Bob Cicherillo is speaking up for the Olympia social media team after a post upset fans over the weekend. In a Voice of Bodybuilding podcast, Cicherillo said Olympia’s Instagram post calling Iain Valliere, James Hollingshead, Antoine Vaillant, and Steve Kuclo ‘failures’ was done unintentionally.
After Hadi Choopan captured gold at the 2022 Mr. Olympia contest, changes at the top of the Open class became a major talking point. At the show, Mamdouh ‘Big Ramy’ Elssbiay failed to retain his title and dropped to fifth. The podium saw Derek Lunsford and Nick Walker finish second and third. In the aftermath, athletes rep Bob Cicherillo was vocal about the outcome as fans suspected Ramy wasn’t offered a fair shot on stage.
Debate continued following Samson Dauda‘s victory at the Arnold Classic last month. Walker, who placed runner-up, found the results controversial. In fact, fan outrage surrounding Dauda’s win continued to build until Bob Cicherillo got involved. He took to multiple podcasts to explain the judging process. Moreover, he stressed that Dauda won because he possessed a better combination of factors like conditioning, balance, proportions, and stage presentation.
Prime Time Muscle is a bodybuilding podcast represented by the Olympia TV YouTube channel. In a recent post made to Instagram, they teased their latest video. However, some fans found the thumbnail and description disrespectful given their use of words such as ‘bust’ and ‘failure.’
Bob Cicherillo on Olympia TV’s Distasteful Post & Fan Outrage: “The Clickbait Stuff Needs to End”
In response to fan backlash, the OlympiaLLC Instagram page deleted the post. The Prime Time Muscle episode was also deleted from YouTube. According to Cicherillo, the choice of words was done ‘unintentionally.’
“For those that have been following the bouncing ball, there was a video put out by our good friends, Terrick and Chris Cormier and Tim Wilkins, they do a show called Prime Time Muscle. They put a video out and it was actually pretty innocuous, if you were actually able to catch the video but it was removed unfortunately, we’ll get to that in a moment.
The title of it was ‘Olympia Threat or Bust?’ Now that was probably where the problem started and ended because it wasn’t really worded proper in my opinion; I think that’s where a lot of this outrage had occurred. In the tag it said Olympia failures or promises. This is inherently where the problem came about, because you can’t judge a book by its cover. The clickbait stuff needs to end.”
“Listen, we’re all in the same biz, we’re all trying to catch someone’s attention but blatantly putting something out just to catch somebody’s attention is not really being – it’s being rather disingenuous. We catch on quick. We’ve all seen podcasts that are no longer on YouTube that have literally made their following by this action, and again, it gets old quickly. You don’t need clickbait if you got good content. I don’t think it was done intentionally, I think it was the wrong verbiage use.”
Cicherillo highlighted that the Olympia is an entity and doesn’t hold opinions regarding the physiques of different bodybuilders. He added that Hollingshead, Valliere, Kuclo, and Vaillant didn’t take the post personally.
“The Olympia is an entity. The Olympia doesn’t make statements unless it’s something pertaining to Olympia. Here’s where Olympia is going to be, here is where VIP tickets will be on sale, that type of stuff. Much like the IFBB Pro League, the IFBB Pro League does not have an opinion when it comes to things of this nature or how good a bodybuilder is.”
“Iain Valliere, great bodybuilder, but a top 10 Olympian a few times; they’re not referencing him as some sort of failure or bust to the Olympia or this isn’t a guy whose lived up to his expectations, they’re giving critique. There’s a few others. We’re not going to play them all. Iain, James Hollingshead, Steve Kuclo – they’re just referencing some bodybuilders and giving some critique to literally get to the next level,” Cicherillo said.
While the video was taken down, Cicherillo said its contents weren’t as offensive as the post made to Instagram.
“So to see the outrage that I’ve seen the other day from the fanbase… you got to check yourselves here people. I’m talking about the fans in particular out there. Don’t take things so personally. This was not an attack on the Olympians. ‘Oh, the Olympia should be ashamed of itself.’ Again, you’re talking about a competition – an entity- they, they Olympia, don’t have an opinion when it comes to individual competition and individual competitors that are in there trying to win a show.”
“I want to make sure it’s clear. Not only is everyone entitled to an opinion but then you have to reference who’s making that opinion and what they’re talking about. I can see clearly that most of you did not watch the video; you saw the title, you assumed what it was all about, and then you got crazy.”
As a result of the fiasco, Terrick El Guindy apologized for the mishap and explained that it was a ‘terrible choice of words.’
“Words are powerful. I learned this over the weekend when I wrote a post to promote the latest episode of Prime Time Muscle. My intention was to analyze whether a few athletes didn’t live up to expectations at the 2022 Olympia. Unfortunately I used the word “failure” when I wrote the post (implying failure to live up to expectations). A terrible choice of words on my part. Olympia athletes are the best in the world!!!! I have reached out to Iain and James to apologize for the poor choice of words. They were both very gracious about it. Bodybuilding fans are passionate. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.” El Guindy posted.
The latest post from El Guindy and Olympia raises the question of how far media can go to attract attention. As for Cicherillo, he doesn’t believe clickbait content has a place in the sport.