Underrated: Juanita Blaino

A new occasional series, Underrated is not intended to be about judging decisions - if it was, we could probably run a post about every single woman who's ever competed! Instead, we aim to (re)focus on women who we think do not enjoy the prominence they deserve in the collective female muscle consciousness - someone a new recruit to the female muscle lovin' world would not necessarily come across.

UNDERRATED?



If you know her, it's highly unlikely you would underrate her. The combination of size and sexy Juanita brought to the stage made her one of the outstanding competitive Female Bodybuilders of the first part of this decade. And that's not just my opinion - this "powerful goddess of muscle" is none other than Margie Martin's all-time favourite, and few would disagree with her that it's high time Juanita rose again.



The fact that she's become so (relatively) unknown so quickly since her retirement is largely down to Juanita herself. She's retired most effectively! Like, say, her more famous admirer or - as another example - Iris Kyle, Juanita has social media but unlike them she hardly ever posts. When she does, it's hardly ever a picture of herself, and on those rare occasions when it is, it's hardly ever a current picture of herself.



Consequently, the well of "new" Juanita material dried up almost as soon as she stopped competing in 2014. With nothing new to add, her forum threads and GWM page have largely stagnated, kept alive only by rumour and occasional "look what I found when I was cleaning out my hard drive" images from Juanita's pomp.

CAREER


Juanita Malone, pre-1994

The period of her career for which she is known runs from 2010 to 2014. However, and this has only recently, thanks to some serious FBB archaeology by a well-known forum poster, come to light, Juanita Malone (as she was then) can be found competing in the early 90s, and at the NPC USAs in 1994 she shared the stage with (among other Heavyweights) Annie Rivieccio, Rozann Keyser, and Suzan Kaminga.


Nationals, 2010

After a break of some 15 or so years, she returned to competition in 2010, lining up at the Masters Nationals, the North Americans (in the 35+ Masters class), and the Nationals, where she was the Heavyweight runner-up to Amber Defrancesco.



Champion - Nationals, 2012

Two years later and Juanita was back at the Nationals, and this time there was no denying her. After winning the Heavyweight class, she saw off Kira Neuman and Rene Marven in the posedown to be crowned Overall champion, and new IFBB pro.



Olympia, 2013

On her pro debut in Chicago the following year she placed 2nd (to Mmmmonique Jones), and though she failed to place in Tampa a month later, those runner's-up qualifying points were enough (just) to get her to her one and only Olympia. There (in possibly her best ever shape and in a posing suit that bordered dangerously - and thrillingly - close to a thong) she placed above Mmmmonique - 6th out of 12. It took legends to beat her, and only Kyle, Popa, Laszewski, Oriquen and Brezovac did.



This period also brought us the majority of the non-contest Juanita material we can still enjoy today. She worked with HerBiceps, briefly - but gloriously - with Female Muscle Clips, and most memorably with Muscle Angels. As we look back now we can see that even then there were signs that Juanita was not 100% happy at putting herself out there (as they say), with much of the Muscle Angels' material listed not under her name but the alias "Massive Muscle". Nevertheless, this moniker seemed completely appropriate to me. I had fallen massively for Juanita's muscles, and I wasn't alone.



The following March (2014), FMS readers voted her into the top 30 of our inaugural Hot and Hard 100 poll. As the 2014 contest season got under way, she seemed a serious contender, and my female muscle notebook of the time reveals I was as excited about seeing Juanita again as I was about seeing anyone. Had her time come?


Tampa, 2014

2014. however, didn't quite live up to the promise of her debut pro season. 4th this time in Chicago, she did better in Tampa than she had done the previous year, but 7th there was nowhere near enough. The last ever Ms Olympia took place without her.

APPRECIATION



First of all, and make no mistake about this, Juanita was (and may well still be) massive. You really only get a true sense of her overwhelming scale when you see her next to other, undeniably huge, women. As well as being a bit taller than both Iris and Mmmmonique, Juanita (at the very least) matches both of them for sheer arm size. Imagine her strength! a 2015 forum poster gasps. I do - and I imagine it is incredible. Chicago crims restrained by Officer Blaino, don't, I imagine, ever forget it!


Chicago, 2014

Most importantly though, Juanita simply "oozed sex appeal", and while this does come across in photos, you really have to see her move on stage to fully understand just how sexy she was, and what a huge influence she was on Margie Martin. Even if Juanita was never quite as aggressively, in-yer-face sexy as her most decorated devotee, the more that Margie took from Juanita's playbook, the more successful she became.



My favourite clips of hers would have to be the first set she did with Muscle Angels as "Massive Muscle" - hotel room setting, small white bikini, just flexing hard and slow while the camera catches all her ripples and striations in close-up detail. Perhaps even more thrilling though was Female Muscle Clips' shooting of Juanita in dress and heels. 30 minutes which, if you are lucky enough to enjoy, stay with you long after.

NOW?

