Champion of the Day: Jackie Paisley 1962-2017

1987 NPC USA Heavyweight & Overall, 1989 Ms International

Jackie Paisley, one of the most beautiful and talented IFBB pro bodybuilders ever, passed away on March 17th at the age of 54, finally losing a long battle with illness.



We thought it an apt moment, as we begin a week of women who have already been crowned champions in 2017, to pay tribute to this great champion of the past.



She was from Pennsylvania originally, a cellist, educated at music conservatory and the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh before she settled in Scottsdale, Arizona after doing a joint degree in Sports Medicine and Music Performance at the state university. She was competing at national level as a bodybuilder by the mid-80s, and didn't have to wait long for her pro card, winning Heavyweight and Overall titles at the NPC USAs in 1987, first in a field of 50+.




She went on to shine very brightly, but all too briefly, as a pro. 3rd at her first Ms International in 1988, she returned the following year to finish runner-up to Tonya Knight. However, as Knight was later disqualified, Jackie is in the record books as the 1989 champion. I got the difference in prize money, she told Muscle Insider a few years ago, but never a first-place medal or certificate with my name on it.

The IFBB - ever classy!



Later in 1989 she was runner-up again at the World Pro, this time to Diana Dennis, and debuted at the Ms Olympia, finishing 4th behind only Cory Everson, Sandy Riddell, and Bev Francis. In 1990 she was runner-up at the Ms International again, and 5th at the Olympia. Women were getting much more muscular, and I didn’t have the body type or desire to, she said of her decision to call time on her FBBing career. I didn’t have a mentor then either, so things may have been different if I had, but I had a business to attend to, and a recent relationship breakdown, so I had a lack of focus. She did one final Olympia in 1991, placed 11th, and never competed again.



She was married, became a mother, and for many years afterwards, she ran a successful training business. In 2005, though, complications resulting from her breast implants began to affect her health, and the last ten years or so had been a bit of a struggle for her physically and financially, although there were times when she felt she was on the road to recovery, and at one time Jackie was quoted as saying she would like to give the Physique division a try. Sadly, she was never able to do so.



Like many other fans, I fell for Jackie during my formative female muscle lovin' years, and especially I found images of her demonstrating her legendary flexibility, among the first of her I saw, utterly mesmerising. They, she, will stay with me as long as I live.



Read Muscle Insider's full 1-on-1 with Jackie here.

A New Golden Age? Part V

PIU: Not sure entirely why I paired Jackie Paisley with Tina Nyguen, other than both being relatively lightweight and lean and showing quite a bit of flesh but the quote from Jackie does fit nicely into the fitspirational transformational aspect and the before and after of Tina certainly shows how conventionally pretty but unremarkable looks can turn into a jaw dropping Goddess.



But to be honest I probably really really wanted an excuse to include that pic (almost any pic) of Tina in her underwear.



And like with Diana Schnaidt [see yesterday] I just cannot comprehend how the average guy on the street couldn't find her attractive or why so few truly athletic women don't make the photo shoots or covers in the mainstream world, let alone become real huge stars.

We have understandable backlashes against the very skinny in fashion or the occasional so-called plus size model (who is usually closer to average/normal in size compared to the woman on the street) but female muscularity still seems to be one of the last taboos in mainstream media. In the 21st century!

FMS: Glad you found an excuse to choose a Tina Nguyen underwear pic! And while we're on the subject of hot hot heat...



Time for a confession! My magazine collection quickly began to take up a lot of space back then, and given that upwards of 90% of all the pages were of little interest, I would carefully cut out my favourite pics and paste them into scrapbooks.

I remember this one of Cathy Palyo. Can actually see it there on the scrapbook page, feel the same intense excitement of spending some quality time with this bronzed and beautiful goddess.



These days, there are so many more images, but some still have the same power over me. Exhibit A, Theresa in the pool for Her Biceps. Wow. Just WOW!

PIU: Yeah, ahh... Cathy P. I think because the print images were rarer as well, we treasured the iconic images more and apart from the occasional hairstyle, these 30 plus year old images don’t date one bit. Yet look at vintage Playboy type pics and as well as the over use of airbrushing or soft focus, they do tend to much more reflect the look of the times. Cathy would still not look out of place in any of today's print mags or paysites.

I started putting loose cut out pics into those photo albums you used to get, with the sticky transparent covering pages that used to hold them in place. I had several albums then they seemed to take up too much space or more likely I just got too much stuff to be able to organise them. I still mean to get round to scanning them, there's still a lot of stuff from that time that I haven't seen already online, specially the more obscure stuff.

FMS: Glad I wasn't the only one creating albums back in the day! Don't feel like such a freak now. Never kept mine though, sadly...

PIU: Theresa is well... the Package! Highest new entry on the Hot and Hard 100 last year, at 12. Will she make the Top Ten this time?

