Blessing Awodibu: The Boogieman Joins MuscleTech | Episode #076

On Monday, November 14th, MuscleTech held their first ever virtual press conference with a major announcement: Blessing Awodibu, otherwise known as The Boogieman, has joined Team MuscleTech!

PricePlow joined media companies from both sides of the announcement, which included sports nutrition supplement press as well as bodybuilding news experts. This was announced just a month from the 2022 Mr. Olympia showdown.

The Boogieman Blessing Awodibu has joined team MuscleTech!

MuscleTech is back in bodybuilding with The Boogieman

MuscleTech has recently taken the supplement world by storm, releasing their iQ Series of supplements that include enfinity brand paraxanthine – a caffeine replacement – headlined by their EuphoriQ pre-workout supplement.

Blessing is well-known for his high-energy antics, incredible work ethic, and jovial sense of humor, which can get under the skin of his competitors, to say the least.

In this podcast episode, we’re merging two interviews with Blessing:

1. The MuscleTech press conference, where Blessing tells a must-listen story about his previous sponsorships.
2. A PricePlow Podcast episode that was live in our Discord chat.

Both are great, and show you an entertaining but competitive man who will have the freedom to do some really fun things at MuscleTech.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:23:37 — 76.0MB)

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Note that the podcast audio file includes MuscleTech’s press conference, which is then followed by our Podcast episode. Parts of the press conference — especially at the 14 minute mark — were too good to not include!

Notes from the MuscleTech Press Conference

MuscleTech’s Scott Welch came up with a great idea for this announcement: the first virtual press conference in MuscleTech history, with media coverage from both sides of the space.

This included PricePlow and Fitness Informant from the supplement news side, but RX Muscle and Muscular Development from the bodybuilding news side. It led to some good questions from both sides:

• 0:50 – Introduction from Scott Welch of Iovate / MuscleTech

  Scott Welch has re-joined MuscleTech, and gives us his introductions. We also get to give our guesses before Blessing is admitted from the waiting room on the call.

• 4:35 – Blessing Awodibu joins the call

  Blessing graces the room, telling Dave Palumbo that he looks younger every time he sees him — a noble truth. Scott explains that everyone’s a fan, covering his career (previously he was at Redcon1).

• 6:35 – The brands that competed for Blessing’s endorsement

  Blessing tells us that Ryse and BSN had a contract ready to go, as did Dragon Pharma and Rule1. His final choices also included GAT, BSN, and Raw Nutrition.

  

  Blessing Awodibu’s final Sponsorship Choices in 2022

  This is interesting, because Blessing is a very open book about this prospects. Some athletes don’t talk about this stuff at all, but that’s obviously not the case here.

  “It feels nice to be wanted!…

  …as a professional bodybuilder, having a sponsor, having a team behind you, it means a lot to us. In bodybuilding, they say it’s a one man sport – no – it’s not a one man sport. Bodybuilding is a mental sport. If you don’t have the right people behind you, the right team, literally, you ain’t goin nowhere. So it feels great to be part of MuscleTech.”

• 7:55 – The Legacy of MuscleTech in Bodybuilding

  Blessing goes through the greats that have been with MuscleTech: Phil Heath, Dexter Jackson, Jay Cutler, King Kamali, Branch Warren — all these guys who were sponsored by MuscleTech.

  He flashes back to how crazy the booth was when so many were sponsored at once. And now he’s super excited to be a part of it. He’s excited that MuscleTech is back into the bodybuilding world as well.

• 9:20 – Blessing’s changes over the past year

  Blessing absolutely crushed it at the New York Pro. Ron Harris at MD talks about how Blessing’s doing better keeping his muscle mass, as opposed to what he lost with too much cardio when with his previous coach.

  

  Posted less than two weeks out on December 6, 2022

  Dave agrees – Blessing found the formula that works for his body. Dave brings an anecdote about Dorian Yates dieting less and coming in more muscular in 1992 through 1995 — this seems to be what Blessing has done this past year.

• 11:40 – How important is endorsement these days?

  Scott asks Team PricePlow how important it is to have a team like this, with Chris Bumstead at Raw Nutrition as an obviously successful example. Ben answers, looking for something more than just an exchange of money. To answer Scott’s question, collaboration and relationship is more important lately.

  Ben then flips it back to Blessing with a question about what he was looking for in a sponsor, and what we can expect.

• 13:35 – What was Blessing looking for in a sponsor?

  Blessing answers Ben’s question, stating that what was important was a relationship to be free. This makes sense – Blessing has fun, and clearly a sponsor who is too uptight or wants to stifle his creativity is not going to work.