Rumours only. Still a big and beautiful girl, apparently, but not planning to come back - at least not as a Bodybuilder. According to one forum poster, Juanita told him in an email that she's "downsizing in the near future", a decision that, in his words is "more personal than political". She said she's "tired of not being able to buy regular clothes", he continues, "tired of carrying so much weight around". The muscle mass is that serious! That was last October, and nothing since then suggests Juanita's return is imminent - whatever size she is going to be if she does indeed return to competition.

I do believe that last bit about serious muscle mass though...

Enjoy!

Chicago 2014: Juanita

REASONS WHY IT'S HARD TO WRITE ABOUT JUANITA BLAINO

1. Without wishing to be too crude, it's not easy/it's impossible to type when one/both of your hands is constantly moving away from the keyboard. Not easy/impossible to type when your hands are not exactly above the table, if you get my meaning.



2. In order to write about the sizzling Juanita, I need to look at images of Juanita. And images of Juanita have a tendency, if left on the screen for too long, to melt the keys on the keyboard with their heat emissions. Replacing plastic keys with titanium ones has meant the keys no longer melt, but instead they quickly become too hot to touch, so even if hands are available (see #1), typing is only possible for short periods of time.




3. More seriously, there is very little information available about Juanita that I can relate to you. 2nd on her pro debut in Chicago last year (narrowly losing out to Mmmmonique Jones), and 6th on her Olympia debut, Juanita is, without question, one of the top female bodybuilders in the world. Yet there is no website. No Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to follow. We know she's 45 this year. We know Chicago is her hometown. We know she's a police officer, and we know she has a daughter.



So perhaps, all in all, it's better if I leave the writing about Juanita to others, and make it a cut & paste job. Also, you can check out one or the other of our previous posts about this super muscular and sensationally sexy woman (which, assuming you have a titanium keyboard, ought to be safe), and Juanita can also be found at #29 in the FMS Hot and Hard 100 (not nearly high enough for Swell's liking, as I said at the time).



THE FANS ON JUANITA

I really love her nice thick guns, but her back is outstanding... A wide, thick and massive back, one of the best in the industry. Her rear lat spread is just awesome... The IFBB need more FBBs like her: SEX APPEAL + GREAT PHYSIQUE... [In this backstage posing clip] her sweat makes the tanning oil on her body run and for some reason I'm thinking about licking rivers of chocolate and caramel, I'm sorry [you see, it's not just me who suffers!]... Juanita is enormous, look at the photo before the contest [below] where she's wearing short sleeves. Her arm is as massive as a leg!



STEVE WENNERSTROM ON JUANITA

Juanita Blaino... this impressive competitor shows a level of muscular thickness that reaches from head to toe. Hopefully, she will make a trip to Tampa in an attempt to secure another invite to Las Vegas. She has all the tools to hang with the best.




"All the tools". Nice! Personally, and with no disrepect to the three women who finished above her in Chicago, I'd have placed the divine Ms Blaino in the top 1 if I'd been one of the judges. And that's not a moan, it's a fact - with my hands shaking so, I couldn't possibly have written any other number down on my scorecard while Juanita was doing her thing! But there is, as Mr Wennerstrom points out, a possible silver lining to her 4th place in that it means she'll have to compete in Tampa to qualify for the Olympia, so we will, hopefully, be feeling the heat from the stunningly beautiful Juanita Blaino and her gloriously sexy muscles on stage again really really soon.



And we leave you today with an understandably shaky glimpse of Juanita in Chicago from a fan's point of view. Leave the sound on if you can, it's well worth hearing what the audience was saying about her while she was strutting her stuff up there.



Enjoy!

Contest of the Day: Ms Olympia

This week on FMS we'll be looking back at some of the contests that have been held recently. But don't expect any considered, objective opinions...

Once upon a time, the only way I could get the results of female bodybuilding contests was from muscle magazines. I was excited to see the handful of images of the winner and the other top finishers, but then again being dependent on the magazines for female muscle material meant I was pretty excited about any image of a female bodybuilder in those days. But by the time I was reading that Cory Everson or Lenda Murray had won the Ms Olympia title again, and drooling over the pictures of them posing on stage, a month or more had passed since the contest itself.

It's all different now. Big contests like the Olympia have live webcasts. I can actually watch the show. If there isn't a webcast, there will be a website where I can follow a 'play-by-play' description of what's happening on stage. Images are uploaded within hours of the show, and hundreds of images of each contest, sometimes of each contestant, are available online within days. I'm so much more engaged with female bodybuilding as a sport now.

What hasn't changed is the way I personally 'judge' the contests. From those magazine years until the present I have never been able to look at the women in any objective way. I want my favourite to win. I judge with my heart (or perhaps groin would be a more accurate description). Back in 1988 I would have been looking at the pics in Muscle & Fitness and wishing Anja had beaten Cory (and don't get me wrong I thought Cory was great, but I was in love with Anja). A few weekends ago I followed the play-by-play description of the recent UKBFF British Championships (by reigning champ Rosanna Harte, no less) hoping that my favourite lady would win.

