Samson Dauda is going all-in for his next bodybuilding show in less than four weeks. In a recent episode of The Menace Podcast published on YouTube on October 8th, 2023, Dauda revealed that anything less than winning the 2023 Mr. Olympia wouldn’t be acceptable.
“If I don’t have that mentality I wouldn’t be improving the way I am,” explained Samson Dauda.
“The Nigerian Lion’s” emergence in the Men’s Open division was impossible to ignore, thanks to his towering stature, round muscle bellies, and aesthetics. He had a breakout season last year, setting the foundation for a masterful run against the world’s best.
Dauda picked up two consecutive fourth-place finishes at the 2022 Arnold Classic and Boston Pro show. In his first effort at the 2022 Mr. Olympia contest, Dauda shocked the world, not only by nabbing sixth place but also because he stood against the former two-time champ, Mamdouh “Big Ramy” Elssbiay, without appearing undersized or out-conditioned.
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After a dream-come-true moment on the sport’s brightest stage, Dauda gambled on himself at the 2023 Arnold Classic, where he bested Nick Walker and Andrew Jacked with shape and lower body definition. Despite Hadi Choopan now wearing the Olympia crown, Dauda is convinced he’s closer to the Sandow trophy than ever before.
Samson Dauda on Winning 2023 Mr. Olympia, ‘Improve 1 Thing and 1 Thing Only: Back’
According to Dauda, his prep is “going good” and shared that he’s stuck to a very strict diet in preparation for his next contest.
“It’s going good… it’s going good. Yeah, well, it’s been as good as it can be,” said Samson Dauda. “Because she’s on the floor you know, she checks everything. When I’m on a diet there’s no food in the house that I’m not allowed to eat. We don’t keep anything in the house. She watches me 24/7. She sees everything I do. She knows every part of it. It’s like living with a coach.”“Milos tells us what we need to do for this week and she implements it every single day. When you have someone that lives with you and is on you during all your training sessions… there’s no slipping. No point in your diet do you slip off. It’s like you know that okay you have that security you have your team around you and they want to see you do your best.”
“Back.”“Because there’s one thing like I said, we’re always taking criticism from the judges after every show regardless of if I win lose, or draw, we always ask for the judges’ feedback. And say look, what would you like, what would you want to say improved and better and the one thing they said from the Arnold is look you have to improve your back, work on your back, work on the width of your back. We’ve got to see more width on there and you’ve got to be a little tighter than you were at the Arnold.”“Right from the get-go when we got off that stage, that was our goal that’s what we started working on. We’ve literally punished ourselves all through that point until now for those two main goals. We used the off-season to improve one thing and one thing only: the back has to come up. So we made sure that that was our main drive.”
“It’s not even close. I couldn’t compare myself to Olympia last year because honestly, the differences are too vast. We’re way ahead [2023 Arnold Classic]. We’re so way ahead. The good thing is like with Milos I send him videos every week so them videos we still have.It’s one thing when you’re prepping your eyes probably not work the same way because you kind of see what you want, but we’ve taken both videos five weeks out from now and five weeks out from the Arnold and we watch them side-by-side,” added Samson Dauda.
“It is a big motivation [to beat others] as well but it’s not just the idea of the people you got to beat, because at the end of the day once you get past those guys, what’s going to be motivating you then? The idea is always to beat the person I was the last time I was on stage. I never want to stand on stage for my last show and people go, ‘Oh I can see a little change.’ No, I want it to always be drastic: that’s not the guy we saw last time.”
“You can’t go to a prep and fully kill yourself and know you’ve given everything and feel like death day after day and say well I’ll settle for top three. Even though yeah probably after it I’d be like yeah cool, it’s second only to the top three, but each day the only thing in my mind is I want to win this thing. I’m suffering because I want to win this thing. I’m putting myself through this because I want to win this thing. I know full well anything else… it won’t suffice, I want to win.”
“Yeah [winning is the dream and the goal is top three]. I wouldn’t say [top three] would be a disappointment but it would be something where I’m like damn okay, it would feel painful.”“You know, as much as it is yeah I know if I step back and I thought about it and go okay it’s my second Olympia, you’ve made top five in your second Olympia, I would be like this is a dream come true but I know that right now… competing, my mentality has to be like okay, I’m going for the win. It has to be that ruthless, selfish mentality. I want a top spot. I want to be right there in the mix all the time. If you don’t have that mentality, I think something different.”
You can watch the full video from the Muscular Development YouTube channel below:
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