The Return of the Latin Bomb

WARNING!

Those averse to tattoos on their muscle ladies should come back tomorrow

In the early 2000s, "Latin Bomb" Vivianna Requena gained many plaudits from both the female muscle lovin' community and the wider bodybuilding world. What a package! exclaimed Curtis Schultz for Bodybuilding.com back in 2004. Exotic good looks, a striking muscle bod, and Latino charisma written all over her. Vivianna is a bona fide contender for a national level bodybuilding title and a pro card.



She was, at the time, winning titles as a Lightweight Bodybuilder - her Jr. USA class in 2002, the New Jersey Championships in 2003 - but was (and probably is still) best known to female muscle heads for her appearance in (and on the cover of) Muscle Elegance in April 2002. I love being a sex symbol! she said at the time. Transforming myself from a shy nerd to being on the cover of Muscle Elegance makes me feel like a Ms Olympia winner! I am very proud of what I have accomplished so far.



Soon after that Bodybuilding.com article in 2004 though, Vivianna completely disappeared off the radar. She'd just got engaged, but her husband-to-be then (and he's still her husband) was by no means averse to her muscles - they'd met at a show in Rhode Island - nor her penchant for letting us all get a look at her beautiful body in all its naked glory. He is very proud, she told Schultz. He likes to say that the only thing that the guys can do is look at me, but he has the real thing every night.



Well, Vivianna (McAuliffe since her wedding to that lucky - and level-headed - fella) is back. And once again, she is a bona fide contender for a national level title, this time in the Physique division. At the NPC Dennis James Classic in Mesa, Arizona on 26th May she won a two-woman WPD Physique class. It qualified her for a show where pro cards are dished out. Her next stop will be the North Americans at the end of August.



She'll be 50 by the time the North Americans roll around, and she's still chasing that pro dream. Still not shy about showing herself off either. I am a bodybuilder, she says. I want people to see that even with ripped hard muscles a woman can still be sexy and pretty - at the gym, on stage, or even while just at a party. Take a look at me!



Posts on her Instagram in the lead up to her show made their way onto the forums and had many in the female muscle lovin' community doing just that. Of course there was the usual nonsense - What are competition rules regarding tattoos? one hysteric wanted to know. How can a judge tell muscular definition from where they are sitting if a competitor has so many tattoos? The vast majority though were more impressed, and (along with the love from the wider community) Vivianna found herself reconnected with her noughties fan base again. Thank you all for your good luck wishes, messages and texts, she wrote the day before her contest. I’m overwhelmed.



After the show she took a well-earned holiday with her daughter, which pretty much clears up any questions you might have about what she's been doing all these years.



The woman who we once knew as the Latin Bomb is back then. More than a little more muscular than before as far as I can tell, and considerably more inked, but otherwise pretty much where she was before she became "a badass mom", ie. due that pro card. Someone asked 'What now,Viv?' she told her (growing ranks of) Instagram followers after her win. I said, 'Now it's time to train double beast for the North Americans!



Yikes! Can't wait to watch Vivianna going "double beast".

(As well as looking forward to more amusement courtesy of the anti-tat brigade!)



Enjoy!

Grexit? Flexit!

ELENA KAVVA



Greece's IFBB Physique pro "did an Aleesha" and dyed those lovely dark locks some time towards the end of last year. I have to say, I'm not 100% convinced by her new look, but given that Elena is a former martial artist, I wouldn't say so to her face!



And it was through her kung fu that she discovered and ultimately fell for weight training. I always liked to add a few weights in my training for muscular strengthening, and it was something that I started to like more and more until at the age of 17 I realized that I was madly in love with dumbbells, she says.



Regarding the crisis, Elena says*: As long as Olympiakos can remain competitive in the Champions League, I really don't care which currency we're using!



Elena is on Facebook.

Enjoy!

*While the quote about falling in love with dumbbells is real, this one is not.

Unbuttoned/Unzipped of the Day

FMS was delighted to have been invited onto the set of Dena Westerfield's forthcoming vampire movie, and would like to express our gratitude to her for a wonderful day, and for this exclusive preview still. Entitled She Eats by Night, Dena's character traps her male victims simply by exposing just enough of her incredible body to whet their appetite and lure them back to her lair. In this shot, Dena checks herself out in the mirror before she goes out to find some fresh meat.



Could you resist her charms?

