Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 885: Shawn Ray

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin speak with the controversial  1990s bodybuilder Shawn Ray. The birth of the Mass Monsters: Shawn shares his origin story. (3:25) How the artistry of bodybuilding was lost in the 90s. (9:29) The end of the “beauty of symmetry” in bodybuilding. (11:50) The evolution of the chemistry in bodybuilding. (14:06) When did he make the decision to get into anabolic steroids? (15:48) How you don’t get better with age on steroids. (19:30) The development of the different categories in bodybuilding. (23:10) The Anti-Fitness Idea: The Global Mainstream look of Fitness. (26:20) Did the pharmacology of bodybuilding change and evolve training programs? (27:20) How has social media impacted “being a student of the game?” (30:05) The influx of the “Age of Influencers” at bodybuilding conventions. (34:56) The conspiracy effect of judging in bodybuilding. (37:09) Own Your Shit: Why he is anti-trainer. (41:03) The Puss-ification of Bodybuilding: How the training has changed. (49:07) Why getting away from the gym did wonders for his physique and psyche. (55:01) What does the future of bodybuilding look like? (59:57) Will we see bodybuilding in the Olympics? (1:05:07) What are the biggest risks facing the sport today? (1:06:40) The “Negative Nancy” mentality of Flex Wheeler. (1:10:25) During his career, did he build any lifelong friendships/relationships? Poke fun at? (1:16:28) The fragile ego mindset of bodybuilders. (1:19:10) How his passion drives his actions. (1:24:20) How the Arnold Classic has disrupted the industry and dominated. (1:27:19) Shawn Ray the businessman and storyteller. (1:31:00) Can he see a person and tell if they are on anabolic steroids? (1:40:11) The surprise daughter story explained. (1:47:35) The transition from bodybuilder to dad. Does he find himself protective over his children? (1:54:25) Idiot savant: The Kai Greene story. (1:57:36) Will we ever see another bodybuilder go mainstream? (2:07:02) The appeal/clout of The Rock and other celebrities promoting bodybuilding. (2:14:05) Why he walked away from bodybuilding. (2:17:27)   Featured Guest/People Mentioned: Shawn Ray (@shawnrayifbbpro)  Instagram Shawn Ray Fitness Shawn Ray TV - YouTube Ronnie Coleman (@ronniecoleman8)  Instagram Dorian Yates (@thedorianyates)  Instagram Phil Heath (@philheath)  Instagram Flex Wheeler ® | Official (@officialflexwheeler)  Instagram Dexter "The Blade" Jackson (@mrolympia08)  Instagram Mr Olympia Jay Cutler (@jaycutler)  Instagram Lee "Hercules" Haney (@lee_haney_official)  Instagram Arnold (@Schwarzenegger)  Twitter Asia Monet Ray (@asiamonetray)  Instagram Kai Greene (@kaigreene)  Instagram Shawn Rhoden (@flexatronrhoden)  Instagram Dwayne Johnson (@therock)  Instagram Links/Products Mentioned: October Promotion: MAPS Aesthetic ½ OFF!! **Code “BLACK50” at checkout** MAPS Fitness Products Mind Pump Episode 865: Stan Efferding: The World's Strongest Bodybuilder BREAKING: The Dallas McCarver Autopsy Has Been Released Bigger (2018) - IMDb FLEX WHEELER shares NINJA TURTLE accident before OLYMPIA 1997 SWOLE O'clock Arnold Sports Festival Bodybuilders Plead Guilty In Gruesome Slay Shawn Ray Calls Out Mike O'Hearn On Steroids - YouTube Black Panther (2018) - IMDb

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Man, this is so fun for me. This is the second, like, you know, bodybuilder dude I looked up to in the 90s now that we've been able to have. The golden years of bodybuilder. For me at least, right? Or for, you know, because I mean the 90s is when we've been able to have. The golden years of bodybuilding. For me at least, right? Or for, you know, because I mean,

the 90s is when I was all into it and stuff. And, you know, first we had Flex Wheeler on the show. That was awesome. And then Sean Ray, the dude is just fucking great. And he was controversial. The mouse. Oh, and he was controversial this episode. He definitely, he talked a little.

He was a fly. Yeah, he talked a little shit in here. So it was great. This is why we wanted him on the show, because we knew he wasn't afraid to talk about anything. Man, we address Kai Green. We talked about Michael Herndt being on steroids. Flex Wheeler.

Flex Wheeler talking shit about, I mean, he got into a lot of really good stuff that the current state of bodybuilding I know about that. No, what a great fun conversation. Especially if you're into bodybuilding. Well, most certainly if you are, because if you don't like bodybuilding. Well most certainly if you are because I you if you don't like bodybuilding and you don't give a shit about any of it this probably is not

an episode for you. Although he has an interesting story. He does. Yeah, no matter what it's a good story. He's a great talker. Yes. So this was a fun episode. I'm glad I mean, Sal, you reached out to him and brought him on the show. I'm really glad that you did because I had a really good time with him. He's definitely going to be a great relationship for us. And he made me laugh several times in this episode. Oh, he's a great guy. The episode went on for two hours because the conversation was so good. So a lot of fun, very smart dude, intelligent with the business of fitness as well and bodybuilding. You don't see that too often where you have a competitor who's also good at the business side.

And at the end, he's got some pretty cool twists in terms of things that have happened in his life that are pretty fascinating. I didn't realize how famous his daughter was too. Oh yeah, right. That was news to me. Like, you know, I was like, how did I not know that? That's really cool.

Now, if you want to learn more about Sean Ray, you can go on Instagram at Sean Ray, you can go on his, on Instagram at Sean Ray, that's S H A W N R A Y I F B B pro. You can go on his website that's Sean Ray dot TV. What's that last part, Doug? That Sean Ray dot, that's another website. Sean Ray dot fitness. Sean Ray dot fitness. So you can go check him out there. Also, I do want to mention it is October. This is the first time we've ever run a month-long 50% off, Maps, Esthetic, Sale, Maps, Esthetic. Max, October.

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of cool for me because I was a huge fan of bodybuilding in the 90s and you were you're born in the 90s anytime you see yeah anytime you see a list of top uncrow-un crowned they'll say uncrow-un Olympia like the best uncrow-un Olympia of all time you're up there it's always you flex Kevin Laverone you know who else Gospari probablyia of all time, you're up there. It's always you, Flex, Kevin, LaVron, who else, Gospari, probably from the 80s, but you're definitely one of the guys that's up there. And you, the thing I found unique about you during that decade,

because that was the decade that really the mass monsters were born, I would say. I mean, it's always been about size, right? I might have been the first one to use the term mass monster. Probably, probably. Probably, but that's really when it was born. Dorian comes out and just, there was like, this guy's insane.

You had these 300 pound bodybuilders that were coming out with, didn't exist before. And here you were, this classic symmetry and definition and just peak condition kind of bodybuilder. So you were competing in an era where, I mean, it was interesting. It was an interesting era. The land of the giants.

Yeah, so Jurassic Park. Yeah, and I was a very huge fan of yours because of that. And you were quite controversial and I'll add stuff back now. But I want to, let's start in the beginning. Like, how did it all get started? My mom and dad hooked up. And I was like,

I was the young, not the young, not the young, not the young, not the young, not the young, not the young, not the young, not the young dad hooked up. I was the young. Not the young. The young. The young. I am the youngest of eight. And after they got that right, they stopped having kids. But I was playing football, but way back in the dark ages in high school. And from eight to 18, got hurt.

My senior year had to watch my playoff game with my, on the crutches. It wasn't a, it was a knee sprain. It wasn't a tear or anything like that. But watching my passion evaporate as we lost that game, I was at a quagmire. I was had to decide whether I was going to go football or bodybuilding. I'd already competed once or twice. And I drew a young, you were young as a competitor. You won clearly started at 17.

My first show was five months in and I got second place a week later and I won and then we started playing football. And I was. What position you play football. I was everything. Everything all right. I returned ponds, returned kicks.

I was the left half back. I was the starting tail back. She was fast as fuck. Yeah, I did, I did all right. I think I was probably more shifty. However, I still hold the high school record at my school. I had the longest run from Scrimmage 98 yards. The record was 96 yards.

That's probably what I'm most proud about. Here I am, like 32 years out of high school and the frickin record is still there. Oh, that's right. And I'm still the leading all-time Russia at that school. So we got a lot of slow white guys at my school. I was playing in a crappy league, but you know, I mean, here I am. I'm still in the whole thing in high school. But it launched me into this rehab mode, because I watched us lose this game. We

should have won. I thought I'd be able to come back the next playoff game and continue. But I'm glad I didn't, because it was one of those moments in time that I had to make this decision. Either I'm going to get back on my feet and play in the play the all-star game to go to college football or compete and go for the Teenage National Championships. I chose to compete and go for the Teenage National Championships. On the way, I met 1982, Mr. Olympia, Chris Dickerson. I happened to go to Gold's GM to train one time

and he was there and he started kind of favoring me. I didn't always get the time, but he was, he was on the cover of Flex Magazine. He's got good tastes. He was 43 years old, the oldest Mr. Olympia. He made bikinis for the bodybuilders. And you know, here I was looking at him, eye to eye, and thought he's the best in the world. Maybe there's some possibilities here.

I mean, I want to be him. And he introduced me to a photographer, John Baelic, who's one of the more famous photographers, and he set me up with a photo shoot. And it wasn't until I saw the pictures at 18 years old, I got second in that teenage nationals that I started to believe by comparing myself to Chris Dickerson that this is something that I could probably do. And of course, the following year,

I won the Teenage National Championships at 19 years old junior world champion in Australia at 20. And then at 21, I won the American National Championships, which is where I got my pro card three years at a high school. And so clearly I made the right decision in terms of choosing bodybuilding, but my role models coming up,

I was looking at Chris Dickerson, Muhammad Mac away, Frank Zane, Samir Benu, I think my era, I came five years after where I would have probably probably fit in nicely. You remember Franco Colombo won the Olympian 81, Chris Dickerson 82, Samir Benu in 83, and that's when I started bodybuilding. They're all about five, six, five, five, one. And you know, I mean, Franco's tiny. And then here comes the Haney, the year I graduate in 84, at 5, 10, he wins the Miss Olympia, and he's winning for the next eight years.

And I caught the tail end of that run in 1988. I got a sniff in the Miss Olympia here in Los Angeles, and I got 13th. And then I came back in 1990, and I got third, and in 1991, I slipped down to fifth place. That was the same year I won the Arnold Classic. So I had a lot of things on my plate and a lot of excuses why I came from third place to

fifth place. But I was there for the Leihaney retirement party and then right on the heels of Leihaney at that time was Dorian Yates in 91 getting second place and he would go on to win the next six years. And then of course when he retired due to injury in 97, Ron and Coleman at 510, 280 pounds, he goes on a tear of eight years. So coming behind those three guys, winning the Olympia 22 years in a row, or my 14 year career smashed in between there, I never stood a chance. You know, I mean, once they saw the size, the possibilities of how big these guys could get a small guy like myself, the lines, the proportion, the classic stuff.

It kind of got put to the side. And we threw everything we could with you, Flex Wheeler and Kevin Varoni and Nasseros, we threw everybody at these three guys and none of us could take them out. Although there were some chinks in the armor. When you say controversial, I became controversial because I said, how can anybody win a contest if you have the same judges every year? You know, this is a sport of subjective opinion, but we have the same judges,

you're gonna wind up with the same champions. I remember, maybe it was an article, and I don't remember what magazine it was, Iron Man or something where they interviewed you, where it was the year that, because Dorian comes out, you get second to Lee, then he comes back and he's like, massive. He did something different, who knows what it was,

came back, was a freak. Nobody deservedly crushed this competition. But then I don't remember what year it was, maybe it was the following year, two years as a bicep. Taurus bicep. 94, I was in it. Well, yeah, he tore his bicep and he's getting perfect scores on symmetry, which you can't with,

and you voiced it. Absolutely, what I did in that year because I was second place, was I didn't have to badmouth them. All I had to do was point out the things that was wrong with them. You know, he had a bloated stomach. He has his coloring, his tan.

