A couple of weeks ago I went through my storage to my apartment. I had to make some more space, so I started to go through things I didn’t need any more. After a while of sorting through some garbage, I found a dusty box containing old bodybuilding magazines. Beneath them I also found some old VHS tapes. One of them was the Mr. Olympia cassette from 1995.
The first thing that came to mind when I looked at the front cover was the former Arnold Classic winner, Mike Francois. In addition to this I read a great article about Francois and his career and approach to the sport. The article was written by journalist Lori Kurtzman. Its title – “Man’s body of work is a life well-lived” – gave me further inspiration me find out more of Francois’ life and where in life he stands now.
During Francois’ bodybuilding career he had successful wins both as amateur and an IFBB Pro. He was the winner of Night of Champions in 1994 and the Chicago Pro Invitational the same year, and winner of the Arnold Classic and the San Jose Pro Invitational in 1995.
The Go
lden Era
When Francois competed back in the ‘90s the line-ups were super sharp and it was very unusual – to almost never – that the top 6 competitors entered the bigger pro shows in bad shape. This was the most competitive period of pro bodybuilding ever to that point and possibly ever, and what many call the golden era, a period which included legends like Shawn Ray, Kevin Levrone, Chris Cormier and the great Dorian Yates. And Mike was one of them.
Francois also represented a kind of coolness and the character of an athlete who rather let his physique speak on stage than in the microphone.
The ‘90s era stood for extreme competiveness – extreme work ethic beyond previous limits – and Mike was truly one of the hardest workers of this era. Francois stated, “For me it was more important to be known to train really hard than winning titles.” This concept resulted in dense muscularity of the frontline athletes of the ‘90s which also signifies the six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates.
Mike has a standing point when it comes to his career and that is the quote of this article, “I never got to finish what I started.” As I see it, Francois – unlike many of his ‘90s counterparts – never got the chance to really reach his peak potential suggested by his incredible work ethic and excellent physical genetics.
Examples who did are Nasser El Sonbaty, who entered the stage in 1995 with even more massive muscles than before winning The Night of the Champions (NOC), or Dorian Yates’ progress from a second place at the (NOC) to the Mr. Olympia title in 1992 or Ronnie Coleman who rocketed from 12th place at the Olympia to dominating as one of the absolute best Mr. Olympia champions we’ve ever had, winning the Sandow eight times!
This is interesting because if his health issues hadn’t stopped Francois and he had the chance to develop and make even more progress to his physique like Dorian, Nasser or Ronnie, I really think that Francois could have gone all the way and actually won the Mr. Olympia.
The IFBB Pros of today
Everyone in our industry knows how much the ‘90s era is applauded. One thing that strikes my mind while writing this article is all the bashing of the pros of today. As a sidebar, I want to briefly discuss this issue. At many times they seem to be all too often verbally slaughtered for not training hard enough or always relying on their genetics when it comes to building muscles and winning shows, and to some extent it might be true.
At the same time you must realize that they are genuine when they express themselves so passionately about the sport as evidenced by many moving interviews. Some examples are Victor Martinez as he talks about how much he loves bodybuilding or Kai Greene’s philosophy about life and bodybuilding and how it’s evolving from day to day in the excellent documentaries by Mike Pulcinella or when Dave Palumbo did the interview with Jason Huh after winning both Heavyweight and the Overall at the NPC back in 2010, where Huh also won his Pro card.
In addition, no one should forget that they are the prime bloodlines and front figures keeping our industry together. Therefore it’s important for everyone who loves our sport to share their thoughts over these matters and support and encourage them more.
Back to Francois
At the end of his professional career, Francois had to pull out less than two weeks before the 1998 Arnold Classic because of ulcerative colitis. The doctors had to remove his colon during one surgery and reattach his small intestine in a follow-up procedure.
He was very sick for a while but came through. He stopped competing as an IFBB Pro and transferred his passion for bodybuilding to his new career running his own personal training company, “Francois Fitness Consultants, Ltd.” Francois also holds his annual Mike Francois Classic in Westerville, Ohio each May.
Final words
For me, it’s time to carry on my work in the storage and throw out the last things in order to get more space for the newer stuff. One thing I’m keeping for certain though is the Mr. Olympia memorabilia from 1995 as it represents what Mike Francois and the era stood for and all the inspiration it gave to the culture of bodybuilding. At the same time, I plan to pay more respect to the contemporary bloodlines of fitness and bodybuilding of today and come to understand their drive and passion which they use to reach their goals and dreams.
Credits: Lori Kurtzman’s “Man’s body of work is a life well-lived” from The Columbus Dispatch: Friday, March 1, 2013.
