The sport’s hottest 212 Bodybuilding rivalry is set to close its latest chapter in less than five weeks. Taking to a recent Muscle and Fitness YouTube video on September 9, 2024, industry experts Chris Cormier and Dennis James gave their thoughts on the upcoming battle between Keone Pearson and Shaun Clarida. Thanks to ‘The Prodigy’s’ feathered quads, Cormier backed him to defend his title successfully next month.
The fight atop the Men’s 212 Bodybuilding mountain has kept fans on the edges of their seats. In 2023, Shaun Clairda entered the event as the surefire favorite, having claimed the title dominantly in 2022. His rugged muscle density and conditioning complimented by vascularity proved to be a lethal combination on stage, making it near-impossible to look out-muscled on stage.
However, no one saw Pearson coming. His aesthetics, shape, and paper-thin waist provided judges with a stark contrast to what they were used to seeing from the division. In one of the biggest upsets of the night, Pearson walked away victorious, sending reverberations of his triumph throughout the bodybuilding community. With the highly anticipated rematch less than a month away, a stable of bodybuilding veterans broke down the match-up, which has been compared to Phil Heath’s and Kai Greene’s rivalry.
Chris Cormier Says Keone Pearson Will Beat Shaun Clarida at 2024 Mr. Olympia: ‘I Have to Go With the Champion’
According to Cormier, Clarida’s granite hard muscle will be a challenge for Pearson, but believes the reigning champion’s lower body thickness, density, and detail will be the winning ticket at Olympia.
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“Shaun, The Giant Killer, he looked like granite, hard hard, like way, I won’t say way hard but he was significantly more dense and harder than The Prodigy at the training thing. I say that to say this, he looks like he should be looking right now but that was like the standard, those feathers on the quads like that. It was like okay, I’m in shape but that’s what we was always trying to look like at the height of this bodybuilding history,” Cormier shares.
When asked outright if both were in shape who would win, Cormier backed Pearson to come out on top, favoring his striated quads.
“Both in shape, who’s winning?” asks Dennis James.
“I mean I have to go with the champion,” says Cormier. “No one has that, if you hit that with those quads, that’s going to make the judges be like okay, that’s our guy right there.”
Questioning Cormier’s reasoning, Dennis James revealed that Shaun Clarida also boasts striated quads.
“Shaun got that too, Shaun Clarida got striated quads,” said James
“That quad right there, that side of that leg was too many people, well Oleh has that and he hurt himself,” said Cormier.
While conditioning was easily Clarida’s biggest strength on stage at last year’s gathering, he contends that the gap will be more marginal this year because that has been one of Pearson’s priorities throughout preparations.
“The question, I think Dennis you said after prejudging of 212 last year that you had Shaun winning,” Sarcev shared. “Keone wasn’t as conditioned last year as I think he’s going to be this year. You would think he’ll be better conditioned than that. If he’s better conditioned than that, yeah.”
Thanks to last year’s triumph, Dennis James imagines Keone Pearson’s newfound motivation will only help him bring an even tighter package next month.
“Yeah, I’m going off Keone coming in and nailing it. I’ve never seen that on him the way he looks right now and the way he’s training and putting everything out into the public. Winning the 212 Olympia probably gave him all the motivation in the world. Right now, you can see how focused it is because you got the title and you want to hold on to it. I think that’s an extra layer of motivation,” Dennis James explains.
Cormier adds that Pearson has also had time away from the stage, especially during the off-season to dial in his nutrition.
“He’s also been training a lot harder and more concentrated on the diet year-round before he was able to let the foot off the gas through diet and training in the off-season and then picking it up trying to ramp it up. It seemed like he stayed way more concentrated this year,’ replied Cormier.
Even though Keone Pearson is the reigning 212 Olympia champion, he is training as if he never won the title. His humble attitude combined with his self-proclaimed ‘underdog mentality’ fuels him to bring a look no one has ever seen before.
“I feel great. This is the best I’ve felt in all my preps to be honest. This is the smoothest prep, knock on wood, so far in my whole career,” says Pearson.
Only five points separated Pearson from Clarida on the 2023 Olympia scorecards. If history an an indicator of the future, the world expects another close battle when these 212 titans return for their highly anticipated rematch. Don’t miss 2024 Mr. Olympia from October 10-13 in Las Vegas, Nevada next month.
Watch the full video from the Muscle and Fitness YouTube channel below:
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