It was just pouring down like chocolate off of his white skin. The bicep tear was glaringly noticeable, and you can see that he was trying to hide it and mask it. And yet you any you know He's an average poser, but he wasn't a great poser He was along the lines of events Taylor or myself or some of the other guys that came before him But because he had the 92 and 93 Olympia and because he stood head and shoulders above the rest and he was the standard at 510

260 a good big guy will be the great small guy and it just continued that way Mm-hmm all the way through the Ronnie small guy and it just continued that way all the way through the Rhondah Coleman era and I think Along the way it disenfranchised a lot of bodybuilders that fell in love with the sport because of its artistry the artistry was lost in the 90s I came up behind again Massive physics like Mohammed Mac away that stood second place to Lehanie You know Chris Dickerson and Samir De Nielsen. Lebrada. These guys were physique artists. It's what I fell in love with because, yeah, they were big, but that wasn't the only

thing they were. And when we got to that 94 Olympian, you can justify that Dorian was bigger, therefore he wins. Well, then it gave the justification for the standard for the rest of those years in the 90s that led to the arrival of Ronnie Coleman. And once Ronnie Coleman leapfrogged over everyone in 1998, there was no turning back the hands of time because the judges were just overwhelmed with the size.

Yeah, and to be fair, Coleman, he presented, I mean, I still think he's the greatest of all time with the size and not all of his Olympia wins, but size and conditioning and balance, just an absolute monster. But during the 90s, again, to be fair, you know, you had, there's definitely some issues with Dorian, although I'm a huge fan of his, I think he had the way he trained, he was just a warrior and a lot of stuff. And of course, he injured himself quite a bit of times. But you had probably, in my opinion, and maybe on bias, because that was a decade that I followed. But in my opinion, the most competitive, forget first place, forget the Olympia, Mr. Olympia, second to fifth, most competitive I'd ever seen, probably till this day of bodybuilders. I mean, between you, LeVron, Flex, Nasser,

Chormier, Chormier, you know, Vince Taylor was still crushed. I mean, these are all guys that are worthy of an Olympia title. Absolutely. And it doesn't seem like that anymore. What was that like competing? Who is your biggest nemesis? I would guess well, I mean, the depth of the field is what validates my career. Because like you said, any of those guys could have won the Olympia and it could have been an argument. I mean, Lebron getting second to Haney in 1989 and Rhymini, there was an argument for him. I mean, he's a little thinner on the muscular side, but again, for me, I fell in love with it because of the beauty. I mean, when I looked at Bob Paris who never won the Olympia in 1983, he was the American

national champion and he was the universe champion and every girl wanted to sleep with him. And, you know, he wasn't offensive muscularity wise. He had to look the it factor. That it factor just diminished in the mid 90s. I mean, Dorian Nate's as great as he was in off season, there wasn't a whole lot to look at. I mean, you could tell a great bodybuilder when they're on season or off season.

I mean, Flex Wheeler and Kevin LaRone, you see these guys off season, you wanna look like that Doreen at 300 plus pounds, not so much. Only so many people could aspire to look this way and do the things to get that look, which made me more popular in places like Italy, in Japan, in Mexico, where clearly they could aspire to be something like me. I'm shorter bodybuilder, I'm more more proportionate and it was more about conditioning and detail and balance Now that that's not taking anything away from dorm But what I will take away from it is that the beauty of bodybuilding was lost when the 90s expired Because once Ronnie Coleman pushed the envelope of course Jay Cutler came behind him

You started finding athletes that just weren't willing to go swim in the deep end and do the things necessary to look that way. Let's talk about some of those things. Are we talking about growth hormone? We talk about insulin. What are the things that- Absolutely, man. The evolution of the chemistry and the sport of bodybuilding was happening at the same time in baseball and in football, of course, even in wrestling. You know, the wrestlers from the WWE, the WWE, which we won't everyone who would call it. These guys started getting smaller and softer. I mean, look at Brock Lesnar today. I mean, once the crackdown started happening,

they're a shell of themselves, but it was the Wild Wild West towards the late 90s because people are combining these chemicals, which are changing the chemistry of the core of what bodybuilding actually is. And I don't want wanna say that the natural side of bodybuilding was taken out of the sport, but I think the science just got too carried away. It looked a little bit good.

A lot, it's just not the same. Give me a couple of beers and I'm laughing with you. Give me six and I'm throwing up or I'm passed out. Some of these guys don't know their limitations and a lot of them aren't with us as a result of their ignorance to where the speed limit is. But when you show up bloated and you show up with bitch tits, which is guy know, guy know, mastia, they, they, and you torn muscles, the judges were ignorant to the idea that we should take points away, knock them down so that, you know what, if they

did that to Dorian, Dorian come back the next year, a better bodybuilder. He wouldn't keep pushing the envelope. Phil Heath had this, you know had this stomach issue last year and this year, when he came back this year with the same stomach issue, and they took the title off of them. They could have easily taken the title off of Dorian one or two times and off of Ronnie one or two times, which would have changed what the guys are doing and brought maybe back some of the concern of ism

in terms of what you can do chemically. Or how much that you're actually, but so let's stay on topic with that because I always find it fascinating to talk to guys like you. When was it that you made that decision that I'm gonna get into Antibox? How old were you and how hard of a decision was that, or was it like a no brain or I'm fucking doing this?

Yeah, I was 21. I was coming off of a loss to Eddie Robinson at the junior nationals. So you're already competing natural, you're competing. Yeah, I was 21. I was coming off of a loss to Eddie Robinson at the junior nationals. So you're already competing natural. You're competing. Yeah, I mean, I won everything. I won the teenage nationals. I won the teenage California, teenage L.A. teenage Orange County, the junior world championships over in Australia. And then here I was winning the California at 21. And I had the nationals coming up six months later out in Atlantic City, New Jersey. So now I got to figure out what I got to do

to kind of harden up and tighten up. I didn't want to speed up because I was always in it for the longevity factor. And my career shows that, I mean, even today, I've retired 17 years, I'm 218 pounds, I competed at 212. The muscles distributed differently because I'm carrying a lot more body fat,

but I never got sucked into, let me take this to get big. I was training two and four hours a day, twice a day, tearing my body down. I was using in order to maintain the quality of muscle I had and also to harden it up. I never used an unbox to get big. And for the record, I failed the first and ever steroid test at the Arnold Classic. That's right. That's right. I'm the poster boy. I'm the poster boy. I've been Johnson to bodybuilding.

You don't want people to, you know? But life serves its lessons when the time is right. And I'm glad it happened early enough. But the lesson for me was, I was going to get tested again six months later. And I catapulted myself to third place in the Olympia. The lesson for the federation was that they keep on testing these bodybuilders.

They're not gonna have anybody to test. Because it was so rampant and it's still rampant that you had to kind of just accept the bodybuilders or grown men they're gonna do what they wanna do. It's almost like alcohol, look, they tried to abolish alcohol, but eventually as an adult you make those decisions. And I'm of the opinion that look, when I go pay this kind of money to watch these athletes perform, whether it's football, baseball, or bodybuilding, I don't care what they

take. They're doing it for the money and the fame anyways. I mean, this quarterback's getting a hundred million dollar contracts. Hell, if he's taking something so he can get up off the field, he's absorbing those blows. He's got something that he could take to recover faster, play stronger. That's what I want to see. And that's maybe coming from a professional athlete who made a living off of it. I don't want to hear the guy sitting there smoking cigarettes, drinking beers going, he's on steroids. The wonder he can run this fast and take those.

Yeah, but I mean, you have to understand that even with Greg Luganis, not Greg Luganis, Lance Armstrong, he was doing what he needed to do to win. And after he got caught and he admitted all that shit, literally all those guys were doing the same thing. Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson, while Carl Lewis hadn't tested dirty and Ben Johnson was caught, we later found out that Carl Lewis was dirty all the time.

And all that shit came out after the fact. And at the end of the day, if everybody's dirty, then who's cheating? Right. Yeah, you're preaching to the choir with that one. Yeah, so I don't want to say I got caught. I was ignorant to the idea of how long they stay in my system. I was using, I got off for three months,

and I tested positive. Would you test positive for? Which trophy, the same thing that Ben Johnson and that's the seasoner system for like a year. No, well, it's water-based, it's a fast-acting drug, and it should be in and out of your system for three months after three months. And of course, wherever it's deposited, it depends on howbased, it's a fast-acting drug and it should be in and out of your system for three months after three months. And of course, wherever it's deposited,

it depends on how much body fat you have. I found out a little bit more about it later. But I was never into the pharmacology side of it. I used the things that were gonna make me hard, dry, and separated. I didn't use things that were gonna make me big. I never didn't use growth hormone, never even thought about using insulin

and all that stuff was kinda coming in the 90s. And my look didn't change too much. And I was criticized because I didn't evolve with these guys playing the mask. Is that why you see, is that why you saw the growth of the gut of the big belly? Because you know, like you always maintain a very tight midsection, your midsection was always very flat.

But now you, it was in the 90s you started seeing this happening. And you see it a lot now where the bodybuilders relaxed on stage, pregnant. Big belly. Was that from the insulin and growth hormone? Absolutely. They missed me now, man. I'm telling you, they were complaining that I wasn't making these dramatic changes from

year to year, but part of it was because I wasn't doing the stuff the other guys were doing. And as they were doing it, they weren't getting better. With the exception of Lee Haney in 1991 and his last and final eighth victory, none of those Mr. Olympian champions ever got better towards the end of their career. Ronnie fell apart, Dorian fell apart, Phil Heath just showed us. He's fallen apart, and Dexter Jackson,

I mean, he's the only one that fought father time, but he's not the same body builder he once was. So you don't get better with age in terms of use. You start to beat your body up and you start to tear it apart and wear it down, whereas I started kind of tapering off towards the end, which didn't allow for these dramatic gains. You didn't see the dramatic improvement.

So the judges had a reason to maybe take me from fourth place to fifth place and kind of move me around. And you had these new guys coming in, like Flex Wheeler was not the same body builder in 2000 that he was in 1993. Everyone arguably says that's the best physique we ever saw in 1993. Yeah, that was at the Arnold Classic when young raw 216 pounds, a 240 pound body builder that Flex evolved into was not the same. And so when you start putting in all these things,

the body changes its chemistry and there's areas that you just can't unring. So Dorian's bloated stomach, Ronnie's bloated stomach, Lufarigno when he made the comeback, showed up with a bloated stomach. 300 pounds, he was on stage. Well, when you start doing the things that you think you have to do to be big,

it changes the, for me, it changes why we do it. I was always an artist in the studio sculpting, shaping, defining, and hoping that my condition would put me up against the best in the world. And sometimes I beat a lot of guys just because I was in shape. It's funny, we had Stan Effording on the show and he said something that was, I felt, I was so true.

He's like, you need to take more to gain, you need to take much less to maintain. And when you look at some of the bodybuilders that push the size, most of many of them are not doing so well anymore. Not only that, but they're dead. Yeah. Art Atwood, Matt DeVal, Dawn Youngblood,

Nassariel Sambodia, I mean, the list is long. These are names that just jump at me. Mike Latter-Razzo, they all were kind of playing Muhammad Benaziza, who was in the 92 Olympia. He was the little five foot one guy from Algeria that was that beat during eight. He's the only guy to beat during eights. In 1990 at the night of champions, he beat Doren and then 91 Doren came in second at the Olympia and the rest is history.

But the good little guys had a very good bite at the apple. I mean, LeBroad has got two second Olympia runner-ups or said first runner-ups. Mohamed McAway has two. I've got two. Of course, Frank Zane won three Mr Olympia titles and Samir actually won the 1983 along with Dickerson. So, there were small bodybuilders that were fully capable of winning. But when the judges got it in their head that bigger is better, now you see these big guys win and you can pick them apart. Those other guys you couldn't really pick apart because they look like works of art. And they move like artists. Now you got these big lumbering bodybuilders

that don't give a shit about posing. Certainly don't care about relaxing on stage, but the sum total of all that use goes right to the stomach. And that's really where the beauty of bodybuilding starts with a nice six pack, the deltoids. They say the bodybuilding shows are one from the back. Most of those big guys have great backs.