The 2016 FMS Hot and Hard 100 Countdown - COMING SOON!

Ms International: Did You Know...? [Part 2]

…in its 28-year history, there have been 12 different Ms Internationals.

Over the same period, there have been nine Ms Olympias. Three women have held both titles at the same time, the first to do so being Kim Chizevsky in 1996. The feat was not repeated until Yaxeni Oriquen won both in 2005. You can probably guess that Iris Kyle completes the list, and is the only woman to have won both titles in the same year more than once.



In fact, Iris has been the reigning Ms International and Ms Olympia SIX times! She first did the double in 2004, repeating it every year since with the exception of 2005, when she didn’t compete, 2008 – more about that shortly – and last year, when she didn’t compete due to injury. On each occasion that she hasn’t won the Ms I during this period, Yaxeni has won it instead.




…even Iris gets the blues.

Or to be more precise, the ‘bumps’.



As noted above, Iris’ record at the Ms International since 2004 is pretty much flawless. She either isn’t there or she wins. But in 2008, Iris was very much there, and what happened to Iris at the Ms I that year is right up there with the Paula Bircumshaw saga (see Sunday’s post) as an example of just how bizarre the world of top female bodybuilding can be.



Iris was shocked to find herself not only out of the top 1, but out of the top 6, specifically in 7th place. Some time after the contest she said, I’m still quite puzzled. From the judges standpoint, I have received no feedback leaving me with thousands of unanswered questions to this day. I made a couple of calls but I couldn’t get through to who I would love to speak to.



Only later did one of the judges reveal where Iris had lost her title. In a radio interview, head judge Sandy Ranalli confirmed a rumour that ‘bumps’ were responsible for Iris’ placing. Her shoulders were a little bit, you know, distorted. There were distortions in her glute area, she said. At this level of competition, [there is] not a big difference between athletes, those things come into play. It was the distortion.

Now, take a look at these images from the show. Do you see any ‘distortions’?



I think what the judges were talking about were her muscles, but let’s say that they were right. If they had felt she was so grotesquely ‘distorted’, why didn’t they place her last? If they felt the ‘distortions’ were somehow the result of some kind of foul play, why didn’t they disqualify her? Why, to those judges on that day, was the ultimate sanction that occurred to them to place her 7th? Out of the money. Just.



Ah, the wonder of IFBB female bodybuilding judging truly never ceases to amaze! How many other sports do you know where the rules or criteria for success are not only constantly being rewritten, but are often rewritten during the contest they relate to. It’s almost as if the IFBB are trying to make a farce of female bodybuilding. After all, does this happen in any of the other events at their shows?

I don’t think you need me to answer that.


...heavyweights always win.

In the same way that having different weight classes came and went out of fashion at the Ms Olympia in roughly the same period, there were lightweight and heavyweight classes at the Ms International from 2000 to 2005.



At the Ms O in 2001, Juliette Bergmann, a lightweight, defeated Iris Kyle for the overall title, but at the Ms I, the heavyweights won every time. Brenda Raganot and Dayana Cadeau both lost out twice in the overall posedown; Brenda to Vickie Gates in 2000, and Yaxeni in 2005; Dayana to Vickie in 2001, and to Iris in 2004. In addition, lightweights Valentina Chepiga in 2002 and Cathy Le François the following year both lost out to heavyweight Yaxeni.



I can’t help feeling that the whole thing became a lot less interesting after the end of the different weight classes. Although it’s very uncommon for a lightweight to beat a heavyweight, at least there are two winners, two contests, two posedowns and then an extra posedown at the end to decide the overall title. More variety for the spectator, more opportunity for the women not blessed with the genetic gifts of the likes of Vickie Gates and Iris Kyle to have their moment. Now we are faced with the prospect of absolutely no bodybuilding classes at all, the days of the weight classes seem all the rosier.




…25 years is a long time.



If the Arnold Sports Festival and the Ms International were married, they’d have celebrated their silver anniversary in 2013. When the union began, George Bush was replacing Ronald Reagan as US President, Ayatollah Khomeini had just placed a $3m bounty on Salman Rushdie’s head, and Hungary had just started dismantling its border with Austria, heralding the end of the ‘Iron Curtain’.

Jackie Paisley was the first Ms International crowned in Columbus Ohio.



25 years later, George Bush’s son has been and gone from the White House, Khomeini is dead, though Rushdie lives, and Hungary, along with most of the other countries once behind the ‘Iron Curtain’, is a member of the European Union along with its former ‘capitalist enemies’.

Iris Kyle won what was quite possibly the last Ms International to be held at the Arnold Sports Festival, though we hope that she will not be the last Ms International of all.



Maybe it is time for a change, perhaps a big change in the way professional female bodybuilding is run. But more of that later in the week.



Sign the petition and make your voice heard.

And enjoy this and other Ms International action from recent years on jlelmariachi’s youtube channel