  But Blessing is also looking for family and a long-term relationship. He doesn’t want to be bouncing from company to company.

  Prior to MuscleTech, Blessing’s only been with two brands: Trec Nutrition and Redcon1.

  This then leads us to the story about the Trec relationship gone awry:

• 14:20 – What happened with The Boogieman Pre-Workout and Trec Nutrition?

  Warning: The following section is from Blessing’s point of view, and is not guaranteed to be the entire story. Trec Nutrition is welcome to explain their side of this story in the comments through the PricePlow Forum and YouTube video’s comments.

  Blessing explains that he started with a Polish brand. He was taught that they were family. He was with them for five years, since the start of his career. But in 2017, when he started to capitalize on social media, his kid came up with the name of Boogieman. He wanted to build a brand along with the brand.

  So 2017, everything took off — social media took off, Boogieman took off, and Trec Nutrition came out with a Boogieman pre-workout that is still selling today!

  But Blessing made the mistake of not trademarking his nickname, and supporting the supplement’s creation before a contract was signed – he was under the impression that they were family.

  The supplement was launched at FIBO 2017, and Blessing toured all around Europe without getting paid.

  By the time the contract came back to him, the brand had trademarked the Boogieman name to themselves. Blessing tried to get his name back, and he refused to sign the contract if he couldn’t have the trademark. He claims that the brand wouldn’t leave, as they were his main source of income.

  Instead, he decided to walk away (and apparently didn’t sign the contract). He decided to find a better relationship. Which brings us to Redcon1.

• 16:25 – Blessing’s time at Redcon1

  After the previous debacle, Blessing flew to the US and met with Aaron Singerman at Redcon1, who decided a week later that he wanted to work with him. They began working together at the beginning of 2018.

  Blessing makes it very clear that he doesn’t care what people’s opinions of Aaron Singerman are – he will always have respect for the man, and he’ll never forget what he did for him.

  Singerman had told him that he never wanted him to leave Redcon1. Blessing agreed – it was his dream. He wanted to create a legacy together, and that was the plan.

  Of course, “stuff that happened” and Aaron had to go away, and things eventually changed. Blessing had incredible freedom to be himself.

• 17:45 – Blessing wants to change bodybuilding for the better

  To tell his story about Redcon1, Blessing first gives a bit of background about his goals and his style:

  I came into the sport of bodybuilding, and I always say I want to change bodybuilding. I want to heighten attendance of bodybuilding.

  Because I came up in a form of a “gimmicky way”, which a lot of people don’t respect me for that. Because they believe that in order to be a professional athlete / professional bodybuilder, you have to be serious 24/7. All you do is eat your meals, go train, don’t do nothing else.

  But with me, where you see me running through doors, doing all this crazy stuff, so a lot of people don’t respect it. They don’t think it’s possible to be that [alluding to bodybuilding] and be that [alluding to his fun antics on social media].

  This gets him back to the original thought:

• 18:15 – The end of the Redcon1 story once Aaron Singerman was gone

  But getting back to the Redcon1 question – they allowed fun content, and were very engaging, and love creating. That’s why it worked so well together.

  Unfortunately, that faded away once Aaron was gone. Blessing started to rethink and re-evaluate what was going on. This led to less inspiration — it didn’t feel like the team backing him still had that love for bodybuilding anymore.

  So that’s how that relationship started to deteriorate. At that point, Blessing decided it was time to find a new team, finding one to inspire him to be himself again.

• 19:30 – Meeting with other companies

  Blessing mentions that he instantly had a connection with Eric Hesse and Scott Welch at MuscleTech. They saw and loved what he was doing outside of bodybuilding. They were ready to allow him to be himself and do what he does. Exactly what he had with Redcon1 during the golden years.

  Together, they can create awesome stuff.

  Later in the conference, Eric Hesse of MuscleTech states that this contract is “more than two years”.

• 20:35 – New things coming with MuscleTech and Blessing

  Scott mentions that this isn’t just a sponsorship. There are going to be new flavors and some products with Blessing. At the Olympia, you’ll see the new MuscleTech with their core products, but there’s definitely more coming.

  

  MuscleTech EuphoriQ is the smarter pre-workout supplement – an enfinity-powered nootropic pre-workout supplement that harnesses paraxanthine instead of caffeine!

  Scott personally believes that the MuscleTech brand needs more humor. They have a great lab at the University of Toronto, but nobody gets to see the people behind the brands. And in this era, that matters.

  Scott throws some love to brands like RYSE, Glaxon, and Arms Race Nutrition for having more personality, and he knows that MuscleTech can show a lot of this too — especially with media companies like PricePlow covering it, and Blessing bringing the fun.

