We’re live at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando covering the 2023 Olympia and of course the 2023 Mr. Olympia callouts, the contest everyone has their eyes on, men’s open division for the Mr. Olympia title.
There are two Mr. Olympia winners in the field this year: defending champion Hadi Choopan, who won his first title in 2022, and 2019 Mr. O Brandon Curry.
As bodybuilding fans know, the first callout at pre-judging is the most important, as you pretty much know the winner will come out of that group. At pre-judging Friday night, both Choopan and Curry were (not surprisingly) in the first callout. But they weren’t alone; four other elite-level bodybuilders made it into the coveted grouping as well.
“The top three obviously are Lunsford. Hadi, and Samson,” says bodybuilding insider John Romano. “It’s always said that shows are won and lost from the back. When Lunsford turns around, he smokes everybody. His back shots are insane. When he turns around on the front, he just loses everything. I don’t know why. He’s two different guys front to back. I don’t know why that is.”
Here are Romano’s thoughts on Dauda: “Samson is up there as the third guy. His structure is amazing. He’s a tall guy. He’s got a lot of real estate and he fills it out. He’s very round and very cartoonish looking, like freaky looking.”
As for Choopan, Romano thinks he could break out in the finals. ” I can promise you that Hadi is going to look better tonight [Saturday].”
The first 2023 Mr. Olympia callouts gets most of the attention, but the second callout at Friday night pre-judging featured some intriguing names and up-and-comers. Here are the five that got called out second:
Tonio Burton
Charles Griffen
Regan Grimes
Hassan Mostafa
Michal Krizanek
Think of this as halftime, and the second half is coming up tonight starting at 7:00 pm Eastern at the Convention Center.
