by Christian Duque
If Nick Walker wins – talk about awkwardness you could cut with a knife. Imagine Bob Cicherillo announcing him to the world as the new Mr Olympia. Imagine what that would look like. There’s no way Nick would play it down. He would rub it all over Bob’s face and of course the message boards would dish it out, the youtubers, the trolls, the bandwagon people, it would be a free-for-all. Everybody would take a royal dump on Bob for his totally inaccurate prediction regarding the Olympia. It would be a free-for-all. Everybody would take turns making fun of Bob. But after a couple of days of whimsical fun, we would be left with a Mr Olympia with the aesthetics of a refrigerator. In any event, Bob aside, let’s talk about what it would mean to have Nick Walker as your 2025 Mr Olympia. The good, the bad, and everything in between. Buckle up my friends, we’re about to take a ride on the wildside
Now one thing is for sure, Nick Walker has done his homework. He’s peeled, he’s separated, he’s got that tunnel vision in his eyes. You can tell that no matter what happens on this rock called Earth, Nick Walker is in Las Vegas and he is ready to do the business of bodybuilding. He’s not looking to be the funniest or the wittiest, he’s probably not thinking about the weigh-ins, the press conference, none of it. I don’t think he’s interested in anything but getting on stage and making sure that he’s got a solid spot in the top six from which he can then go on to win the whole show. Nobody wants it more than him. And it’s not because he has more discipline or because he has worked harder, it’s pride. It’s pride all day, everyday.
From the moment he won the North Americans, Walker was groomed to be the next Mr Olympia. And then it happened. Just like it happened with Ramy, year after year people were scratching their head asking themselves why this guy wasn’t holding a Sandow yet? When was it going to be his time? And then of course the last couple of years for whatever reason he’s qualified for the Olympia and then not done it. That also contributed to this. I think that the 2025 Olympia is make or break for Nick Walker. This is very personal, this is pride all the way, and he’s not going to let up. He’s not going to leave any stone unturned. So on the one hand I do admire that gung-ho nature of his, but on the other side? I don’t like the physique he presents.
When you have a sport like bodybuilding that’s supposedly about aesthetics, symmetry, and flow, and you’re presented with a physique like Nick’s, it leaves much to be desired. Now a lot of people in his camp might think that I’m picking on him because he blocked me on some social media platforms, but I can assure you that that couldn’t be farther from the case. I said it about Jay, I said it about Branch, I’ve said it about a lot of guys that quite frankly had the muscle and the hardness but they just didn’t have the aesthetics and the symmetry. But more so the aesthetics because symmetry can be achieved even with a physique that is not really pretty to look at. Now this is a debatable point but it’s my position.
There have been a lot of competitors that have won the biggest titles and received top honors that didn’t have what I would consider to be artistic physiques. In other words, they were a break from what the Golden Era of Bodybuilding was all about. Now some might argue the Golden Era of Bodybuilding was in the 1970s. What does that have to do with contemporary bodybuilding? It has a lot to do with it because the Golden Era – even though it was 50 years ago – provides the blueprint for all bodybuilding looks afterwards. And guys like Nick Walker are a stark contrast to what those guys were all about.
Back in the late ’90s and early 2000s bodybuilding was going in a bad direction. You had guys like Markus Ruhl that were starting to get a tremendous amount of support from the fans. Could you imagine what bodybuilding would have looked like if Marcus had won the Sandow? Now granted, he’s a terrific guy and he was a great champion back in the day. He loved the fans and he put them on a pedestal but the problem was his physique was horrendously ugly to look at. And I get it, people would call that freaky and they would call that nasty and they would call that almost gargantuan in a very cool kind of way. And in a very cool kind of way that is true maybe on a dvd, maybe as part of a bodybuilding motivational reel, but for that look to be the look of the top bodybuilder in the world, that’s disastrous for the division. The same way it would have been disastrous in the early 2000s with Markus, it would be equally disastrous in 2025 and 2026 with the likes of Nick Walker. Especially when you have aesthetically pleasing guys like Andrew, Samson, and Martin. Why go for a look like Nick’s?