They turn around, they got these big fat stomachs. It's just not a good look. Yeah, in fact, aesthetics, when scientists study aesthetics in particular, they find constants across all cultures. And one of the constants is the, with women, it's the hip to waist ratio, with men, it's the waist to shoulder ratio.

And bodybuilding, you know bodybuilding originally when it first started as you were aware, you had to perform things on stage, do lifts, and eventually it turned into purely about aesthetics, but it was based on this foundation of aesthetics, which is you look like you're healthy, fit, strong, and that you can procreate, not necessarily this massive, and I think now what you're seeing now with the IFB, they developed all these, or they've created all these subcategories, they think to address that.

Yeah, but do you think it helped it? You think you just made it worse. I feel like it's just promoted the extreme and bodybuilding. Yeah, the extreme and bodybuilding. And then now if you don't want that extreme, you go to class. Well, it does, it does give you choices. Now listen, I mean, the fat bloated guts gave birth to the men's physique. And then when we got bored with the guy standing there in board shorts, it gave birth to the

classic physique, because everyone's longing for the old school. Classic physique is just basically old school body, but exactly what it looks like. And I could tell you, not only is it much more inclusive for the athlete that's in high school coming out going, hey, I could look like that, but it's more desirable for the females to want to watch, because not only with classic physiques coming back, they also have this element of presentation that's lost, that's been gone for, I don't know how long. I mean, once you've seen Dorian and Ronnie and these big guys lumber around the stage, you long to see somebody like a Lebrata that's an artist to go up there and actually do a routine

that's kind of choreographed. So the classic is kind of bringing that back. And now we have something to entertain us and something that we can say is like a work of art or it's a performance. Those are the guys that are gonna wind up getting the most work. And because we no longer are gonna be sitting there

wanting to clap and cheer for a guy with a big stomach who's walking around trying to raise the roof, you're gonna see guys that don't realize, you know what, I'm not gonna try to take all that crap and look that way. I'm gonna deal with the classic. I think classic physique is where this sport's gonna be headed in the next five years.

So you think it's gonna go over bodybuilding? Yeah, because you know what, not only are there more concerns about people dying mind you, Dallas McCarver died only a year ago. 25, 26 years old. And he would have been a future Mr. Olympian three years, because I believe in three years, Phil Heath would have been gone. Sean Rodinian three years because I believe in three years Phil Heath would have been gone Sean Rodinapolly we gone Kai Green would be gone all these guys are gonna be gone due to age and then you would have this

29 year old behemoth coming out of Tennessee that nobody would have been able to stand next to you But he couldn't hold himself back. He wanted it now And I think when that happens all the other bodybuilders are starting to take notes shit I don't want to be the next Dallas Macarver. And you got bodybuilders dropping down into classic because they realize I don't have to eat as much, I don't have to lift as heavy,

I might have a longer career, I'm not gonna, you know, have to do the, they look at Ronnie Coleman and go like, do I want to want, is that my future? Look, if you're a boxer and you looked at Muhammad Ali, you're like, is that my future? So it's enough to scare you away when these guys are dropping dead to the point that,

okay, if I'm not gonna be this 300 pound guy, then what's my choices? Well, maybe I can slim up and go back to shape and get in health, because I think being lighter and more fit is probably gonna be a longer career more opportunity to find out. I also think it's just more mainstream. That's an interesting theory, because I,

it's sometimes I agree with that and sometimes I disagree because sometimes I think fucking people are weird dude. We just wanna see the freakish, crazyest fucking thing. Some fans. Yes. The fans do. That's the right, but who's marketing and who's selling what? Because when's the last time we've seen a freaky body builder

on the cover of Muscle and Fitness, for example? I mean, that's one of the mainstream, lone surviving magazines. Instead, they put somebody like the rock. Right. You know, you're not going to see Phil Heath on the cover anymore. You're not going to see a big freak. It's almost the anti-fitness idea.

We have more people espousing to a healthier look than we have trying to be these big guys of the 90s. What we're seeing with fitness in particular, is a melding of wellness and fitness that's now going mainstream. Global. And global and the extreme, you know, freak bodybuilder look is anti that.

People are kind of pretty now to what you have to do to look that way and how it's not healthy. You know, did all this pharmacology, this advancement of, you know, the amount of drugs people were using and what they were using, did that change how people started dieting and training? Because you mentioned training two hours, the three hours in the gym. You know, Flex was over here talking about dieting. I've talked to other bodybuilders from the 90s.

You talked about how dieting was so important. And you guys were so, I mean, and again, I don't want to be biased because I did follow that. But it seems like everybody was way more conditioned than they were today. Has the training and diet changed and evolved because of it? Of course it has. I mean, look, we don't even have a teenage division anymore. I promote shows and I don't have teenage because nobody shows up for them. But when I was coming up, the teenage division was ripe with athletes that wanted to be

like the guys in the magazines. And now there's not a whole lot of magazines. number one, but there's not a whole lot of role models. There's not a whole lot of superstars that people can aspire to want to look like. So these guys are not only getting in the game late, but they're staying longer. You know, I got out at 36. I told you Lehanie retired at 31 years old. We were in our primes in our 20s.

And now when you look at that lineup of the Mr. Olympia, I believe Sean Rodin wanted, I think he's like 43 years old. Phil Heath will be 40 this year. Dexter Jackson was what, he's turning 50. The age factor for these guys, it's like they've been there for so long, and there's nobody coming up. Like, I don't even know who the next big thing is,

but when I was coming up, I saw Flex Willer coming up behind me in Kevin LeFroni and Chris Kermir. These guys were coming out of the teenage ranks and they were gonna have a nice long run. We don't have that gene pool anymore, and I think it has a lot to do with the pharmacology of it.

These guys are afraid to go do the things that are necessary, and instead of actually finding out and learning their bodies, they're going straight to the guru first. So as soon as you find out you have a passion for bodybuilding, you're going to go over there and try to pay this guy to teach you how to look a certain way and this guy is going to load you up and then you're going to wind up getting a sponsor, it's going to give you all the things.

I just keep thinking about Dallas and Macarver because that's what happened. Here's a guy with all this potential, this supplement owner guy that comes over and throws all this crap at him, and then he goes and he gets Chad Nichols, who's got his fingerprints on all these bodybuilders that are dead that worked with Ronnie Coleman, that worked with a lot of these guys, Nasr, Elson, Body, and Art, Art, Word, and Don Youngblood.

They're all dead, and then this 25 year olds enlisting this guy to help. Who's your friend that did not slap you upside the head on that one? Yeah, and I said it, I went on record, You don't want to be working with this guy. You're not going to be long for this earth. And then six months later, who's dead because they were fast-ranked. Well, I've got this coach that's worked with all these guys. And I got this supplement owner that's giving me all this shit and all this stuff. It's a Molotov cocktail

waiting to just explode. And it was a party and boom. Now, you know, my background, my professional background is training and that's what we do, right? Exercise and workout programs, we understand resistance training and we understand that there's a lot of science behind them and I feel like today training is just vanilla because it's all about the pharmacology. Nobody's really focusing on what you can do specifically

with your training. Now, if you go and read the bodybuilding magazines and articles from the 70s, 80s, and even the early to mid 90s, you had bodybuilders experimenting, trying different methods of training. You know, it was almost like a more of a focus. Am I accurate with this?

No, listen, back when I was coming up and prior to me, we were all students of the game. I used to love to watch Mike Tyson, we're almost the same age, but when he was coming up and he was young, he always prided himself that he was a student. He knew everything that happened, in boxing all the way up until his era.

He studied what happened before, so he can apply it to his future as a bodybuilder. So, now you gotta know where you're going, but you also have to see where you're coming from. These bodybuilders have their history right now, is Jay Cutler. They don't even know what the hell happened before Jay Cutler,

because Jay's still on social media, right? Or it's Phil Heath, he was had a seven or eight year run as Mr. Olympia, so they don't go back further and further to its origins. The same things that Arnold and Sergio Aliva were doing in Frank's name, they applied today, but now you got some guy that's got you doing some CrossFit shit and has you on this,

you know, vegan diet and they're taking their cell phones in the gym. It's such a distraction, right? So the cell phone, the digital age is such an interference with actually going in and putting in the work. I went in the gym, I had nothing that was gonna distract me. I didn't wear headphones when I trained and I give the guy a CD or a cassette tape. Put my cassette that I made at home and play it while I'm working out.

But there was zero distractions that were taking my mind off of the business at hand. And now it's like, I've got to get this picture. I've got to get these likes. I've got to get these followers. And everybody, you show me a bodybuilder with a phone in the gym. I'll show you somebody that's not really working hard. I was going to ask you about social media as far as what you see is like the benefits to it business-wise versus the detriment of it.

Well clearly the magazines have gone by the way the eight track. So now you have a little bit more control over what you want people to know about you or perceive about you. Before I had to do an interview with a guy with a tape recorder, you got it as an editor go back, transcribe it, and then you as the editor have to add the pictures to the interview. And typically, there were pretty much right on point, although you can make me sound like I'm a lot smarter because you're an editor. If the body building in right, I wrote, I wrote my entire career, I wrote for Joe Weeter, Muscle Fitness Flex, Muscle Mag, Muscle Development. So I pride myself on being able to articulate who I am and what

I am. So my persona was created by me. In this digital age, you can do and make yourself look however you want, standing in front of the Ferrari. Have the hot chicks, Photoshop the abs. Only photos after your competition that get posted right? Yeah, in the best lighting. I mean, you can kind of control that market that you want to create for yourself.

And there's gonna be people out there to get it. I said in the Generation Iron video, I said, you can have a chick that nobody even knows. She takes a bunch of pictures of her ass, she's got five million followers. All there is is ass shots. Somebody likes it. And so the more people that like it,

you keep on kind of giving them what they want. There's a lot of guys out there that are just outrageous, right? They just do crazy shit. Kalimbalm Mulger, kind of an adventurous guy. He's rock climbing, he's doing sea do's, he's doing all this shit, and now he's all torn up. It's all his bicep, he blew out his knee,

doing all this crazy shit, but people are following that waiting for that accident. It's a train wreck waiting to happen. A guy that's got a great physique with all this potential who's coming over that kind of sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You have to be careful. And there are guys out there

that are hiring digital marketing firms to help build their following so that they can get monetized. And then they take it from the likes and followers, to the digital, to the YouTube, to all, there's a lot of opportunities to control our business. Whereas before we had to rely solely on the magazines, however, I came up at a time where I was paid for that.

I liked the idea that Joe Reader was writing me a check every month and using my pictures in his magazines and all I had to do was go eat, sleep, and train. That was was paid for that. I liked the idea that Joe Reader was writing me a check every month and using my pictures in his magazines and all I had to do was go eat, sleep, and train. That was a paid professional athlete. I didn't have to worry about marketing myself. I just had to be there to take those photos. Is this still predominantly supplement companies that are hunting for these athletes

or is it other companies you're seeing? No, there's a lot more. I mean, you got clothing companies. I work with a clothing company, luxury men. This is my plug right now. My luxury apparel is my plug right now. I'm like, my luxury apparel is called Leo Michi. You can't hardly see it, but it's new to the market.

You see the bodybuilders wearing sweats and stuff like that all the time. And these guys are kind of like the Gucci brand where you can kind of have some upscale, like juicy couture for women type clothing for men. And you start to see other opportunities being sponsored with tanning companies. Jim lines are still big in terms of sponsoring athletes.

You got the Middle East coming over really big where the guys are going over to Kuwait. And coming back 30 pounds heavier. Yeah, so you have a lot of companies that need that name face recognition, but as an ambassador that's out of the industry, I have a huge networking database where I can bring supplement company

like G6 Sports and Intrition who I work with, and I help them get distribution all over the world. And that's good for a new company that doesn't have any recognition. I remember my first time ever going to a large bodybuilder convention. I believe was the, I think it was in 2001 in the Arnold Classic, and then I didn't go

for a long time until a few years ago, it was incredibly different. I mean, the longest lines in 2001 or whatever were Mr. Olympia, second place, third place, top bodybuilders. You know, a few years ago I go there, those guys have the shortest lines. The longest lines are the dude that's got the Instagram page

and the other guy that's got the YouTube channel. Guys that don't even compete, totally different. It's changed everything. Considering I never missed the Arnold Classics since 1989, I've watched that evolution. I was there when Rich Kaspar won that with 2000 fans and 24 athletes. And of course, last year we celebrated the 30th anniversary and there was 22,000 athletes, 200,000 fans over a four day period. Wow.

