We’ve had champions that looked like crap, but they still won because of their name or whatever. That’s never happened to me.” The result, he said, “makes me feel good that I actually earned and wasn’t given nothing.” Every show that I won, I won because I was supposed to win-I was the best on the stage that day. My whole career, I’ve had to work for everything I’ve gotten. So what was the difference, really, between 2008 and 2009? Different judging panel? Competition in different shape? Luck of the draw? All I do is come in and do my best, and may the cards fall where they may.” No Mr. Olympia has ever lost in shape and placed third, but it is what it is. “It is what it is,” he said, “and everyone has their own opinion. Instead, he evoked the universal anthem of those who’ve had to make their peace with the decisions of others. Three years after the fact, however, he wasn’t about to cry over spilt milk. Some might say he had been robbed, and not just at the ‘09 Olympia. “I was even better than I was when I won.” “I shoulda won that year too,” Jackson said with a chuckle. ![]() A year later, the story was completely different, almost as if they’d let the Floridian with the fantastic aesthetic have the crown only to take it away. The judges agreed, leading to those contrasting moments in time recalled above. So up until they called my name, I really didn’t think I would win, but I believed in my heart that if it was judged right, it could happen.” It’s hard to knock the champ off, and he was the champ-in his hometown. Olympia.” Though he’d been convinced before the contest that Cutler was “at a standstill” and could be taken-and that he could be the one to do it-Jackson hadn’t been absolutely sure. “It took me six, seven months before I even started accepting people calling me Mr. Olympia had been “amazing,” he said, and full of opportunities. Not so surprising, as his forty-third birthday was just a couple of days off, and he was looking forward to his family joining him in Los Angeles, where he lives part-time in Venice, California. If anything, the Jacksonville Jaguar was in a mellow mood and maybe a bit reflective. Olympia, which was widely expected to be a big payday for him. Dexter fi nished a deserving fourth and at the time of this interview was 17 days out from the renamed Masters Mr. champ Kai Greene, Dennis Wolf, and Evan Centopani, among other candidates. Didn’t happen. O Phil Heath, two-time Arnold Classic champ Branch Warren, two-time A.C. Some thought that the 42-year old man known as the Blade couldn’t cut it at the top anymore, that he’d be muscled out by bigger guys, many of whom had beaten him recently-Mr. The predictions leading up to the Olympia were dire. O, came back and won the Pro World Masters, and then dropped again to sixth at the ‘12 Arnold Classic. In 2011 he won several shows, dropped to fifth at the Mr. Since then, Jackson’s fortunes have been up and down, albeit within that rarefied circle of the top six at the Olympia and the Arnold Classic. Finally, the judges had gone for substance over size. Olympia in many of their lifetimes who wasn’t a behemoth. From Haney to Yates to Coleman to Cutler to Dexter Tyrone Jackson-for every lover of size who insisted that the judges would never pick the 5'6", 230-pound one-time bantamweight from Jacksonville, Florida, some lover of aesthetic physiques was sighing in relief. For those in the seats at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, it was a moment of history: the first Mr. ![]() Two unforgettable moments from the ‘08 Olympia: Jay Cutler, on a bench backstage, a little dazed Dexter Jackson, onstage, triumphant -also a little dazed. MUSCLE INSIDER sits down with the one of the biggest, baddest names in pro bodybuilding and learn just how Dexter Jackson keeps going strong and proving them wrong.
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