  MuscleTech isn’t going away, and wants to use Blessing globally. Scott mentions that they manufacture products for Korea in Korea — something nobody knows.

• 22:50 – A personality who happens to be a bodybuilder

  Ryan explains that he thinks it’s better to get a personality who’s a bodybuilder, as opposed to a bodybuilder with less personality. This is a better selection than someone like Big Ramy.

• 23:35 – Can we expect to see “Blessing 110%” viral videos with MuscleTech?

  Blessing says yes – and he reiterates the global connection Scott mentioned. Remember, Blessing is from Africa, but came up through Ireland, and is now in the United States. He can connect with all kinds of people.

  He’s been all over the world – so he knows what it’s like to be out there physically, and not just on social media. It’s priceless to him.

  This is a successful strategy still, even in the era of social media.

  Scott says that Blessing can compete wherever he wants.

• 26:20 – Any product pipelines?

  Initially, this is going to be a flavor series with Blessing, and then there will be more coming in the pipeline.

  EuphoriQ with the paraxanthine in the iQ Series is just the beginning. MuscleTech does major production runs with their manufacturers, so when they do new products with Blessing involvement, it’s a far more major undertaking.

• 28:20 – Has Blessing tried MuscleTech’s EuphoriQ pre-workout?

  Blessing has tried EuphoriQ — and when he mentioned that he was drinking a Watermelon Candy, some of his followers figured out it was MuscleTech.

  

  MuscleTech has revealed their new iQ Series of supplements, and it will include a new stimulant — paraxanthine — named enfinity. Learn how this lineup will forever revolutionize the entire energy industry

  Blessing isn’t a caffeine guy – he only takes it on the day he really really needs it. But knowing that caffeine has been replaced by enfinity paraxanthine (which sounds like it’s from the future) — he calls this the Tesla of pre-workouts!

  He tells a funny anecdote about how a fan figured out he was signing with MuscleTech and not RYSE, because Blessing had unfollowed them and the only company in his list that currently had a “Watermelon Candy” named flavor was MuscleTech, with EuphoriQ.

• 30:35 – Mr. Olympia Predictions

  Dave and Ron make their predictions. It’s impossible to make good predictions, they’re just guesses based on what’s best. Dave states top-ten for sure.

• 32:50 – MuscleTech History and athletes

  Scott goes into some of the history and various athletes that were with MuscleTech. They missed Ronnie, but had so many other greats. At one point, they were managing 150 athletes!

  Scott then talks about Hydroxycut, Iovate buying their competition in Xenadrine, and more. They want to tell more of this story, and want to get back to the shows, be back to being the fabric of the industry.

• 35:20 – Blessing’s Immigration status

  Ron asks if there are concerns about immigration, given that Blessing is no longer with Redcon1. Ron doesn’t want Blessing leaving the US for Canada (where Iovate is located)!

  Blessing has the best immigration lawyer in Miami and states they are doing OK, with two thumbs up.

  The video cuts off at this point, but thank you’s were said at this point, congratulations, and we sign off.

Overall a GREAT video, the 13:00 – 19:00 talk from Blessing is pure gold and should be listened to by everyone who aspires to get into this industry.

Notes from The PricePlow Podcast Episode

At 36:15 in the audio feeds, we then get into a separate podcast filmed live in our Discord about two weeks later. Its notes are below:

• 36:15 – Introductions, Big Boogie Energy

  Blessing’s not lookin too bad lately. He touts his BBE – “Big Boogie Energy” that runs 24/7/365.

• 37:00 – Blessing’s Backstory

  Blessing was born in Nigeria, Africa, and he tells how his mother “smuggled” him and his brother into Dublin, Ireland at the age of 9. They linked up with his older brother who took him in and got him educated.

  He began weight lifting at age 14, but didn’t start bodybuilding until age 20.

  He explains that he grew up outside of Dublin, in a farm town. He was the only serious bodybuilder around. But prior to that, they were the only black family there, and he had to go through a lot, and was picked on a good bit – he was very skinny before lifting.

• 39:00 – Find a way to get out of being the victim

  It was rough at first — and being skinny does not help.

  I had to find a way to get out of being the victim – to defend myself. So that’s what got me into weight lifting. I just fell in love with it. It’s like therapy.

• 39:45 – Getting into the gym with his older brother

  Blessing’s older brother is at least twenty years older than him. Blessing was all skin and bones, being bullied… so he asked his brother for help. His brother was “kind of jacked”.

  At first, there was medication to get him to eat more, but he didn’t gain weight despite that.

  “Nothing worked until I started lifting weights.”

  He started working out with his older brother, started getting stronger, started getting some lean muscle mass, then started getting into it.