I've been in seeing the amateurs for the past five, six years where it has about 700, 800 athletes in it. So I've watched it evolve, and I've watched, like you said, the influx of these nameless, faceless, million follower type millennial guys. Influencers. Influencers, and I can tell you,

they're doing a very good job. That's why their lines are long. And people have asked me, don't you feel like nobody's recognizing you? And I don't walk into these shows looking to be recognized. Even though that's my domain, that's where I come from. These guys have worked very hard to be recognized. And they put those shout outs, come to my booth, come visit me, and these guys line up, whatever it is they're selling, they love it. And more power to them because they're taking control of that little market. It's giving everybody an opportunity to get a piece of the pie. Whereas for the bodybuilder, most of us are kind of throwbacks. We just want a bodybuild

and eat our chicken and rice and kind of do it. Well, like our parents, you know, we don't want to know how to work the phone. We just want one that works, right? Like my mom, I just need one to be able to dial. Like, mom, you can check your email. You can, you know, you can actually watch a video and just give me one that there's all one that calls. Now, do you think because of that, the politics, so, and you knowing the politics and bodybuilding, do you think that that's gonna start to influence

how they judge? No, you don't think so? No, because I mean, there's still a process of learning how to judge. And once you're in as a judge, you're pretty much a judge for life, unless there's some bad indiscretions that you're involved in, judging a physique contest is not like rocket science. But once you're qualified to do it, there's a whole lot that has to take place to get

that conspiracy effect that we want that guy for this reason. None of those judges are making any money off of Mr. Olympia, for example. I always kind of had a conspiracy theory, but my conspiracy theory coming up in the 90s was, listen, I would only have an opportunity to win if I have different opinions. Why am I being force fed the same judges? If we have all these judges that are qualified, and we're only having 12 judges in Olympia,

why is it the only 12 that judge this year are gonna be judging next year and the year after and the year after and year after? So I was always against having the same opinions. I get it that you might have to have one head judge just to keep the, you know, decorum. But this is an international show. Let's have some international judges like they do on the Olympics, right? And maybe make it digital where soon as the routine is over, you hit that one to ten.

You see this? So I was looking for some transparency. It's a little more complicated than that, but I thought, well, if they can do it in gymnastics or any of those subjective sports, because even though gymnastics has, you know, it's degree of difficulty, it's still subjective. How I see a landing is going to be different, how you see a landing or how that cohesive the routine is, all that floor routine stuff. That's what I think about professional men's bodybuilding.

And if they can score that, they should be able to do it in our sport. So I was coming from a place of, I need new opinions if I'm gonna have a chance to win. So you don't think, you don't think it's gonna, like if someone goes up there and they have a, two million Instagram followers and a huge YouTube channel, and they look decent, you don't think that that may weigh

a little bit more, you know, where the judge is gonna say, okay, I might wanna give this guy the, you know, the nod because they're going to bring us a lot more attention. They're going to be my event a lot. It's, you don't think that's going to influence it. Yeah, no, I mean, you got to remember like Sean Rodin had a million followers and what Phil Heath has like two million followers and he has seven Olympia titles.

They didn't gain anything by having Sean Rodin win the Mr. Olympia. Right. I think that everybody wants to see a champion get beat. Right. So like when Bob Chit goes, is there any dispute from the audience for the judges? They stood up and gave Sean around a plaza, or the standard of it. So when that happens, it does give another spark because look, Sean Rodin won the Olympia, but everybody's beaten Sean Rodin.

I mean, William Bohnic, Big Rami, Dexter Jackson, all those guys are probably like, well, shit, maybe I can win next year. So if nothing else, it's kind of fired these guys up, but I don't think it took anything away from the sport that the judges took it away from somebody like Phil. Now, when you're talking about somebody that's just popular, it's still, this is a sport of, you still have to have the physique.

You still gotta have that knockout punch. You can't just go up there and go, you got five million followers and you don't look as good as this guy with no followers. You can't sell that to the fans. They're selling these tickets for hundreds of dollars. So if you go there and they're selling you something that you just don't believe in,

it's gonna be corrupt from the core, and they don't want to lose that. What about the, what do you think about like the politics of like coaches that have big brands that also sponsor a lot of these shows and they have athletes in the show. You don't see that. Well, it's inevitable, but I mean, I don't think it's enough there.

There's not enough meat on the bone for a judge to favor this trainer who's got some influence. There's like, unless you're paying a judge, I mean, I don't see who would want to do that. There's just not enough meat on the bone for that. And I know, like for example, Honey Rombad worked with Jay Cutler. He worked with Ronnie Coleman. And he worked seven years with Phil Heath. He just happened to be with some of the best body builders

on the planet. He didn't make them. He just kind of latched on with those guys. He's gonna have to now find somebody else to latch onto. But he didn't have any more influence over who was gonna win that title than I would, for example. What's your thoughts on him? I'm not really impressed by him at first glance,

but I don't know enough about him. Honey as a trainer, I don't know enough about him either. I mean, he's definitely one of those guys that's been able to latch onto the right big fish. Because when you're talking about being in and around Ronnie Coleman's camp and then getting a young Phil Heath, actually he had Jay Cutler too. And then getting a young Phil Heath

and he's got Jerry Mooddee. He's been in the right Olympia frame of mind. And you know what, when you're around that, people polarize to you. He might be getting emails or text messages or DMs going, hey, help me the way you're helping them. So he's helping the right people to have people probably on a waiting list.

You can't fault that. But of course, I'm not that guy that's gonna let you take control over that. And I also feel like you could look at the pictures of the people asking you to help them be like, I think I'll help that guy. They look like they've got some big time potential, right? Well, I'm notorious for being anti-trainer, anti-guru, because I'm still coming from the old school out like this.

I'm the artist, okay? So now let's just say this is an art show and all four of us are painters. And we walk in this room and all we've got is a blank canvas and our brushes and our oils. And it's an even playing field because we all have the same tools to work with just as a bodybuilder does. But we're all independent. And there's our judge sitting there telling us to draw. Well, we're all going to come from a different place.

You might draw the ocean, you might draw some cars, you draw some birds, and I might draw a person. When we're done, however long that might take, we're gonna have to turn those pictures around and let them judge it. Physique shows no different, because there's NASA, and there's flex, and there's Ronnie, and then there's me.

We don't even look anything alike in terms of genetic makeup, but somebody's got to pick a winner. We might look close in terms of the artistry. It might look, you know, he's really big, and he's really cut, and he's got nice lines and I posed the best. Someone's got to pick a winner out of these forms of art.

Well, I want to sign that picture with my name on it. I certainly don't want your fingerprints all over my work and to give that up to somebody and say, I do these interviews after the show. I say, so what's your next contest? Oh, we got to talk to my trainer. So what did you eat? How did you train? Well, me and my coach did this that and the other. I can't stand that.

It's the worst because you don't even own what you're showing me. It's not yours. You're giving that guy all the credit or you're blaming this nutritionist over here. So that's probably what led to me being so, you know, laser focused on trying to bring my best product is because it all rose to the top or sank to the bottom with what I do.

From day in, day out, year after, year after year. And I'm living proof, I'm not a rocket science. I never knew how many calories I ate. I never took any measurements. I don't know how many grams. So you never counted macros or anything like that? I know, I don't know how many grams of protein or a chicken breast or a fucking potato.

Oh, intuition, huh? In order that I care at the end of the day when I stand next to this guy those judges aren't asking any of those questions It's not relevant how many calories I burned today or how many I'm gonna eat tomorrow And you got the trainers that are trying to get you to believe you need to know all this shit I thought you know garbage and garbage out. I didn't know I didn't need to know how many calories I ate Because I certainly had no idea how many calories I was burning per day. That's just so much time consuming.

How much is this? I need a 12 ounce chicken breast. Well, who decided you need a 12 ounce chicken breast? Eat. When I wanted to get big, I just ate a consumed food. I had a regular pay six, nine, 12, three, six, nine. I was a machine. I didn't need someone to tell me what to eat,

when to eat, and I certainly didn't need to ask my coach, hey coach, what do you think we should do? What's our next competition? Like own your shit, I wanted to be a Mr. Olympia, so I picked and choose what shows I needed to go into, and as I had a measure of success, I raised the level of competition. That's not rocket science, but today,

it sounds like a foreign language when I talk to these athletes. I gotta talk to my coach, my trainer has to tell me what to do. My dietitian needs to tell me what to eat. I'm like, how much money do you have to burn? Like that's a lot of money. And there's a lot of hands in that thing.

And then when it doesn't go right as an athlete, you sit back and you start taking inventory, where do we go wrong? And of course the trainer's gonna be like, he's got 10 other athletes. Hey, leave me a voicemail. I'll get to you when I'm free. I discourage athletes from giving away

what they should own, especially in the beginning. Learn your body, use the mirror as your guide, bulk up and diet down and see what you're able to do on your own. I almost feel like it's because they try to rush it because I think, someone like yourself,

for sure you got better at what you were doing over time because you learned your body You you knew oh, I need more of this and you eat a little more of that I know what makes me feel bloated. I know it gives me more energy I know what builds more muscle for me whereas I think a lot of the current, you know athletes go in and be like Okay, I want to compete. I want to be on stage in a year I have I don't know my body tell me me what to do. And they pay for that. And you know what, there's no return on that. If you have a little bit of success,

then the guy winds up reeling you in even more, right? Now you need me because I helped you become who you are. And you stay with this guy because you think, well, I did it with him. So I got to stay with him. He's got the winning form. And now you're suddenly the life coach. You're telling him what to do with his money.

You're telling him, you're telling him what girlfriend he should this money, you're telling them what girlfriend you should date, you're telling them when you should, it's something you've just given all this control to this guy who's like your pastor, your advisor, your trainer, your nutritionist. And I see it so much that makes me sick, especially when it comes to the women, because there's a lot more naivety in the women.

They got these women with these men coaches trying to tell them what they need to do. I've never seen a man walking around in high heels, unless it was RuPaul. These guys are taking these girls and they're turning them into things that they shouldn't be. Like, if I'm a girl, I'm going to have a girl that I want to look like maybe help me. Yeah, it's almost like it's the perfect sport for it, too, because to be, I mean, quite frank, people tend to go to the extreme when it comes to training because of insecurities in their body and they don't like, so it's almost like it's ripe for someone to come and pray

on these insecure people and say, I'll tell you what to do. I'll make you a better. This is a sport of misfits. You'll find behind every success, or I watch the interview with Flex, behind every successful athlete in here, there's something that's messed up.

I don't want to say I'm the exception to the role I'm okay. I'm not. I come from Goodstock. I'm the son of a janitor. My mom was a CPA and I'm the youngest of eight, so I was the last one to eat. Got the smallest piece of meat. But I found that bodybuilding gave me confidence. And when you have success, like coming from football as an MVP, I came in like, let's do this. And when you get success immediately like coming from football as an MVP, I came in like, let's do this. And when you get success immediately, it's state that confidence starts to reinforce that, you know, you can do anything. And then there's the other one, you have the hot chick that comes in here. She's a little bit overweight and, you know, she gets into a shape and she wins a contest,

but she still sees a fat chick, right? So she inner mind her butts flabby or in her mind her boobs aren't big enough, or the body bone that comes in and you small And it gets big But he still thinks it's just not big enough. It's called bigger exia You know just constantly striving to get bigger and those insecurities if you're a jerk and you come into this sport and you have some success Craig Titus You get some success you're on the magazine you get a couple of honey's and stuff and next thing you think you can do anything

You want I mean it reminding me of like Donald Trump, and he's like, I just grabbed it by the pussy. I put a breath in it, and they'll let you do whatever they want. All that stuff just magnifies itself when you're successful in this sport of testosterone. And it does go both ways. There's a lot of girls out there that are kind of over the top. It's very hard to find that happy medium.

