by Christian Duque
William Bonac should have won the 2025 NY Pro. Martin Fitzwater should have won the 2024 NY Pro. Both athletes lost to Nick Walker. In both cases, the media all but ignored both runner-ups. Going into the 2024 NY Pro, Martin had only won the Detroit Pro and had never competed at the Olympia. In 2025, Bonac was ignored (as usual) despite being a Mr O runner-up, 2x ASC champion, and having had impressive competitive records in 2024 and 2025. Although many people challenged the 2024 decision, who’s to say the same will happen today with the 2025 NY Pro? In any event, I don’t write articles based solely on what everyone else is saying, though I don’t ignore it, either. This is my point of view, peppered with some public opinion – here and there.
So for starters, I’m not heartless to the fact that Nick had a very heartbreaking defeat to Derek last week in Pittsburgh. I know how hard it is for competitors to work towards a goal. Maybe I don’t know what it takes with regards to a diet, supplement regimen, and hardcore training in the gym, but I know what it’s like to invest time and effort into reaching a goal. Whether it’s getting an LSAT score or passing the bar exam. Everyone has goals that they set up for themselves and when they fall short of reaching them, clearly it is not anything desired or easily processed. And I understand that for Nick, unlike for me taking the bar exam, he has thousands – if not tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of fans all around the world. They are looking to him to accomplish greatness. This is an individual who at one point in time was in discussions to be the best bodybuilder in the world. He won the second biggest title and he was knocking on the biggest title’s door. Then he got injured. Then he missed two Olympias back to back. He broke the dormancy by winning in 2024 in a very controversial manner against Martin Fitzwater at the 2024 NY Pro. Then he finally competes in 2025 against Derek and falls short.
New York wasn’t a robbery. Pittsburgh wasn’t a robbery, either, but a lot of people want to sell it as one because of the fact they had such high hopes for Nick Walker. I get that. I understand what being a viral sensation is. And a lot of people want to see this guy get the win. I don’t know if it’s because they like him as an individual, or more so, because they like an underdog story. Here’s a guy who had to face adversity due to injuries, doesn’t have the prettiest physique (some might even say has the aesthetics of a refrigerator), but who is battling to be the best bodybuilder in the world. And of course all the contest promotions put him against weak talent. God forbid they’d give The Conqueror the love (and fanfare) he deserves. Instead, they made it seem like Nick’s chief competition in NY would be Sas Heirati and Regan Grimes.
Now of course, William Bonac was also doing this contest. And of course William Bonac looked very impressive last week in Pittsburgh (and earlier in Columbus). So one might think that because he looked so good in Pittsburgh, because he took 5th place at the Arnold Classic, and because he took seventh place at last year’s Mr O, that that would mean he would be Nick’s chief competition, right? RX Muscle included William as the smallest competitor on a promo poster that featured Sas and Regan flanking Nick. Other websites didn’t even bother including William, at all. It’s as if he didn’t exist. He was overlooked and ignored just the same way he was when I wrote my article 5 years ago for IronMag (click here: ). And for that article, it had just been months since he took runner-up at the 2019 Olympia and days after he won the Arnold Classic. Nonetheless, William was ignored and overlooked then, and he’s ignored and overlooked, today.
And wouldn’t you know it? William would go on to place a commanding second to Nick Walker. He took Nick Walker down to the wire in New York – just as I knew he would. And what about the big websites? Do you think they regret not having shown Bonac any love? Probably not. It’s because they don’t see William as a money-maker. The same way they didn’t see Martin as a money-maker. But surely the judges don’t care about such trivial matters as which competitor will the sport more money..
After all, there are no politics in bodybuilding.
Judges only score based on what they see. They score based strictly on tried and true bodybuilding criteria of muscle, symmetry, vascularity and posing. There’s no way that they would give a competitor that resembles the Michelin Man a win over an individual that exemplifies the proportions of a classic era bodybuilder. Of course, I’m talking about Nick Walker versus William Bonac, respectively.
The judges don’t want to make any bold statements about where bodybuilding should go with their scorecards. They’re totally fine giving this mass monster with a distended midsection, and more mass than he knows what to do with, the win. Because after all, that’s going to sell more tickets to the Olympia, right? And they need to sell more tickets to that show, especially after Arnold raised the prize money for the 2026 Arnold Classic to $750,000. I bet Jake Wood was delighted to see Arnold’s announcement.
But you know what really bothers me? It’s anytime people argue that a guy that looks like Nick Walker deserves a win over a guy that looks like William Bonac. What the hell happened to bodybuilding? I mean some argue that it lost its way with Dorian, others argue that Ronnie pushed the envelope too far. But this is just a complete travesty. I mean Nick Walker does not have a pretty physique, his proportions are all out of whack, and let’s face it, he’s got a midsection and waist that’s only going to get worse. The fact that they would give this guy the win, given how great William Bonac looked, speaks volumes about where bodybuilding is today as a sport and where it’s going in the future.
I would love to end this article congratulating Nick, but Nick is destroying everything I love about bodybuilding with his cartoon character shape. And believe you me, I’m not trying to body shame anyone, but my goodness what the hell happened to bodybuilding? I mean I think that’s the recurring theme of this article. Maybe that’s what I should title it. Only nobody’s going to click on it because theyr’e not going to know it’s about Nick Walker winning the 2025 NY Pro. So let me go ahead and put Nick Walker in the title and play this stupid little game that everybody in the bodybuilding media plays. That said, no I do not believe Nick Walker beat William Bonac. That’s what the score cards may say, but that’s not what my heart and soul says. Sadly, my heart and soul doesn’t give out prize money or qualifications to the Mr. Olympia.
What say you? Do you think NIck Walker deserved the win over William Bonac at the 2025 NY Pro? Is this the direction you’d like to see bodybuilding go? As always, thank you for reading my article, here, at IronMag. As always, I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments. Be sure to copy and paste a link to this article on all your social media feeds. It will definitely generate some lively conversation.
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