• 40:45 – Wrestlemania!

  Blessing got into watching wrestling, and those guys are “jacked up” — those were the roots he began following.

  He knew nothing about dieting, he was just crackin’ weights.

• 41:30 – Heartbreak getting into college

  At first, he wasn’t into competing, he just liked lifting. Bodybuilding wasn’t on his radar, since he was getting ready for college. He was given an opportunity to study science at college, but he couldn’t get any assistance given his immigration status. That broke his heart, and destroyed everything for him.

• 43:00 – First time competing – 2012 – Lean and shredded, why not compete?

  Blessing never dieted, but stayed shredded. Since he couldn’t get into college, he was training extra hard, personal training folks all day, so his buddy told him to compete. He resisted, but eventually dove in and did his first show.

  He didn’t win, but got a lot of great feedback. He didn’t go into the junior rookie level, just jumped right into the big leagues.

• 44:20 – Meeting Toney Freeman

  Blessing finally met Toney Freeman, who really made an impression on him. “This guy was built like Superman” — but Toney also told Blessing that he had a great physique and should give it another shot.

  Update: We asked Blessing if he had any pictures from this, and he sent the two below:

  
  

  So Blessing did give it another shot, and just started winning from there.

• 45:00 – Content Creation – Going Viral, Making himself relatable

  After some wins through 2014, Blessing stated that this was going to be his full-time job. All along, he stayed upbeat and loved making people laugh.

  “Making people laugh… for me… that’s priceless. You never know what someone might be going through. If you can make someone laugh… money can’t buy that.”

  So he’s always been like that in the gym, and he was filming with his videographer. They decided to do a crazy video where he was hanging out at the gym, then takes some pre-workout and turns into The Boogieman, jacked and ripped.

  They did the video, posted it online, it went viral, and the rest is history. He made some great videos (an example like this one currently with 38 million views), made himself relatable, made himself available, and avoided being “that bodybuilder” who was too serious.

• 48:00 – Moving to the city to be “even weirder”… then quitting his job

  At this point, he was working full-time in Dublin. Blessing recalls that in 2014 he had moved to the city so he could be “even weirder” doing his thing.

  At some point, he was training twice a day, building content, and working. A couple weeks out from his first pro-qualifying show. He flew to Portugal, got his pro card, did some videos… and decided to quit his job and to dedicate all of his time to content creating and bodybuilding.

  He moved in with his girlfriend, since he no longer had income, and decided to give a few months.

  The he dropped a camera video when he was flexing for the CCTV, and that one went mega-viral:

  

  Ultimately, the main goal is to make himself relatable and to make fitness and bodybuilding more entertaining.

• 50:00 – Haters hating on Blessing’s fun?

  “There’s definitely a lot of hate coming from that because I make it look too easy.

  In order to be a successful bodybuilder, everyone thinks you need to be just focused. Dedicated. All you do is eat your meals. You don’t laugh at nobody. You don’t talk to nobody. You call your families off. You don’t go out with your friends. You don’t have a girlfriend. You just stay focused like a zombie.

  Which is NUTS – it’s not right. If in any sport.”

  He then references Logan Paul as well – doing the things they’re doing, yet still winning. He’s branding himself as a fun, gimmicky clown type individual, but now, he’s a professional bodybuilder.

  It’s really hard to transition from being the funny guy to the serious guy. People don’t believe he can be a legit bodybuilder because of the other stuff he’s doing. They didn’t ever believe he’d make it to the Olympia – they don’t think he respects the sport. That’s OK with him at this point, he’s doing the things that others think is impossible.

  But that’s why they hate. They always show his worst videos, but not times like when he won, such as IndyPro or New York, when he “destroyed the show”. They don’t talk about that, they will only talk about when he looks bad.

  He just laughs off the comments now.

  Now his job is to prove at The Olympia that he can be this but also be that.

• 54:00 – Enjoying life?

  Can Blessing still go out with friends? You have to understand what your body can tolerate and what it can’t.

  He has a wife who likes to go out – he makes sure they can go to the movies, to the cinema, even to the strip club! So they have fun, but he doesn’t ever drink or do what he knows compromises his body.

• 57:00 – It’s all timing – The NPC Video Controversy

  Blessing was recently on an NPC video where he was posing, but didn’t look his best at 4 weeks out from the show. Many videos were posted stating that he didn’t look good for being this close to the biggest show of his life.

  Blessing doesn’t even defend himself – he runs with it. He owned the fact that he was 4 weeks out, and he knows what it takes to be the best on the big day. “Let’s see who will pull it together on that day.”

