“He was acting so arrogant and cocky like he was the winner, but he wasn’t in shape,” said Frank Zane in the three-part Netflix docuseries titled Arnold, recalling the time back in 1968 when he showed Arnold Schwarzenegger why being bigger does not always amount to winning a bodybuilding competition.

One of only three men to ever defeat ‘The Austrian Oak,' Zane changed the script at the Mr. Universe competition in 1968. He emerged as a serious challenger to Arnold, who was already far ahead of his time in terms of sheer size.

Zane had a smaller frame, weighing around 185 lbs, compared to Arnold’s massive 235+ lbs. But when the judges announced the scores, it shocked everyone, especially Arnold.

“The winner, a smaller guy named Frank Zane, was much more cut than I was,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “I was far too smooth. I’d missed a big thing.” He wrote this in his book 'Be Useful'. Arnold even revealed that the owner of Gold’s Gym, Joe Gold, even called him balloon belly.

Well, the defeat was necessary for him, as after that, the fitness icon trained with more established bodybuilders in Los Angeles who encouraged him to lose a significant amount of body fat.

Schwarzenegger went on to win Mr. Olympia six years in a row from 1970 to 1975, becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the sport. But why was he defeated? Well, let’s hear it from Arnold himself.

Arnold Schwarzenegger says Six-Pack Abs Defeated Him

“I have a normal six-pack, which looks good, but Frank looked like each one of the muscles in his midsection was traced out of an anatomy textbook and chiseled from granite,” Schwarzenegger shared in his book.

Frank Zane showed Arnold that, despite weighing under 200 pounds, he packed enough muscle to take on the biggest competitors.

Apart from the abs, what caught Arnold off guard was his calf development, “Calves are basically the biceps of the legs. I had 24-inch biceps. I did not have 24-inch calves.”

The loss ensured that Arnold made changes to his regimen, and the result was a history that was unparalleled at the time.

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Written by

Suryakant Das

Edited by

Oajaswini Prabhu