Jay Cutler stormed to victory on Saturday night in the Ironman Pro Invitational in his first pro victory in Southern California. Held at the magnificent Marsee Auditorium at El Camino Community College Centre in Torrance, an enthusiastic and vocal audience greeted all the competitors, especially Jay. It was good to see Aaron Baker competing again and his arms were simply outstanding. I would say that this is the first time GMV has ever seen Aaron on stage. Same for new pro Troy Alves who greatly impressed me with his fine condition and excellent overall shape. He will give the other pros a good shake this year and was probably a little unlucky to just miss out on 3rd place and an Olympia qualification for this year. But you can be assured he will qualify very soon!

Flex Wheeler looked better than he looked at the Olympia but could not match it with Jay and Marvellous Melvin. Jay was absolutely shredded, especially the thighs with outstanding abs as well. In fact Jay's condition was better that when he lost the 2001 Olympia by 2 points to Ronnie! As soon as he came out on stage and was placed in the centre in the first call out it was game, set and match to Jay. His posing routine was interesting and innovative and I can see him sweeping all 3 big events over the next few weeks. It will be very interesting at the 2003 Olympia this year between Ronnie, Jay and Gunter!

This is to take nothing away from Melvin who came in with a very strong second placing with a physique also shredded, and the best posing routine of the night. It was brilliant and reminded me of his mentor John Brown. It will be good to see Melvin back in the Olympia this year as the top 3 qualify from this show.
The other outstanding posing routine came from Darrem Charles, also in superb condition and placing a very good 5th, just edging out the massive Quincy Taylor. This was the best I have seen Quincy look as he was massive yet symmetrical and showing good, hard condition. It must have been hard for the judges choosing between him and Ahmad Haidar for 6th place as they are such contrasting physiques in every way. But the cards fell in QT's favour this time leaving a very disappointed Ahmad to ponder what he needs to do to move back up near the top again.

Aaron Baker placed a well deserved 8th with Jackson and Dawodu rounding out the top 10. JD was absolutely huge, but it was at the expense of his abs. Bruce Patterson made one of his rare contest appearances but for some reason did not complete round 3. 

Jay Cutler also won the special Most Muscular Man award presented by Robbie Robinson.

We look forward to editing this event as soon as possible, as the overall standard was extremely high. I compliment John Balik and Mike Neveux for running such a wonderful event to kick off the 2003 season.

We will be editing a separate video of the NPC Women's Figure Class event.

*********************************************************

3 awards were presented by John Balik. Wayne received the OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD, Bill Pearl received the PEARY RADER LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD and the ARTIE ZELLER PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD went to Leo Stern.

Wayne has been filming and videotaping all the top guys and contests for 35 years. Bill Pearl is a true legend of the sport and also has 4 Mr Universe titles. Leo Stern is a great photographer from the Golden Era of bodybuilding and did most of the wonderful photos of Bill. (See photos of Wayne below taken by Raymond Cassar of Muscletime.)

On the day before the contest, IRONMAN hosted a luncheon for Bill Pearl and his family and friends. I will post some of my photos from this function in the Gallery shortly and Wayne also shot video of this wonderful get-together.  (You can read Wayne's Acceptance Speech in full in our Articles section).