The new king: unassuming? Humble? Quiet? What happened to King Kamali? We spent a couple of days with him to get to know the man who would be king

Muscle & Fitness, July, 2004 by Joe Wuebben

Forget everything you think you know about King Kamali. Forget the smack talk he dishes out in magazines and on the Internet. Forget about his war-of-words with rival bodybuilders. King is turning over a new leaf, implausible as it may sound. At least, that seemed to be the case when I spent a few days hanging out with him at his home in West New York, New Jersey, a few weeks out from the 2004 Arnold Classic.

"Three years ago I would've been like, 'Man, tonight, tomorrow night, we'll go to the Sound Factory, we're gonna party.' I would've been a completely different person," says the 32-year-old, whose seldom-used nickname "The Persian Pearl" references his birthplace of Tehran, Iran. "But you change, you grow up. Now I've reached the next phase of my life, which is house, marriage, children, future, money, security."

Wait a minute. What fun is that? What happened to the King we used to know? This King happened to be in the midst of tortuous precontest preparation for the upcoming Classic, a competition he said would "play a very important role in my transition to the 'New King Kamali.'"

A transition, an epiphany, anything but his recent fortune would be nice. Since impressive debuts at the 2001 Arnold and Mr. Olympia (fourth and 10th place, respectively) that bestowed upon him the stamp of "potential," King's placings have slipped: 17th at the '02 Mr. O, 11th at the Show of Strength weeks later and, more recently, fourth amongst a relatively weak field at the 2003 Night of Champions. To further punctuate his recent misfortunes, in the February 2004 issue of MUSCLE & FITNESS, King was dubiously hailed by readers as the Most Overrated Athlete of the year.

So why is King overrated all of a sudden? Is it his act, as longtime top pro Shawn Ray refers to it, of calling out his peers, more or less spouting, "My physique's better than yours!" to spark controversy and shake things up a bit onstage? "I haven't said a word this year," King says. "Not a single word. And people still say the same crap."

KING, THE SMACK-TALKER

IT'S A FRIDAY IN MID-JANUARY, and King is seven weeks out from the Arnold. Over lunch at Shiraz, a Persian restaurant he visits practically every day precontest, it's clear that this new King still likes to talk. "If everything goes according to plan at the Arnold, I think I can be in the top three," he says when not shoveling brisket and rice into his mouth, one of eight meals he'll eat that day. Pretty optimistic, considering his competition includes Jay Cutler, Chris Cormier, Dexter Jackson, Markus Ruhl and Gunter Schlierkamp, none of whom he's beaten in more than two years. Upsets aren't exactly commonplace in professional bodybuilding, either.

We drive back to King's place in his Chevy Yukon, which he'll replace with a new Hummer soon, but not until after the Arnold because "you never know, I may be winning one," he says. (The winner of the Arnold Classic receives a complimentary H2 in addition to the $100,000 prize money.)

At his upscale New Jersey apartment, just opposite the Hudson River from midtown Manhattan, King scoffs at the overrated label. "Overrated means you're doing really well and you don't deserve it. Well, let's see--I came back from a horrible 2002 to the NOC, where I got a standing ovation and a 45-second bulls--t chant from the crowd saying that I got robbed, which is the exact opposite of being overrated."

Good point. But then again, maybe King talked too much smack early in his career in trying to get publicity. Maybe he overhyped himself, and it's coming back to haunt him. As Shawn puts it, "When someone is called overrated, it's usually because the athlete has put his foot in his mouth. In King's case, he's talked the talk but hasn't walked the walk. He'd be better served to put up or shut up."

"It's like this," King responds when I ask how his rep as a smack-talker came about. "If someone comes up to you and says, 'You're a f--ing terrible writer,' you can either say, 'Fine, that's your opinion,' or you can say, 'Go f--yourself.' Well, me and Chick [friend and fellow IFBB pro Bob Cicherillo] took that route. That gave us that bad-boy image, especially me."

So is King overrated? Frankly, he doesn't care. "People will see from stories like this that I don't give a s--t. I've got a nice life, a beautiful wife. I'm doing what I want to do. Being voted most overrated by a bunch of gutless Internet nerds means nothing in the scope of things. It's just more fuel to add to my fire."

KING, THE DOTING HUSBAND

NOW AFFIXED TO HIS LIVING ROOM COUCH--which he often is, as his low-carb precontest diet leaves him barely enough energy to lift six days a week and walk on a treadmill for two one-hour sessions a day--King tells the story of when he met his wife Barbara Ward at a nightclub in downtown Manhattan in 2002. How he smiled at her and she smiled at him, and before any words were spoken, "I just started kissing her," he says with an embarrassed smile. They spent the rest of the night together, even exchanged I love you's. Love at first sight, he claims, and just over a year later they were married.