  It seems that he’s not willing to risk sacrificing some fullness, so he’s going to come in strong the last two weeks and pull it together for the Olympia.

  Now that he’s with MuscleTech – the biggest company in the industry – Blessing claims that the haters hope he doesn’t pull it together so that they can laugh. He’s going to show them.

• 59:30 – Smoking both Nick Walker and Hunter Labrada

  BisAndTris posted an image of Nick Walker and Hunter Labrada on Instagram, and Blessing commented, “I smoke both of these guys in Vegas I bet my @muscletech contract on it ?”

  

  Blessing no doubt loves to stir it up

  We ask Blessing to comment, and he merely jokes that he talks that shit. These people know his energy and it’s intimidating. They know that if a guy like him wins, he’s going to rub it all over the place, and everyone’s going to have a bad day. He’s built for this, and is going to make things uncomfortable backstage.

• 1:01:00 – Improvements since the New York Pro

  Blessing’s worked his legs the most.

• 1:01:30 – Training Principles

  Blessing is a high-volume, high-rep, consistent guy. He finds what works and sticks with it. He has to work with a bit of a leg imbalance.

  He’s recently found the benefits of Romanian split squats. He figured it out 4 weeks before the Indy Pro, and that changed his condition forever, and has doubled down on them.

  Blessing needs to beat what he did in Indy and New York. He got diced for New York. Conditioning is everything.

  At the Olympia, you’ll see a different package – bigger, rounder, but more conditioned.

• 1:04:00 – “I will win the Olympia”

  Blessing states that he will win the Olympia, but doesn’t make a statement that it’ll be this year. He mentions how the top guys have bubbly muscle but not great quality. He’s going for insane quality, and believes he can be in the Top 3 this year. After that, he’s going to see how far or how close he can be.

• 1:06:00 – How joining MuscleTech has changed Blessing’s prep

  Blessing references the original company and the pre-workout situation (referenced above), then he was the longest standing athlete on the Redcon1 athlete.

  Getting into MuscleTech has given him hunger. “It doesn’t get any better than this. It doesn’t get any bigger.”

• 1:08:45 – Training with Kai Greene

  Blessing explains what it’s like to train with Kai, and what he’s learned from him.

  Kai was very serious about training, and now he jokes more. It’s a bit reverse, Blessing started with the joke – it’s the social media era! He quickly mentions the ongoing Liver King controversy.

• 1:12:45 – The MuscleTech Booth at the Olympia

  Blessing will be at the booth for sure, with a new Mentality shirt. They’ve got some cool stuff coming. MuscleTech’s coming in big, and they’re back.

• 1:13:30 – Blessing using the MuscleTech EuphoriQ pre-workout

  Blessing doesn’t like caffeine, you won’t see him drinking coffee. But by the end of the week, he’ll need some caffeine. He doesn’t want to become tolerant to the effects of caffeine.

  

  But now with paraxanthine in EuphoriQ — all the things that he doesn’t like about caffeine, EuphoriQ is simply cleaner. You’re focused and ready to go and locked in.

  That new ingredient (enfinity paraxanthine) “is crazy”.

• 1:15:00 – Beta alanine tingles, yes or no?

  “Oh, oh yes!”

  Blessing then gets into a video where he’s talking about those tingles where he gets flushed and jumps onto a car and then into a pool.

• 1:16:00 – Content Creation

  Blessing now has a full-time videographer, he’s excited that he has a full-time film guy, now they’re planning content, skits, shooting photos, etc.

  He wants to motivate and entertain.

  Blessing states that it’s time for people to see how much he respects bodybuilding and the other athletes. He wants to inspire the younger generation.

  He actually spent three years making content and not competing, just doing skits, but now he’s going to do both.

  You can be a pro bodybuilder and enjoy life and make money. After all, you can’t bodybuild forever.

• 1:19:00 – Would Blessing rather be a bodybuilder or a content creator?

  Bodybuilder. It’s all about passion.

  “Social media is so fake. There’s nothing in it. It’s so fake.”

  Bodybuilding has given Blessing so much purpose and life – you can come from the dirt, work hard, and make something. It’s more than just bodybuilding – he wants to inspire kids. He’s the village kid and he did it. That’s his message to the world – he’s got to be the best, he’s got what it takes to be the best, and he wants to use bodybuilding as an example — it doesn’t matter what it is – you find what you love and go for it.

  Thankfully, Blessing doesn’t need to answer a question like “bodybuilder or content creator?” — he can do both – and still succeed.

• 1:22:30 – Taking on the villain role with his new haircut

  Blessing bleached his tips and jokes that he now looks like the villain. So many hate him already anyway.

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Good luck to Blessing and Team MuscleTech!