I'm completely unable to think about contests in any other way.

More about the UKBFF later in the week.

But we begin our week of reviews with the biggest contest of them all...

Ms OLYMPIA
26th September, Las Vegas

The result was no surprise, no surprise at all. Iris Kyle was crowned for the ninth time (a record for any bodybuilder, male or female) and for the eighth time in a row. It is a magnificent, unique achievement, and to my untrained and ignorant eye, she really did look back to her best after a disappointing showing at the Ms International, when she had been suffering from illness (though that hadn't stopped her winning it). One spectator who attended the show agreed, I saw her at the Arnold and was not that impressed with her performance. But at the Olympia people were in awe when she flexed her back and hit her poses. Another female muscle fan claimed, You had to be there to believe it. She exudes champion attitude. She was really shining with confidence and really had the most professionalism.



It's easy to knock Iris (as we noted here on FMS in our Ms O countdown). She is held by some to be responsible for the demise of female bodybuilding at its highest level, simply because she has turned up in her best shape year after year. It seems to me that is a peverse way to look at it. In fact, I think what has happened is that Iris has forced her competitors to raise their game. To challenge her, to really challenge for the Ms Olympia title, you are going to have to bring a spectacular package to Las Vegas. In years past that spectacular package has been brought a number of times by Yaxeni Oriquen. In 2009 it was Heather Policky, and last year it was Debi Laszewski who had never been better. This year, though, the challenge came from Alina Popa.




Before the show we wondered how she could improve on the physique she had presented the judges in 2011 and 2012. We knew she hadn't been seen on stage since last year's Olympia. We knew she had been preparing in Colorado at Heather Policky's ex-husband's gym, the gym frequented by Mr Olympia Phil Heath. We thought that if there was anywhere she could find that little extra surely this was the place for her to be. We imagined her emerging from the Rockies bigger and better than ever.



And we were not disappointed.

Debi Laszewski finished in the top three for the second year in a row. Yaxeni Oriquen, the Olympia veteran of Olympia veterans, was fourth, her lowest placing since 2009 - which was probably more indicative of the high overall standard than any shortcomings on her part. Gorgeous Brigita Brezovac, in what we now know was sadly her last ever competition, was fifth, and the top six was completed by rising star Juanita Blaino, competing in her first Olympia.




Personally, I was very very taken with Juanita, as I have been every time I've seen pictures of her in competition. Her glutes, I am quite happy to admit, are two of my favourite things in female bodybulding at the moment. I was also, as I always am, extremely excited to see the bounteously muscular physique of Mmmmonique Jones (8th place) in a posing suit. Her routine, full of understated slinky sexy moves was one of the 2013 Ms O highlights for the area in and around my groin.




My heart went out to Tina Chandler, a long-time FMS favourite, who finished 12th (last because Tammy Jones withdrew). I'm beginning to wonder if we are ever going to see the stunning 2011 Tampa Pro Tina again, but having said that, if Slave had been judging the show, Tina would have been in the top six just for being Tina.



But 2013 at the Ms O was, for me, all about Alina. And not just for me. She has that je ne sais quoi, that x-factor, that makes her appeal not just to the fans, but to her peers, and just about anybody else with an interest in the sport. It was unanimous that Alina should have won, said one of the fans who attended. Not the first time that a female bodybuilding result has been questioned, I don't want to make that tired, old point again. But that fan continued, From other ladies who were on that stage to the countless FBBs at the event. From fans to photographers all in favour of Alina. It was overwhelming. And not to mention social media was heavily in favour of her as well. No one, it seems, is immune to Alina's charms.



With the genetics I have bodybuilding is my only option to compete right now, tweeted Tarna Alderman after the Ms Olympia. @ALINAPOPA1 shows it can be feminine! I've been a big fan of Alina since I got into bbing, [she's] literally the only reason I've stayed with bbing, very inspiring.




Alina certainly has more followers than Iris has ever had. For all her achievements, and despite her consistent excellence over more than a decade, Iris has never won the fans' hearts in the way Alina undoubtedly has. More pertinent than that though, is the reaction of Alina's peers to her Olympia performance. They might indicate that it is now Alina, not Iris, who sets the standards other female bodybuilders aspire to.

Alina now leads the challenge to dethrone Iris - in fact she looks like the only contender. She leads the popularity stakes with the fans, and female bodybuilders the world over look to emulate her. And since the Olympia she has taken to her Facebook page to speak to her sisters of iron, calling for a collective effort to reinvigorate the sport. Alina may not be Ms Olympia. Not yet, anyway. But, it seems to me that she can rightly claim to be the leading female bodybuilder in the world now.



Review the 2013 Ms O routines on YouTube (first of three parts) here

Enjoy!