everyday fit person we are going to see him downsize even more. But this is finally when the fans realized that he was in fact being serious. Because at the end of the day you haven’t really retired until you have either spent a considerable amount of time away from the stage or you have totally changed your physique.
This makes me think of years ago when Kevin Levrone said that he was going to leave bodybuilding for acting. Nobody really believed him until his body totally changed. When Kevin was doing movies and touring the world with his band Full Blown, he didn’t look anything like the Kevin Levrone that battled Ronnie Coleman and Dorian Yates. And it was only then that the fans really understood that The Maryland Muscle Machine had left the sport at least for the foreseeable future.
Gaining muscle is one of the most difficult endeavors most professional athletes go through because they are not just building but they are building in such a way that maintains their aesthetics and their flow. And when you are the best classic physique competitor on the planet you can’t just grow one body part faster than another body part. You can’t just eat everything in sight and hope everything will magically make sense. The reality of the matter is there is no guarantee if Chris downsizes that he will be able to put the muscle back on and keep it to the way that it was when he was winning Olympia’s.
While certain channels like Nick’s Strength And Power seem to believe C-Bum may come back at some point, I am of the opinion that once he is done he is done. And this is because if he were to come back, he would want to come back to win. It wouldn’t suffice to just do it for fun. What would the motivation be for that?
I think it’s a very responsible thing that Chris is doing for a variety of reasons. I have Illustrated many of those reasons in other articles over the years but I would like to reiterate them once again seeing as we are truly witnessing Chris going into retirement. He’s doing this on his own terms – for starters – and that right there is at the top of my list. He didn’t retire because of an injury, he didn’t retire because he was run out, and he didn’t retire because his body was no longer responding. He retired on top and that is noteworthy. But there are other noteworthy reasons for retiring the way that he did.
C-Bum has been able to not only go out on his own terms but go without anybody really being on his heels. In 1991 Lee Haney barely beat Dorian Yates. Some people believe that if Lee Haney had come back in 1992 he would not have been able to have held off Dorian. Who knows if that would have been the case or not because it never happened. But rest assured Lee Haney knew Dorian was hot on his trail.
And the reality of the matter is when you leave because you have seen your best days or because you’re starting to fade, it’s different than when you leave on top. Nobody in 2024 was going to be Chris Bumstead and nobody did. The fact is he retired because he wanted to be a family man and that is commendable. Not only is it commendable but it may Inspire other competitors who also have families and who may value those families more than competing to do the same. Up until Chris did this I don’t know of too many bodybuilders or other physique-based stars who walked away from being the best in the world, especially when being the best in the world was so easy as it was for Chris. After he beat Breon Ansley, he never really faced any substantial competition moving forward. I mean he faced great guys but nobody was ever in the mix to beat him.
I think ultimately he got bored. It’s one thing if you’re Ronnie Coleman chasing eight sandows to tie or beat Lee Haney’s. But in classic physique nobody has ever won as many Olympia’s as Bumstead did. So let’s say six in a row for Bumstead will be the record for years to come. 6 in a row was enough for him. He was able to get big deals, launch his own supplement company, basically write his own ticket and never have to sell out for it. He has never had to compromise his ideals or enter into deals that he didn’t feel 100% about. That’s a luxury that only he and very few other physique-based athletes can enjoy. So not only could he write his own ticket and do things by his own approach, but he was able to leave for a different chapter of his life. Now the question is who is going to take over?
There is no clear-cut successor. There is no frontrunner. Once the King has left, all of the other guys have to figure out who’s going to be the best. But I can almost guarantee you nobody is going to win the title and hold it for years to come. There isn’t anyone that’s that good. Very much like Jeremy Buendia with men’s physique, Bumstead with classic physique set the bar very high. There will of course be other classic physique Mr Olympia’s, that much we know, but I highly doubt we are going to see another legend like Chris Bumstead anytime soon.
That’s just the reality of the matter. That’s not me glorifying the man or making him seem like he is somehow superhuman. He is not superhuman. What he is, is a very hard worker and somebody that has done the business of bodybuilding and done what it took to be the best in his division for more than half a decade. And that dedication and that level of commitment is just not common. It’s not common in classic physique, it’s not common in any other division.
So it looks like Chris is done. Let’s see what he does with the rest of the year. He might always do a 180 and put the size back on or jump into a show at the last minute. But given the direction he’s taken and given the fact that he has more or less retired on stage in two different shows within the course of a few months, I would say that C-Bum is done for the foreseeable future.