And some of the examples I was coming up behind, Leigh Lebrada, Leane Haney, very balanced, and very calculated individuals, Gospari. They're still around. They still have this footprint. Healthy, still have their balance because they did have other things outside of bodybuilding, whereas a lot of our athletes that are champions,

the only thing that defines them, is the gym. So when it's over, they stay like hardcore in the gym. There's no life after bodybuilding, which I believe a lot of it is why when we see Ronnie Coleman, these are injuries that are taking place now. Like do take your foot out the gas, go golfing, go swimming, enjoy your kids, so get away from it. But you stick around in there and you're trying to be something that you can no longer be because of father time, you start to fall apart.

Yeah. But have you seen what kind of changes have you seen in the way these athletes train? You know, when you were training versus maybe how they train now or is it the same? We call it the pacification of body body. Really? They got to pacify. No, no, no, no. You don't see anybody and they're doing the business.

I'm telling you, you're not going to find for you. Let me still limp you on down. Anybody in that gym going balls to the wall. I'm telling you, you're not gonna find, from the limousa to limp your on down, anybody in that gym going balls to the wall. It's not gonna find it. It's different. It's different. I talk to guys like Chris Cormier's one of my good friends. He trains a lot of the guys.

I mean, they don't want to be pushed. There's a limit that they will go to. Big Rommie, he's worked with Big Rommie and Big Rommie's had a certain level of success. But even him, it's like you can't push me too far because I'm already here. And then you can't get to that next level, you know, I remember training with John Brown as a 17 year old. Luckily, the roots were, the, the seas were planted into the roots of my career very early

that just when I thought I went to my limit, John Brown would take me out a little bit further from shore. And it's like I had to swim back, you know? These guys, when you watch them train, they're only going to knee high in the, in the water. They're not going to go to the deep end of the pool. They don't have to. And that's why when you look at the depth of that field, I mean, these, most of these guys look like they're guest posing when they're in Olympia. I mean, after third place, I'm like, I could beat them now. I just got to go do a little bit of cardio.

They're, that's third. That's fourth, that's fifth place in the world. I mean, where did the quality go? It's just gone and it's because they look around and like, you're not gonna do a posing routine. So I'm not gonna do a posing routine and you're not gonna be doing cardio. So I'm not gonna do cardio. So they're only as good as what they're around.

I used to see my competitors in Gold's Gym. I went in there when I saw Flex and Chris. I had to go in the posing room after Charles Glass to bring Flex, Wheeler and Chris Cormier out. And now it's my turn. And there's a puddle of fucking sweat on the ground. I got to match that. I remember watching Muhammad Ali's story.

And the trainer for Muhammad Ali is he got ready to fight George Foreman in Zaire. He said, I would go and watch George Foreman work out. And he just hit that heavy bag. He was slow, but he'd hit the shit out of that heavy bag. And then we would bring Muhammad in afterwards so he could see the indentation on that heavy bag of what he was going to be going up against. And he thought, I feared for my fighter, you know, because I knew that he couldn't withstand this type of punishment. Well, that's how I felt looking back going into posing room when I see the sweat on the ground,

I gotta match that or I gotta double it, because they were working their asses off. And when I go on the gym and I saw them train, I would leave their gym and go to my gym and I would try to double it. So we saw each other train. We had the ability to kind of know what we're up against and we had to raise our expectation

in order to beat those guys. Now, you know, they're sitting there freaking doing absolutely nothing in the gym except talking on the phone, the trainers, the towel around the neck, it's almost like it's watered down. So the quality is not as good. So it's less, less volume and frequency and all that because I mean, you look at some of the routines like Arnold, you know, he trained his whole body three days a week, double split routine, he's doing 20 sets per body part per workout. Yeah. You got guys like Serge new bra back then who was doing sometimes 40 to 50 sets per body

part. I know how you trained was absolutely insane. Dorian, whose volume was low, trained so hard that the guy, I'm surprised he's still alive. And you don't see like that. You don't see it, you're not inspired by it. There's nobody out there that you can actually follow and go holy shit. Like wow, it's impressive to watch.

I mean, they don't go to that degree and they don't have to. Because nobody else is going to that degree. I mean, listen, William Bonux, a good little bodybuilder, but he's just good. I mean, he's not gonna be great because there's not a whole lot he can do with his physique. If you want to impress me, come and shred it. He's got all the muscle that he can handle,

and I told his trainer, Neil Hill, I said, if he eats a potato next year, he's going to be too heavy. And he came into heavier, I almost feel like Nostradamus when it comes to these physics. But they need to go the other way. If they really want to, like, big rami could be Mr. Olympia. If you lost 20 pounds. So, like, how many times are you going to have that opportunity? Okay, you got second. Now you got fifth, either you're gonna retire or you're gonna come and shred it, right? Because coming in big is not what you need to,

you got beat by William Bohnack and William Bohnack shorter than I am. A guy that Big Rommie should never get beat by. Is nobody looking at Rommie and going, look, stay away from your legs? Like, you gotta do something different because if you keep doing the same thing you're gonna get the same results.

But we can't find anything on Instagram or on YouTube or anything that's really inspirational about these bodybuilders training today because they're just not doing the work. You want to see something that's crazy and inspirational. Watch some Ronnie Coleman shit. I mean, he's just going to war. Yeah. But dad lifting 800 pounds going into fucking press. You don't even have to go that far. Yeah, the 800 pounds is impressive. I'd like to be doing that with 350 pounds. You know, just going to war with the way you don't have have to go that far. Yeah, the 800 pounds is impressive. I'd like to be doing that with 350 pounds. You know, just going to war with the way you don't have to do the volume of weight

because height to weight ratio, there's a difference. You have to know your limitations. But I could do the same thing with 350 pound deadlifts and make it feel like the Ronnie Coleman, 800 pound deadlifts, but no one wants to do that. As a matter of fact, I don't even see the guy's deadlifting or doing hyper extensions for that matter. That blows my mind.

That blew my mind was, so I got into men's physique, right, I'm a men's physique pro, and when I got into that space, it blew my mind to see all these athletes just neglecting some of the biggest gross motor movements. I'm like, these are the biggest bang for your buck movements, and you're out there telling people to stay away from deadlifting because you're afraid it's gonna build your waist.

Yeah, and then wearing fucking the girl. For sets? What the fuck is that? Yeah. Listen, man. What the fuck is, if you start seeing all these guys doing it, you're gonna think you need it. And guess who's getting rich?

The Corset Maker. I need to make some of those things to put my name on them, right? Go, hey guys. But it's amazing what people will buy into. Because if they see somebody, if I'm wearing these headphones in the gym, you're gonna probably want to get in the pair of the headphones if I'm on top of my game. It just, you have to go back to the roots of just eat, sleeping, and training,

dumb it down, simplify it, and again, if you know the history, then you just do with the guys that were great used to do, and you can maybe have a better chance to get there. When it, in your peak, when you were training your hardest, what did you work out? How long were they taking you in the gym? You know, I that was my job.

So it wasn't like I worked out and I went and went to work. Yeah. I had the good fortune of having numerous sponsors that facilitated me being able to just go to the gym, come home and eat and take a nap and watch TV. I didn't I never got into playing games. I didn't do things that just wasted my time more often than not, I would be working on my calendar year prior. That's why I was able to get away with competing once a year at the Olympics.

I was gonna make his money. I made sure that I was in all the places the other bodybuilders weren't. When the Mr. Olympia was over in September, I took off until January. I only needed nine months to get ready. I didn't need a full year. So January, I'd start my training.

Did you take off the training? Yeah, I didn't need to lift. I mean, I barely lifted weights. I mean, I did go in and exercise. You know, this is interesting because I've now seen some studies to show that that might actually be beneficial. And I know there were other bodybows that would do that as well. Kevin LeVroni would do it. Yeah, you would actually, yeah, totally look completely differently. Get back in and did you find that benefited your physique? Well, it was all I knew. Coming up, when the show was over in September,

which was every September, was always around my birthday, it was, I used about two months to kind of make my appearances. So there was some maintenance training in there, but I wouldn't even call it working out because I didn't really push myself. But November and December were just holiday time. And then I'd start to wrap it back up in January, but not thinking I was doing something earth shattering.

It was just always a part of my training. I knew I didn't need a whole year to change the way that I looked. And from January to March, I would use that as like, trying to get the soreness out from March until June. I would start trying to ramp up a little bit of size and wait from June till whatever August, I would start to kind of like clean up my diet

and then I'd turn it on for the Mr. Olympia. That was, I was doing that, I didn't know Kevin was doing it, but most of the guys they jumped right back on the saddle and you just wind up, you know, getting yourself right for injury or burnout. But I think Kevin looks great still. Yeah, I enjoyed lifting weights, but I think part of the love affair was I got to chance to get away from it.

I mean, I was one of the few guys that I was one of the few guys that did a lot of recreational things. I had other interests, especially sports wise, I loved any type of sports. I read two and three newspapers a day and when I traveled, I was a historian, going to the places where I used to do book reports on like South Africa When I went over to to see the cell that Nelson Mandela was held hostage in hostage held captive in for 27 years I wrote book reports on that in high school in college So my interest was outside the realm of bodybuilding. I like to do things that would stimulate my mind

So when I got back into to start bodybuilding I missed it and now I can fire up and the reason why it stands out So prominent now to me is that because I remember talking to guys like Chris and Flex and Paul to let they were just so downtrodden and One dimensional And playing lots of video games and Melvin Anthony They just didn't have any hobbies or interests and also they removed themselves from some of their family Whereas I was always close to home I was in a 30 mile radius from where I was born. So when my gym time was done, I'm hanging out with guys I went to elementary school with, played football

with in high school, went to parties and social events with people that I knew that Numi not as a bodybuilder, but Numi and Sean Ray. Most of the bodybuilders were coming out to Gold's gym or from someplace else, didn't have any family, didn't have any friends, didn't have any interests. So I kind of distance myself from that nomadic bodybuilding world of just like, it gets very dark. Because again, it's all about how you look, it's how you feel, it's how much money you're making, what you're sacrificing, the drugs that you're on, and then the influences that are around you, they're fans, and not really friends. You don't trust anybody, you don't really know anybody. So there's a lot of identity that gets stripped away when you start going after this thing called Mr. Olympia, especially when you bring it over to Golds Jim and Venice. And me coming from Orange County, I could

kind of go into Golds Jim and come back to the real world and be where I'm born and where I'm from with people that know and love me. But yeah, the landscape is totally changed. There's no friends, there's no camaraderie. You can't go into Gold Gym and know that you're gonna see the guy in the magazines are gonna be their training. When I walked in the gym, there's Tom Platz, there's Mike Christian, there's Bob Parris, there's Hulk Hogan, there's Magic Johnson. I mean, Gold was the place to be. It's like Studio 54 in the 80s. Now, where do you go? You know what I mean, if I'm a bodybuilder, I'm thinking do I go to Kuwait?

Because, you know, these guys are actually doing some pretty good things over there. But there's, I think, more physique guys coming out of there than there are hardcore bodybuilders. So there's really no home base. There's no Joe Weeter. There's no magazine that you can look forward to getting on the cover.

There's no guarantee that someone's gonna give you a contract if you win shows. I mean, back in the day, if you win certain shows, you knew something was waiting for you. Something good, whether you were a black, white, or big or small, you had opportunity to make money. Now you've got to find ways to make that. A lot is changing.

We just talked about how you think the future of bodybuilding is classic or physique and how it's not about being in the magazines as much as it is about social media and there's some other big changes that we were noticing now we're in the business of media and Fitness and we see for example. I'll give you a great example bodybuilding.com was one of the most visited websites Period on the internet and over the last you know few years the the visits that they've seen if if And over the last few years, the visits that they've seen, if dramatically started to decline,

they were the number one seller of supplements, Amazon now, is starting to move in and starting to take over. What do you see in the future for this kind of stuff? Do you think it's still part of the evolution, isn't that what happened to golds and powerhouse and worlds? Yeah. Then we start seeing 24 hour and EOS, fitness, and crunch, fitness, and planet, fitness.