That being said, despite the fact that he would be a horrendous Mr Olympia in terms of the look of his physique, Nick would also probably bring a lot of new people to bodybuilding. He would recharge the sport as well. Instead of people watching the Tren Twins, they could watch Mr Olympia Nick Walker training at the gym, they could look at the veins popping everywhere, they could look at the slabs upon slabs of rock hard muscle, and they could eat that shit up. Because at the end of the day, the aesthetic physique doesn’t sell whey protein powder the same way that mass monsters do. So look guys, being totally honest, there is an upside to having a guy with a horrendous looking physique as Mr Olympia, if that horrendously looking physique belongs to a mass monster. Plus we’ve seen how Nick lifts in the gym and I think that it’s safe to say that there’s a certain entertainment value to it. He understands what gets views and he tries to implement that into his already hardcore training. I think that a year of Nick Walker could potentially see a spike in social media, a spike in supplement sales, hell it might even put more asses in seats at shows, but it will totally hijack the sport. You can forget about network television, any movie possibilities, and you can forget about appealing to the masses that keep amateur shows alive. Those masses are guys competing in men’s physique and classic physique. They might think Nick looks really cool, but nobody is going to want to look like him.
Now if Nick Walker wins the Olympia it’s going to be interesting because I could almost guarantee you he would not be able to successfully defend the title. The only way in my estimation that Nick Walker can win a Sandow especially in 2025, is if a number of guys come in off. For starters Samson would have to be off. I would say that Andrew would have to be off. In my opinion, both Samson and Andrew offer stiffer competition to Nick than anyone else. Why? because they’re giants. They’re borderline mass monsters but they have truly beautiful physiques. Hadi would also have to be off, as well as Derek. When it comes to Martin, that’s a little iffy. Martin beat Nick at his best at the New York Pro in 2024 but he still had to take second. I feel that even if Martin beats Nick at the Olympia it’s going to be hard for him to place above him. Nick is a fan favorite and to a certain extent I think the judges perhaps indirectly are going to be a little bit more forgiving and a little bit more generous with Walker than anyone else. I wouldn’t necessarily call that politics, I just think it is what it is.
So assuming that a lot of guys come in off and Nick wins it, he would have to really hunker down and really pound the pavement. He would have to go to all the expos, all the gym appearances he could, do guess posing circuits and so on and so forth. He could certainly not go to Columbus and easily win the Arnold Classic. I think that’s a blunder Sampson made that many new Mr Olympians will not repeat. And with regards to defending his title, it would be a short lived run because again he would have won it because the top guys were off. And the top guys would have to continue being off in order for him to continue winning. That’s just not realistic.
Then again I’m often told whether you win one or you win eight it doesn’t really matter. Once you’re in the Olympia Club you’re in the club forever. And maybe 2025 could be that one and done for Nick Walker. What’s scary though is that he’s still very young and if this would be his only Olympia title what else is he going to do with his career? Is he going to keep trying to win back the title that nobody except for Jay Cutler in 60 years has been able to win back or would he then basically just compete at smaller shows? See that’s the thing, if he wins it he can’t keep it. But if he can’t win it this year, I feel like his credibility is going to take a major hit.
The last thing I want to see is Nick Walker act the fool on stage. We don’t need a repeat of 2014. But what’s going to happen if he doesn’t win? Could you imagine ig Derek beats him? I think this guy is likely to lose his mind and not in a good way. In fact , I wrote an article about it for IronMag about a month or two ago. It is a very real worry as far as I’m concerned.
But there you have it, the good, the bad, and everything in between. What would happen if Nick Walker won the Olympia in 5 or 6 days? Do you think it’s a likelihood or do you think it’s more wishful thinking by his hardcore fans? As always, thanks for reading my article, here, at IronMag. I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments. Please be sure to copy and paste a link to this article on all your social media feeds.