Unbuttoned/Unzipped of the Day

Cinderella Landholt



With pictures this hot, I'm pretty sure that I could write just about anything today and you won't read one word. Let's call it the Cindy Effect. You're not listening, are you? And where are your hands now? Above the table, please. Oh I give up. I should know better than to post pics like these and expect anyone to pay any attention to me...

Unbuttoned/Unzipped of the Day

Love Me, Love My Dog

Without some kind of protection, muscle babes are often accosted in public. These guys just kind of come up to me and start poking at my muscles, says one anonymous woman. They're not aggressive, far from it - actually they look kind of hypnotised, they just stare and sometimes drool. But it is a little unnerving. I work hard for this body and I'm not about to cover it up. So I bought a dog. Keeps most of them away.



When the FMS reporter admired her dog's muscular development and asked if she shared her 'special medicine' with the brute, the interview was, unfortunately, terminated. Terminated with extreme prejudice. The reporter is recovering well.

Unbuttoned/Unzipped of the Day

Q: What do muscle babes wear under their hoodies? A: Their muscles.

Penpraghai Tiangngok

One of FMS' Women of the Year in 2011, Penpraghai has taken a break from competing recently. We can now reveal that, among other things, she's set up her own life jacket business, and can be seen here modelling the PT-1000 Life Saver Deluxe.

Enjoy!

Unbuttoned/Unzipped of the Day

Euro-style

Jacqueline 'Jay' Fuchs


Nathalie Falk


Enjoy!

Unbuttoned/Unzipped of the Day

Unbuttoned Denim

Annie Riveccio


When you're this hot, Slave thinks it's almost criminal to cover up. Unfortunately, society as a whole disagrees. Annie manages to show off her incredible pecs and abs while simultaneously abiding by public decency laws.

Emery Miller

I couldn't get into this jacket you bought me after working out my arms, Emery tells us. So I ripped the sleeves off. What do you think? Nice.

Enjoy!

Unbuttoned/Unzipped of the Day

Let’s go back for a moment to the magazine years. The time when every issue of every major muscle mag contained pics of proper female bodybuilders. My female muscle lovin’ eye was always caught by images that are generally referred to these days as ‘Unbuttoned’ or ‘Unzipped’. As I remember, these images tended to be in Robert Kennedy’s Musclemag, always the racier of the major publications (maybe because it was Canadian) but I really can’t say with any certainty if that’s actually true or not.

Anyway, while Crockett and Tubbs were keeping Miami safe from crime, the muscle babes had big hair to go with their big muscles, and images like the ones below offered something a little different and a little more exciting than the usual training or posing pics, and not just because of those big bouffy 80s jackets with enormous collars. While displaying less than normal of the subject’s physique - the arms and shoulders were covered - at the same time the jackets were open, revealing a teasing glimpse of the bikini and the body underneath. As a result, my imagination was stimulated.

Marjo Selin and Cory Everson

This image of Marjo, in particular, seared itself into my brain, and many years later when I came across it again on the internet, it took me straight back to my teenage female muscle lovin' days. Those abs looked as good as they had the first time, but its her sultry beauty and the no-nonsense hand on the hip that elevates this image to iconic levels. One of the great female muscle images, methinks.

I would, of course, imagine what the muscles I couldn’t see would look like, using those I could as a guide to size and definition. I would reckon, for example, that judging by Sue Gafner’s thighs and abs, her shoulders are pretty damned ripped. And I would imagine that Sue had just opened the jacket. And she had opened it just for me because she wanted me to see her magnificent body. And she wasn’t going to stop there. Opening the jacket was just the start. She was going to take it all off.

Sue Gafner

The criminally-underrated Sue Gafner stimulated my youthful imagination.

The only thing that could be better, I reasoned, would be the unbuttoned jacket minus the bikini top. And fortunately, I wasn’t alone in that last fantasy. Several years down the road and the magazine years were over, but the greatest of all female muscle mags, WPW, now had a website, and it was there that I found my fantasy come true, courtesy of the photographer, of course, but more importantly, courtesy of the sizzling Joan Bovino holding her denim jacket open to reveal her ripped tanned muscles beneath.

Joan Bovino

Fantasy made reality!

Thanks to the efforts of the people who scan images from the magazine years for the pics of Marjo, Cory and Sue. I’m afraid the FMS archive is noticeably lacking in any more Unbuttoned/Unzipped pics from that era, but fortunately, there are plenty more recent examples of this particular niche genre of female muscle image.

Welcome to Unbuttoned/Unzipped week!