I mean, even with the Apple, you you got Galaxy and all the Samsung and all this other competition. Someone's got to leave the start with the footprint. And then there's going to be all these other opportunities that come from that footprint. I just watched the movie bigger that Joe about the Joe and Ben. I haven't seen that yet. How was it? It took me back to a simpler place in time when I look at that picture up there.

It's just such simple, slow time. But when they were doing what they were doing to create what we have now, there wasn't a lot of competition, although they had one nemesis, which was this guy from the AAU. So this one guy wanted to suppress and he came from a powerlifting and strength type thing. Remember, you were talking about the combination of physique and these activities. Well, you had this nemesis, and with that nemesis, it forces you to have to stay on your toes and keep on creating. And with bodybuilding and bodybuilding.com,

it was all about bodybuilding. We didn't have bikini and physique and figure and classic and all these other things. And it was a one-stop shop. But eventually, as you add all these other things to it, including sportswear and clothing and all these other items, you're gonna see competition come and I think competition's good. Bodybuilding.com, I was one of the original writers for Jeremy and his brother Ryan, Deluca and Russ, the father.

And for them to sell that at $100 million and go on and do other things, that's awesome. I was there with Joe Weeter when he sold to AMI for three hundred twenty million dollars I believe it was. Awesome. I'm watching this movie bigger where they're kind of showing that the origins of it all starting with a printing press and a fifteen cent magazine and then creating all the universe

in America to create the Mr. Olympia. I'm one of those guys, again when when I told you I'm a historian, that was looking at that movie and seeing Arnold and Sergio, and you can imagine me being born in 65, and then watching them name the Mr. Olympia in 65, and then having an opportunity to become friends with Larry Scott,

the original Mr. Olympia, knowing Sergio Levya, and now knowing his son Sergio Jr. Winning the Arnold Classic in 1990 and 1991, actually winning it, losing it, and then working as a commentator for Arnold Schwarzenegger and then covering his shows in Brazil and in Spain and Australia. I feel like I'm one of the very few throwbacks that have a connection with working with Joe and Ben, with Arnold, and knowing every Mr. Olympia there is, knowing that the Mr. Olympia title, the first time they had the Sandout trophy was 1977, and of

course that was Frank Zane that got the first trophy. Phil Heath who won the Mr. Olympia seven times, his first pro win was the Sean Ray Classic in Colorado. I feel like I've journeyed through this thing and watched it evolve and change, and now I'm still living in the evolution and the change of it, but I'm one of the few that embraces it. I like the idea that you have all of these different gyms, all these different websites, Amazon. Some of them are taking it to the next level.

I commentated the Mr. Olympia for Amazon.com a year ago and this year it was by iHerb.com. They're giving us a platform to project out to the world and I'm in the world. I'm in India, I'm in China, I'm in Australia. Bodybuilding is global and because of companies like Bodybuilding.com and because of companies like Amazon, the entire world is getting a re-education, I should say, about who I am. It gives me legs and strength that all that bodybuilding education I have is not being wasted because I can take it into places that, like, Joe and Binded. Can you imagine them traveling back in the 30s and 40s to all these different countries, trying to plant seeds for the IFB?

And now here I am in 2018, traveling to those countries where they planted the seeds and putting on shows. I mean, I'm seeing shows in China. You know, they speak Chinese in China, but we have enough athletes and enough judges that speak English and they need that moderator. And I'm able to bring enough stage experience to carry the flow of the contest so that it comes off professional. I had the opportunity to MC the Mr. Olympia in 2006 and 2007,

a show that I, you know, idolized when I was 17 years old, like competed in it for 14 years, then I turned around, I'm MCing it. So I'm very lucky to be part of that evolution. You're noticing it with maybe a different set of eyes, but for me, all of these new companies coming in is just I think enriching our sport and also making it more inclusive. for me, all of these new companies coming in is just, I think, enriching our sport and

also making it more inclusive. Yeah, Joe Weeter is widely regarded as one of the, obviously, the godfather of the sport. A lot of people don't know his brother, Ben, quite as much. And Ben's big goal was the Olympics was to get bodybuilding Olympics. Have they given up on that? I think so. Listen, I think on some level, Rafael Centoja was trying to carry that torch. It sounds great. But at the end of the day, if they're not doing the drug testing, it's

not going any Olympics anyways. And I just watched a documentary on one of the Russian drug guys that was working with the cyclist. Yeah, he said all of the guys were the whole thing was a farce, right? So to have all that drug testing talk from WADA and all that stuff, it just is a big, stinky mess. And I think that at the end of the day, again, this is a physique show as much as it is a race car event. When you watch NASCAR, you're not thinking about steroids, but those guys are amped up on Adderall and all kind of shit, you know, the drivers, I'm talking about.

And the cars are juiced up with all kind of extra, you know, it's not the gas that we use. Right. But we tune in because we either want to see a great race or we want to see a train wreck. Right. And so you're right. People are going to tune in to bodybuilding because they want to see that Jurassic Park. They want to go see the big dinosaurs, man.

They want to see, but they are becoming dinosaurs. There's fewer and fewer of them. And I think it's because we realize they don't live that long, you know? And it's a scary place to be. If you're a five foot 10, six foot bodybuilding, you know, you're gonna have to be 300 pounds if you're gonna be anything.

And now you gotta figure out what I have to do to get there. What are some of the biggest, I guess, I don't know what the right word would be used, but risks for the sport and business of bodybuilding today. I remember when the injectable like synthol started becoming a big thing and a lot of people were worried, like that's different, you're not building muscle.

Is there anything you see that threatens the sport now or trends and stuff that you're like, okay, we need to stop that? Yeah, you know, it's funny because before we looked at that kind of curious note, and now we frown on it, like a bodybuilder sees another bodybuilder or a senthal You know, it's like us sitting here smoking a joint and suddenly somebody pulls out a crack pipe Slow down man, I just want to get high. I don't want to die

So when we see a meathead walk around all it's senthal I mean, it's like, dude, what the hell are you trying to do? Like, you're making it bad for me. Don't call yourself a bodybuilder. I mean, that's not even, you didn't even partially work to get that look. You know, so, and it's different if you're a girl getting a boob job. We can respect that and appreciate it because she's trying to enhance her femininity. But the synth all is not trying to enhance your masculinity.

It's almost making a joke out of what it is that we're in the gym trying to develop. Is it more rampant now or people starting to scale? I don't think it's more rampant. I think it's probably on a global scale, not in the US, is something we see with more frequency because there's a lot of meatheads out there thinking that this is how you do it. Not enough education. And once it's done, it's very hard to undo. You know, we had Greg Valentino and a couple of other people around here that we could point our fingers at. I'm pretty sure Rich Piana had that shit going on. And I'm sure that contributed to his death. But now that we know that that's part of a contributing factor, I think Americans

are smart enough that we can't even get on stage and get away with that. But you see people from these other countries through Instagram and on Jim Fuckery on Instagram. You see these guys pop it up and you're like, what the hell are they thinking? And not to be naive about it, they can't undo it because the skin stretch so much that how do you even suck it out? It's almost probably more dangerous to take that shit out

than to leave it in and you know where that's going. It's gonna go right to the arteries and the heart and it's gonna be some clogging and some blockage. And who's gonna live that long with those lumps and bumps? It's funny because it's synthol was probably being used in the 90s to a small degree by certain people. It wasn't super well known. It was later on that it became popular.

It's funny because I think back to some of the bodybuilders back then, I think. I wonder if like Ernie Taylor was a bodybuilder, I thought he had this crazy look to his arms and he said, did he use synth all back then? And then there was that one guy, manfred, or about, I think he died. Yeah, biggest arms in the world.

Nobody knew about synth all back then, so everybody just stopped this guy and saying arms. For sure, he was using some shit in his life. And that's, and Nathan Naser, else some body to a degree, You saw his bicep. I was complaining about him in 96 when he got third to me. Then he got second in 97.

I said, he's putting shit in his shoulders. I can see it in his biceps. I see it in his calves. You guys don't see this? Like I'm talking to officials. You guys don't see this. Why would you reward it? It's gonna get worse.

And then Nasser from 97, in 98, he won't even be able to make the top 10 of a regular show. Then he was in need of a kidney, and he was in need of a heart, of course, then he died. So I would imagine if somebody had a gotten a Zier, maybe he would have pumped his brakes, but you know, it's hard to control what a man is doing in his free time,

because we're adults. Especially when you're rewarding it. Yeah, and it's getting rewarded, but even like you said with Ernie, Ernie had a certain measure of success, and we all knew something's going on, whether it's getting rewarded. But even, like you said, with Ernie, Ernie had a certain measure of success and we all knew something's going on, whether it's synthol or whatever it is, it's not uniform to what we're rewarding there.

It looks so mark them down. Yeah, it looks so different that you got to mark them down. Because if you just keep them in the game, he's gonna keep doing it. Because he thinks, well, he should've put it in his caps, really. I remember when you were talking, when you were saying that Flex had a capping in his caps, really. Or in hamstrings. But I remember when you were talking,

when you were saying that Flex had a calf implant in the magazine, I remember that pickle. So, yeah, that was my strategy, right? I mean, I was smart like a fox. Flex couldn't figure me out, but he couldn't deny that I would give him his props when I needed to, and that I'd take it all back

when it was time to get ready for a show. I knew that he didn't have calf implants. I knew he was putting something in his calves and that's all I needed to constitute like an investigation. So here we were training in 1997 for the Arnold Classic and he wins the competition and takes his money and he disappears. Now May, the New York, not the Champions is coming around. That's when I start getting ready for the Mr. Olympia and he's looking for me.

Hey man, when we're going to start training and I'm thinking I don't not want to drag you The New York, not the Champions is coming around. That's when I start getting ready for the Mr. Olympia. And he's looking for me. Amen. When we're gonna start training and I'm thinking, I don't not wanna drag you through the gym to make you beat me, right? Cause I carried him every day, like I walked into the gym and when I saw him, like the air got sucked out of the gym. I'm amped.

I go to the gym, I'm ready to get down. You go to the gym with him, it's like you're walking into a funeral. He's in there. He, for the amount of success he had, he miserably, I don't even want to say enjoyed, he miserably went through the through the steps. If he had a half an ounce of motivation that I had, he would have been Mr. Olympia without question. He definitely enjoyed the fruit of his labors, but it came with a lot of pain and everyone in the camp that was around him had to feel that pain

because when he did a set, he's dropping on the floor. We call that a negative Nancy. Yeah, he turns his back. As my said, he turns his back. He puts his hands on his head. You got to drag him off the bench to get him in there to do it. And you know that if he does it, he's going to be great. And when he's doing the work, he does the work.

But in between is where the whole, the room gets all the oxygen's taken away. It's a depressing, dark place. And then I knew I was not going to get ready for the 97 Olympia with that as my responsibility. So I told him no. And he kind of got pissed off about it. But then that's when I saw his calves look like they were 23 inches. What it was, it came off the Arnold Classic, right? And after that, you kind of blow up.

You get big and round and literally cartoonish. But I knew something was putting like an Ezeklyn or something in his couch. Oh yeah. And this is a time where they were talking about, they were gonna start penalizing for implants. So I said, I don't know if that's the shot or if it's implants. I think it's an implant. I think it's an implant.

I think that's an implant. Well, then prove me wrong. Show us that it's not an implant. And he couldn't show us anything because it wasn't an implant. I mean, I knew that, but I kept that going up long enough. And by the way, we didn't have social media. We had these boards that we could talk on.

Uh, and then it was, you have to, the president said you have to lodge a complaint. So I wore all in this athlete's meeting long before the Olympian. I lodged my complaint. So look, I'll put it in writing. He's got calf implant. That's like, I'll get up and break your jaw. He wanted to fight me. They had to pull him back in Santa Monica from a meeting.

And I'm like, well, prove it. You know, go to a doctor, have those things examined. It was enough to create and give birth to the ninja story. Have you heard about the ninja story? Well, what was that? That was flexes imagination. So correct me if I'm wrong. He pulled out of a contest because he got attacked

by dudes with katana swords. And he fought them all off with his tech wonder or something. And he threw their keys and he got away and he went to the doctor and give him some mushrooms. What happens? So this is the this is the this is the cat implant story that I concocted. This is the psychological war for you.

