by Christian Duque
Coaches and clients often break up in the sport of bodybuilding. It’s part of the nature of the discipline. A lot of times the relationship ends because the placings just aren’t there or maybe there aren’t enough developments in the physique. If it can be kept to just being business, that’s great, however many times what happens is something in the process goes wrong and creates a situation where one person breaks with the other person and the friendship is just never the same. And this is what happened between Samson and Milos.
Samson made a huge rise in the sport in a very short amount of time and even though he worked very hard in the gym and did everything he needed to do in terms of his nutrition, supplementation, and posing. It would be a complete understatement to suggest that he was able to do it without Milos’s guidance and readiness to assist. Milos is one of the best-known coaches in the sport and is also a highly respected competitor in his own right. When you look back at what Milos accomplished in the 1990s and early 2000s you understand why it is that he has become such a phenomenal coach. He was there. He was battling for the top titles and competing all around the world and he understands the various stresses that the athlete must go through. These stresses are not limited to just the physical, but also includes the mental beating that so many competitors take when they put 100% into a prep and come off with a less than stellar placing.
What I think makes the situation between Milos and Samson even more complicated is the fact that Milos considered Samson and his wife to be like family. This often happens when you’re dealing with a competitor like Samson that is at the elite level of the sport – or perhaps the top three in the Mr Olympia. It doesn’t really matter at what level of competition it is, rather, it matters how seriously the team takes it. And in the case of Samson that was most definitely the case. Everybody around him, from his coach, to his significant other to his sponsors, they all looked at his preparations to be the most important of all. And I can tell you that Milos took this work very seriously and let me explain why.
In addition to being a contest prep coach, Milos is also very much part of the media side of the sport. Whether he is appearing on podcasts as a guest or a co-host. He also can be seen on many of the big shows assisting with contest coverage. This is because he is a living legend and does not rely solely on preparing athletes for the stage. And I can tell you that he truly loved Samson because anytime that he would speak about him whether covering a contest or talking about the sport in general he would always sing his praises and talk about just how much potential he has. He would always say that he was a future Mr. Olympia and that he was somebody that everybody in the sport should be looking at. You got a real sense for how strongly a coach believes in his client if he goes to battle for him in an immediate type situation. And that’s exactly what Milos would do for Samson on a number of occasions. Even on occasions when there was a close call like for example at last year’s Mr Olympia or this year’s Arnold Classic he did not waste even a second’s time before he was up there battling in defense of his client and talking about why he should have won the title.
But what about placings? What if a Coach and a client work together over a period of time and the results just aren’t there? That would definitely be grounds for making a break in the partnership. After all, the bodybuilder has to think about his career above anything else. This is a sport that’s very very difficult to climb the ranks in as it’s entirely subjective and really depends on placings. If you are a competitor and you want to get the most money for sponsorships you must have good placings. You must win big titles and you must place consistently in the top six, preferably in the top three. The closer you are to the W, the stronger the case can be made that you should have won. The farther away you are from the W, the more delusional you appear. With regards to Milos, Samson should not have had a single complaint. Milos was getting Sampson to the top three in the Olympia and within one spot of winning his second Arnold classic.
At some point the competitor has to stop blaming the coach and take some accountability and put some of that blame on themselves. And again we’re not talking about a disastrous place. We’re simply talking about not winning a show. And not winning a show really doesn’t have so much to do with the coach or the client as much as it does have to do with the very subjective nature of the judging and scoring.
Nonetheless Samson saw it fit to leave Milos and even though it was not a horrible break it was not a very positive one either. The bottom line is that Milos looked at Samson and his family as his family. They were so closely bonded together that I believe they may have even lived together for a period of time and then all of a sudden the coaching relationship comes to an abrupt end because Samson simply was not happy with Milos. I have to tell you that to me that sounds like a bunch of bullshit and the bottom line is that relationships that were as close as those cannot just magically be made better all over again. It just doesn’t work that way. The reality of the matter is that a lot of people are going to look at what happened and have their own way of processing it.
I will say that I applaud Samson for taking the initiative to thank Milos and to try to iron out their differences. That being said so much damage was done based on the fact that Samson’s wife was apparently peaking to him for a couple of shows where everyone believed Milos was Samson’s coach. That’s a bad look for Milos. It’s also confusing as hell because fans don’t know who is actually behind the athlete. Moreover when Samson fired Milos publicly without giving an exact reason and does so on the same week that he goes public to say that he has to go to the hospital because he felt like his body was shutting down just a week or two before the Arnold Classic UK, that also put Milos in a very bad light.
When Samson does interviews and suggests that Milos may have directed him to take supplements, maybe diuretics maybe something else, that may have been the cause of why Samson felt so bad, that also does not put Milos in a very good light. So even though I give Samson props for trying to make nice a week or two after the very nasty break, it’s not like it’s going to undo the damage.
At the end of the day I think these guys will be on speaking terms and may already be on them. I think it’s important that some kind of an effort was made to salvage whatever may be left of their friendship, but there’s a way to do things and there’s a way not to.
Personally, I think Samson did not do things the correct way. You would think that he would owe more to Milos than to have a public break that left everyone scratching their head and wondering what the hell was going on. I think Milos based on everything he did for Samson deserved a heck of a lot more than that but what’s done is done. I also think that Samson will live to regret his decision and may even try to go back to Milos at some point. it’s one thing to get peaked for a couple of rinky dink shows as opposed to getting prepped for the biggest and second biggest shows in bodybuilding.
Milos has a track record of helping Samson come in with the very best physique and when it counts. Only time will tell what the future holds but I personally think that Samson was in the wrong and should have worked with Milos a little bit longer. They certainly should have tried to iron out their differences and continued on their course but now it’s almost as if Samson is going back to square one. Again we’re not talking about little bullshit shows – we’re talking about him potentially winning the biggest and second biggest shows in the sport of bodybuilding
What say you?
