Came across this video a while back of Berzerker looking pretty monstrous when squashing Shawn Michaels in Mid-South in 1985.



Then today I came across a video of Arn Anderson talking about how huge Rick Steiner was when he first broke in so had a look and found this.



So I thought of a fun thread to find when wrestlers were at their most jacked.



I can't imagine Hawk was ever much bigger than this.

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Have at it.

Triple H returning from the quad injury was the first example I thought of. No more leg day for a while? Just training chest, shoulders and biceps like a fucking lunatic for basically a year.




Scott Hall's Big Scott Hall run in AWA was probably him at his biggest, but his Diamond Studd era is his most jacked, just getting shredded with most of that old Big Scott Hall mass.



Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 14 is the most jacked he's ever been (which is why I've always been convinced the severity of the back injury going into it was exaggerated)

This jobber.

Not to hijack the thread, does anyone remember skinny Rock in the early 2000s?

I came across that HBK squash watching Mid-South earlier this year good stuff. These videos coincide with stories my uncles and dad tell me about how much better the steroids were and how much easier it was to get top shelf designer stuff back then, back then they didn't know if the nose bleeds were from squatting 900 pounds or from all the coke they snorted prior to the workout. The earlier to mid-80's was their prime, pics I've seen of them were nuts. My dad worked for the electric company in Dallas and was invited to workout with the Von Erichs when they spotted him reading their meter was how fucking jacked he was, true story. 

I can't find an image of it, but I remember seeing in the CM Punk documentary WWE made years ago, Punk bulking up when he first went to OVW. He kind of looked a little out of place with that body, IMO.

Jul 24, 2023 14:29:31 GMT Leper Messiah said:

I can't find an image of it, but I remember seeing in the CM Punk documentary WWE made years ago, Punk bulking up when he first went to OVW. He kind of looked a little out of place with that body, IMO.

It's as if any proof of it has vanished apart from a 2 second glimpse of it on his WWE documentary. He said he was 240lbs at the time. It looked odd. And it didn't look like good weight either.

But talk about a guy who fluctuates, he went into that 434 day run lean, bulked up at the peak of the run then was even leaner than before by the end of it.

Ryback took 20lb off of Punk putting him through (missing) that table.

Punk must have some of the worst genetics of all time. When he bulked up, he looked bloated and fat. When he got skinny, he looked malnourished yet still fat. Just walking around he's got a video game addict skinny fat thing going. Seems to have the vertical jump of a geriatric. His career is a miracle, gotta respect it, on at least some level. 

Jul 24, 2023 0:44:34 GMT N A T H said:

This jobber.

Flair shows one of the guns at the 1:27 mark of this promo from 1985:



Road Warriors around Starrcade 1987 were at their most jacked:



Paul Orndorff was a specimen in 1985, 1:37 mark, LJN was justified in making the figure the way they did:



Peak Lex was actually late in his career, 1999:



Dynamite Kid circa 1985:

Jul 25, 2023 2:01:51 GMT Kilgore said:

Punk must have some of the worst genetics of all time. When he bulked up, he looked bloated and fat. When he got skinny, he looked malnourished yet still fat. Just walking around he's got a video game addict skinny fat thing going. Seems to have the vertical jump of a geriatric. His career is a miracle, gotta respect it, on at least some level. 

The WWE doco really isn't all that flattering, there's someone on it talking about how good Colt was, and how Punk had lead in his ass and couldn't get off his feet.

Punk then, during his WWE run likely had a body more akin to modern wrestlers in 2023. When Punk broke into WWE, steriod and peptide use was still rampant, nearly everyone seemed to be swollen regardless of height.

Look at Eddie in 2005, it's also hard to believe he was only 38 when he died.. he looked 50 by today's standards.

Eddie always looked like a 45-year-old man you'd see in Zubaz pants at a suburban barbecue in the '90s. The Mexican-American Dan Severn, in that regard.

(in the spirit of this thread, my favorite Eddie physique was 1997. He was roided out, but still lean, didn't have that bellows up the ass inflated, looks like he can pop at any minute, physique, that he had during peak WWE run)

Also, nothing to see here.

Not more jacked but I noticed how much better shape Takada and Maeda were in the UWF in 88-89-90, they were totally different animals back then, so much more athletic, faster, better cardio, etc. Watching Pride seeing that version of Takada and seeing Maeda in Rings in the 90's you can tell they got fat and lazy from all the money they made off those UWF shows.

I remember Sid being jacked to the max in WWF 92 but then discovering that he was somehow even more juiced when he was in WCW before that?

Sandman was such a slob in ECW in 98 but when he came back from WCW in later 99 was jacked?