You're turning to ninjas. So we use the term ninjas because they were Asian. Sorry about the races. But this is Flex's account that he was driving somewhere and he stopped and some guys got out of the car and they wanted to take his car. And he threw his keys and he had to take them on and he inflicted some damage.

They inflicted damage and he got away and then he got home and he made a report a report that nobody ever saw. And then this is his out from the Olympia. This is a couple of weeks before the Olympia. Like, is he had a cast or something on his arm covering? But prior, I should say, it was after this incident, it happened, he was being filmed for the battle for the Olympia.

So it's documented. He's in there with his wife. He's doing his posing. He smooths the baby's ass from the hamster. But he's got his genetics of carrying him. His genetics of carrying him. Like, if he was in the show, the Olympia this year, you'd want it in that condition.

That's how good he was even when he was off. But he made the mistake of getting this film like after this incident happened and you could clearly see that he was off. And then he had to go and, because you get fined if you get out of the Olympia without a medical experience. So we found someone to put a soft cast on his hand,

and he showed up at the 97 Olympias, wearing his best surgical leave of suit with glasses and had his hand up there prominently. If I wanted you to see my watch, I'd be up here like this the whole time. He's up there with the cast, with the soft cast. Do you see, I broke my hand, and he addressed the audience, I'm thinking,

why are you giving him the microphone? If he's not competing, don't let him say anything. Like, really? When I got suspended in 1989 for not competing, I couldn't go to the audience and say, hey guys, sorry I got hurt in the gym, so I'm not competing. They gave him this platform to address the audience

because it was supposed to be his year. He won the Arnold in 97, he's supposed to win the Olympia. I got in his head so bad, and I'm sure he's hearing it from everybody. He's gonna get tested and his calves are gonna get tested. He didn't know what would happen with his test that he came up with this thing. You know, he's got an imagination, okay?

He lets his mind dictate what he's gonna do. And I heard him tell you guys, he wanted to come to my house and push me in the door and beat me up and no one would know. That's where he's fucking twisted in the head. So I got him all wrapped up with his calf story and he comes out with this story and I said, what a bunch of ninjas attacked you with the hell is this, you know? And I got third in that Mr. Olympia and later on, somehow I'm not there, I was able to kind of squash it with them and kind of calm the waters because

he's highly, highly testosterone driven. And I think he went on in 98 and won the Arnold Classic. And it was like redemption for him to come back and win the competition and get the prize money. And I kind of let him off the hook. And I tell everybody you don't have calf implants, but it was psychological warfare with him. Yeah, yeah. I had to get this in to keep him from killing me.

Like it was like really poking a bear because I didn't know he's really that. He has some psychosis to him. And I came very close to probably dying. That's so great. Did you actually during your career, did you actually build any lifelong relationships or friends like other guys that you?

You know, I don't think, I did, like Chris Cromier as a guy that came on my campus when I was 17 and he was 15 and he had heard about me because I had already competed a couple of times and he was like, I remember seeing him. He was there for a wrestling meet and he was like, you're Sean Ray. Oh my God. Well, we kind of socially kind of, he's from a different side of the tracks.

He's from Palm Springs, but we socially would run into each other. The year I won the California in 87, he won the teenage division. And then he would go on to kind of mimic and follow my career throughout and he ran with Flex. Him and Flex were training partners pretty much for his whole career. But now in retirement, like he and I are closer than anybody that I've ever had a relationship with in the industry because I put on these muscle camps.

He comes in, he's the blue collar worker. He puts people through the workouts and he finds me work and I find him work. But there's no one that I drug along with me now. I became best friends already and I thought with. I didn't want to. Were there any people you just just and you Annoyed the fuck out of you that you didn't like yeah, I didn't like nasser

Um, I I love to poke fun at leaf priests, so he still comes back at me Well, that's a good person to poke at cuz he's another smaller but also you know exceptional bodybuilder Yeah, and you know he's got a certain dry humor about him Then I like to kind of hear it so I keep poking him But I didn't like the kind of hear it, so I keep poking him. But I didn't like the kind of person that was, he played in a golf tournament that I had a charity golf tournament

for children's hospital of Orange County. And just just too much arrogance and entitlement. And that comes with being a bodybuilder. But if you can't channel it, right? And turn that shit off when you're supposed to, it's who you are. And those kind of guys, I don't dig, right? I mean, there's a certain responsibility we have

as athletes that, you know what, first impressions are all they get. And if you fuck that up, you know, it's hard to come back and fix it. And there's been times I've seen on message boards, like Sean raised an asshole, I asked before an autograph and at the, at the Arnold Classic, and he left and ignored me.

Yeah, well, how did that happen? Well, we were in the bathroom. Dude, they'll come up to me in the bathroom trying to get an autograph. You know, I'm sitting there with my pictures out for hours. I put my pictures away and I'm leaving the venue and they want to buy a picture all of a sudden. You know, I'm the kind of guy that say,

no, dude, go to my website. You know, send me an email or write me it. There's a time and a place. And so I don't mind criticism from certain individuals, but I'm always aware of what I did and who I am as an ambassador and as a representative. The negative shit comes from me actually telling it like it is.

If you're a bodybuilder and I critique you, I'm going to do it in real time. It's unfiltered. And you might not like me after you're done with that. But you know what? The one thing you're going to hear is the truth. I don't have a horse in the race, but there's a lot of bodybuilders I don't talk to today because they didn't like what I said about them as a physique person. That's weak.

Yeah, it's very weak, but it's very abundant in this. Well, I mean, you could argue that bodybuilding is probably the most, if not one of the most alpha sports. I mean, you build yourself to be the biggest monster. Maybe fighting, I would say, is maybe the other one. I mean, those two, so you got to definitely probably have some fragile egos. First, it starts from the top. I mean, I love Phil Heath, man, but he's on the message boards fighting with a bunch of no.

Oh, I know. I see him all the time debating with people on Instagram. Like, bro, what are you doing addressing Instagram trolls? He's not alone in that. There's a lot of guys. I mean, Crick Titus would want to come to your house and beat you up for talking smack on his physique. You know, I mean, King Kamali, another guy

that came up with me. There's so many guys out there. The one guy that was never that way was like somebody like Ronnie Coleman, a Lehanie, I mean, people that know they're good at what they do, they're pretty secure. The guys, it's like sand going through their hands, they come back and they want to fight

and they don't want to hear that negative stuff. And it's still a mind through their hands, they come back and they wanna fight and they don't wanna hear that negative stuff. And it's still a mind-fuck in this business because you are somebody that you built yourself to being, but it doesn't change who you are up here mentally. There's a lot of mental shit, especially with women, because when that, those lights go away, your value in yourself worth is how you're being seen in the world.

And suddenly you're like, you know Five years removed and you got a little bit more body fat Maybe a divorce or a kid or something and suddenly you're trying to move in this industry and nobody knows who you are The girls have it the hardest I've talked to these girls, you know I'm taunting a night one the Arnold classic and I didn't want one with she looks great for age She went to the Arnold class. She's like Sean. Nobody knows me here. I go who cares? You're gonna watch the freaking show I mean you don't have to be known. I know, but I see all these young girls.

Well, of course, it's young girls. The sports continuing on. It's the next generation of athletes, but in the minds of it's like, I have to look a certain way in order just to move in this space. I think competing on stage, I don't care if it's bodybuilding, physique, bikini, whatever. If you are confident in yourself,

it will make you a more confident, selfish, uh, self-aware person. If you are insecure about your body, who you are, if you're just insecure, an insecure individual, bodybuilding or physique or exaggerating, destroy you. Yeah, we reveal that. And the thing about it is, like, I know I'm retired. I know I'm not putting in the work in the gym. So when I take my shirt off, I'm not trying to'm retired. I know I'm not putting in the work in the gym. So when I take my shirt off, I'm not trying to impress anybody. And I'm not looking for somebody to notice me.

It got forbid somebody does notice me. Half the time when I go play, you see a picture of my feet. I want to show you the point of view. In my mind's eye, when I travel the world, you see everybody doing selfies, right? They want you to see where they're at. Well, I want to give you perspective of where I'm at, right?

So typically I want to mark my territory by putting my feet out and taking the picture of the view. In my mind, my whole life I spent looking at myself in the mirror, training and sculpting and defining. And I ate alone, I traveled alone. I lived a very nomadic lifestyle. I didn't have close friends because all those appearances I'm making I'm going to meet strangers and I'm there for such a short time. I'm not making friends

I'm not even making memories because we didn't have like the telephone with the with the picture on it I didn't travel with the camera all these places throughout the 90s in the world that I went I didn't document any of it and now I try to document it from my perspective so when I look at my camera I see I see what I'm supposed to be seeing. I'm not fucking trying to be in the picture. And if I'm at the beach or I'm at a resort, I'm not trying to take a picture to see if I have abs. I'm not going through a body transformation.

I am so watered down with looking at myself that a lot of times I take a shower in the dark. I don't need any light. I don't want to see my body. And it's because I'm not spending any time working on it. Like, that's not who I am, it's not what I am. And I found it very ironic. Remember Cal Scalic?

Cal Scalic was the guy that did the famous like Jesus pose in the 70s at the Olympia like he got crucified. Oh yeah. I ran into him at a funeral of a mutual friend with John Brown who introduced me to body, but I said, Cal, let's take a picture together. He says, no. I said, why? I don't know people to see how skinny I am. I go, you're a cycl together. He says, no. I said, why is I, I don't know, people

to see how skinny I am. I go, you're a cyclist. Nobody gives a shit. He's like, yeah, but they're just gonna judge me. So the Body Buller is constantly aware that he's always being judged on who he was. And for me, I go give a shit. You know, and I think that's where my balance comes from.

I work out a little bit. I like to work out because I like to eat. I have a food all. I be 300 pounds if I didn't go to the gym. But when I go to the gym, I'm not really trying to do anything with my body other than move the fat and move the calories, break a little bit of sweat, increase my metabolism. Because I know that calories in and no calories out,

you're just gonna get fat. So I try to do a little bit of exercise, but my exercise for me that's therapeutic is riding a bike or walking. And when I say walking, I'm not walking on a treadmill, I'm walking outside, I'm seeing shit, I'm doing things outside of the gym, but most bodybuilders can't find that balance.

They can't, and I think you're right, because there's very few I can think of that are, very sure. In fact, I think Sean's probably one of the only ones I've talked to that I think that has that kind of a perspective on himself. Well, just a healthy, not just healthy physically, but mentally and still in the sport. And what I mean by that is like there's you, LeBrona, Gaspari.

I can't think of a whole lot of other guys who are still in the business of it, but are healthy and feel mentally healthy and emotionally healthy. I think it comes from the passion. I think people start bodybuilding for different reasons. I mean, there's people start because they want to make money. They want to be famous. They want to be in a magazine or they want to prove something to their dad or their brother or their girlfriend.

They got, they're on a mission. I fell in love with it. I became passionate about it. This is, I'm a historian. Like, I could sit here and rattle off dates and places and artisks. You're an artist. You can paint, you can paint a canvas and put the brush down every once in a while. But that comes with passion.

Because there was a lot of stuff I did for free. A lot of stuff that I would travel for free to put me in a position of opportunity to do other things, which is why now I have the Sean Ray classic over in Hawaii. I was brought there in 1988 by Dot and Mitzkauer Sheen when they died already. But I went back for a competition to MC and I saw the dilapidate, the dilapidation of the bodybuilding industry. The show was starting late, the trophies were shit and the promoter didn't give a crap and try to rush everybody out and I said, something's got to be done here and I came back and

I told Jim Manian about it and he created an opportunity for me to have a show. And last year I had the biggest show in 25 years. First time I live in California. That's a six hour flight to Hawaii, but who doesn't want to go to Hawaii? You know, so my passion is like, wow, I love the beach, I love the surf, I love the pools, I love Hawaii. Next, you know, I got the biggest show in Hawaii

in 25 years because I put all my passion into it. And now I've got a second show in Maui in 2019 in March that I'm able to do. So now I've got two shows that will help the Islanders, some of those people never got off the island. I went over there and I gave away a free trip to the Mr Olympia weekend. I took the national trophies that you get for winning the Nationals of the USA's I brought those fuckers over there so those athletes could win something tangible. Yeah, some of those guys will never leave Hawaii, right? It's not like it's another country, but they just it's very expensive to live there and some of them don't travel.

So all they have are these Hawaiian shows. I brought those trophies. This watch I'm wearing, I got the sponsor, Swole-A-Clock watch. They're giving six of these away to my six overall champions. What's it called, Swole-A-Clock? It's called Swole-A-Clock, that's awesome. It's heavy, too, pass around. So I went over there, I got my sponsors.

I got Leo Mishi, luxury line clothing. They're giving away clothing to the winners. I've got gripped headphones, grip fitness audio. They're giving away headphones to my overall champion. So these guys are getting stuff that they never thought possible. And to top it off, I've got three of the six overall champions. They're gonna go, all expenses paid to China

to compete in an IFB pro qualifier. So if you're living in Hawaii and you wanna compete, you have a chance to go to China and get a pro card. And are you familiar with heat of todion Mageshi. Yeah, he's got his first pro-am competition taking place in Japan November 19th. Oh Next year three of my winners from Maui will have a chance to go over that show and do that So I'm doing a lot of bartering with other promoters to be creative out there on those islands very cool Who benefits this is shit that I'm giving back that when I'm gone can be paid forward, right?

I mean, I want people to say kind of like watching what Arnold's doing with his show. I want people to say that You know, I came over there and I did it. You know, I did the thing and I did it right. It's a great example You's Arnold because Arnold he still plays homage to his bodybuilding roots even though the guy obviously What is it about the Arnold classic that I think a lot of bodybuilders and even like strong men competitors like that They say that's the I mean I feel like it's almost getting more prestige than Olympia. Do you? Well it is because it's more inclusive listen you can go to the Arnold classic to watch a bikini competition and See some guy in one of the side rooms shooting archery, you know

They have a cheerleading competition. They have a children's fair. There's a 5k run There's the arm wrestling championships. I mean, there's an art competition taking place. It just brought every, it's bigger than the Olympics. The Olympics doesn't have 22,000 athletes. So it's not just Arnold. It's his army of people working, most of which are volunteers. The Lorimer, Jim and Bob Lorimer and Kathleen Lorimer.

These guys, they're all bringing everything together under this one roof. And this happened in 1975 when the mr. Olympia was held in Columbus Arnold said when I'm done Jim I want to come back and work with you I want to I want to do something with you and then in 1989 they had the first one and ironically in 2012 2012 I did the first and only documentary on the Arnold classic the 25-year anniversary

So I had a chance to get the history of how their relationship happened It was a handshake agreement. There's nothing in writing right now. Oh, wow. That thing brings in $40 million to the economy. Think about it. You have 200,000 people coming to Columbus. It impacts the hotels. It impacts the airlines. It impacts the food industry. I mean, that is a machine. And it's like that buses. I mean, a lot of that shit's done on volunteer. People just want to attach themselves to something great. So Arnold and him, just a handshake?

It's a handshake. And that's, that, nothing in writing. And now Bob, loymer, is helping. And now it's globalized. It's in Brazil. It's over in Spain. They had one in China. They had one in South Africa.

So, I mean, what Arnold did, I mean, nobody can really replicate it because it's Arnold, is he took his passion and he turned it into something that how many people have benefited from that. Listen, I mean, Flex Wheeler won four Arnold Classic titles and Dexter Jackson's won nine when you start counting Australia and South Africa. It's created careers. Now, those nine championships, you know,

$100,000 plus Flex Wheeler, $400,000 and those four wins it was enough to buy his house Branch Warren's got a couple Kai Green's got a few. I mean that Arnold classic was more important I think to the bodybuilder because it's not coming from Joe Weeter. It's coming from another bodybuilder Right, you know, is the judging different because of that? No, then you got this you pretty much have the same judges And you almost have the same athletes with the exception of Mr. Olympia I mean Ronny Coleman is the only Ronnie in Dexter with the only two to win the Arnold and the Olympian Yeah, cuz it's kind of an unsaid rule not rule, but agreement that the crown to mr Olympia doesn't compete in the

Part of the reason that is is cuz once you win that title It's hard to go back into that lion's den and of course and train when you have that title You have all these opportunities to make appearances. You can make more appearances between the Olympia and the Arnold Classic than they pay you prize money. Oh right. So you have these responsibilities like becoming Miss America and you gotta go make all these appearances.

When are you gonna find time to train? Right after you won the Olympia. I mean, for me, Ronnie did it in 2001. That was the year I retired. He won the Arnold in the01 and he came back around in one of Mr. Olympia in a one and that's when I decided I don't want to be around for the Ronnie Coleman retirement party. But it's a very tough run from the Olympia to the Arnold.

So I get my hats off to Dexter Jackson because he did it routinely. And Flex never did master that did it. He won the Arnold but that Olympia, he just never showed up. Right. You run out of gas by the time the Olympia comes around when your weight's going up and down and you're not doing something you love. Yeah, yeah.

Flex that all that success doing something he didn't really like, not love. You know, if he had a love what he did, he would have been Mr. Olympia. I think a lot of people agree with that, maybe even him, you know. So what is your main business now? Is it promoting? I'll talk about the Sean TVT. I talk about the TVT. I'm a little bit of everything now. So I worked with Joe Weeter at Muscle Fitness

and Steve Blackman and Robert Kennedy, even John Baylake. I mean so many people are dying, right? Like it's almost like that the passing of the torch is going on. I'm really concerned about people having an attachment to the history. When something happened in the industry

is to be able to pick up the phone and go, Joe, what the hell's going on? And he could attachment to the history. Like when something happened in the industry, it used to be able to pick up the phone and go, Joe, what the hell's going on? And he could tell me the truth. And Peter McGoff, who wrote for a long time, somebody said, Bertel Fox, he used to be a great bodybuilder that he died.

He's in prison right now doing a double life set. So he killed so many. Yeah, so how do you get verification? You got like, where do you go to get the facts? Who do you call? Right, so by me being mobile and being involved with the upcoming athletes and being associated with the former athletes, it's kind of, I'm everything to everybody right now. But I, with the Sean Ray TV, I don't have to be

waiting on a check from muscular development or generation iron to send me somewhere to get content. Now I could find my own sponsors that can send me places I can gather my own content. I have different interests. Like I want to have my where they now segment on my Sean Ray TV Where I'm sitting down with some of the people that help start this industry sitting across from Ronnie Coleman or from Lehanie or finding out what their family's like, you know Lehanie's got he's about to become a grandfather Oh, wow and I want to be sitting there in his living room with his eight sound out trophies and see his wife that he married from Elementary school and his two kids, you know, he brought Josh on stage and he brought Olympia And I want to be sitting there in his living room with his eight sound out trophies and see his wife that he married from elementary school

And his two kids, you know, he brought Josh on stage and he brought Olympia. He named his daughter Olympia She's a full grown woman now And where are they now? What are they doing right so I want to bring that kind of thing back and then there's to kind of like the Robin leech lifestyles of the rich and famous Right, so I want to see like what's the fruit of their labor? He's got a great story. He wanted one of the Mr. Olympus, the Astro Weeter. What do I do with this money?

And Joe said, buy land. So he was in Atlanta, he went out and he bought just a patch of dirt. It was like $60,000, he put it down and he just left it. Some 15 or 20 years later, the airport, Hartfield Airport in Atlanta wanted to buy this land because they're expanding the freaking airport because this Such a major hub and he sold it for two million dollars. Oh wow, great He took that two million dollars and he bought a strip

Mall and he put in there. They got Starbucks Verizon subway. I mean legitimate tenants and he bought his house off of one of his Olympia checks some 25 30 years ago for like $600,000, which is like $2 million now. Hearing those stories gives the bodybuilders coming up behind them a little bit of perspective on what's possible. Now, is that more common or less common? Like what do you see like knowing everybody?

Is there more guys that have actually taken that and done great things in our financially set or is there more guys that are struggling financially? Yeah, I mean, it's like any other sport. You know, isn't it amazing you watch these basketball players on a hundred million dollar deal and they're broke like in ten years. Yeah, they don't have a manager. So there's really no story on how to do it or there's nobody even showing an example of what can

be done. But when I sit across from somebody like Lehanie, I'm absorbing that shit and I'm telling that story to other people so they hear it. I want to capture that from the source, right? I did it on my radio show when I was in Muskut development, but I'm gonna be traveling around with Sean Ray TV getting those little nuggets and also the other side. Craig sits in a jail for murdering the assistant out in the desert, firing the desert.

He burned his assistant. You remember that Craig? Yeah, absolutely. This is girlfriend, right? Yeah, him and his girlfriend. Him and his wife. His wife. He and his girlfriend. Him and his wife. His wife. They killed his girlfriend.

And I got my fingerprints on that because when Craig came to Vegas, I picked them up with the airport and he guessed pose and I showed him where to buy his house. And then he moves out there. I didn't know he was gonna become a killer. But what's he doing now? I want to try to get that story.

Yeah. Because that story's not gonna get told unless somebody that's close to it goes and seeks it out. I don't even know that. Oh yeah. Craig, Craig and Bertel Fox are the two bodybuilders that I'm jail for murder. Yeah. So 97 Bertel Fox flew me out there to do his grand opening at his gym in his homeland, St. Kitts out in the islands. His girlfriend picked me up. Leoca, actually, it was his ex girlfriend at the time, but they were friends. She was like 21, 20 years old. And a year later, he comes back from England, she had moved on, had a boyfriend, had a relationship,

and he came in and he shot her in her mom's shop. And since the mom probably made a fist, Hissy fit about it, he shot her too in the face. And then he waited for the cops to come. And he was facing hanging, I guess, because it's governed by either the English or the French or something like that But he wanted to get a double life sentence and he's sitting behind bars

But the irony of that is I was there like eight or nine months before it actually happened. Oh shit So his nickname was brutal birdle fox too brutal and he's one of those headcases that he didn't drive He had the anger management testosterone thing going on very low self esteem great bodybuilder got fifth in the 83 Mr. Olympian was never the same and like it was like like Mike Mincer it crushed him defeat crushed him and it changed who he was as an Athlete because he thought he should have won. Yeah, I learned about him reading the original Arnold Schwarzenegger and cyclopedia bodybuilding Bertle was in the in there doing like shoulder workouts and stuff So you can imagine I was 17 years old when I walked into World's Gym and saw him working out.

Mind you, that's the year you got third. And he trained very uniquely, right? Real loose with his form. Like Ronnie Coleman. Yeah. He was a strong, strong, strong bodybuilder. Kind of blocky though when he came down to the legs. Yeah.

But at 17 year old, I'm watching him in his prime. And then in 97, I'm at his gym opening and then he's in jail for murder. So that's crazy. I'm attached to a lot of these stories and of these people. And I wanna bring those stories out, where are they now?

Good, bad or ugly? It doesn't really matter. Guys and girls. Can I make a request now? Because I also am a fan, especially of the old school, body building, whatever. I would love to see some stories on how they trained and the equipment that they used.

I love looking at pictures of old gyms and seeing the type of equipment that they had and how the benches were constructed and the type of workouts they did and if they trained any differently, or what their diets were like. Well, I don't know how old you think I am, but I'm not gonna,

I'm not a lot of bodybuilders I know with the black and white photos, but. But even if we go back to the 70s and 80s, it's cool You know, yeah But you got to realize that those athletes didn't own the pictures right so they they pose for pictures and those pictures Were probably in someone's studio or at someone else's gym I'll be with Frank Zane in San Diego in weeks at the the fit ex bow I host the seminars at all the fit ex bows. There's one and an aheim There's one in LA that we got the one in San Diego

seminars at all the fit expos. There's one in Anaheim, there's one in L.A., we got the one in San Diego, Florida and Chicago. And it's a panel of distinguished guests, typically they've, they're either still competing or they're retired. And I do a Q&A with them in the audience. And Frank Zane's going to be out at that one, and I'll be able to ask him a few few things. And this is another nugget because from that, I'll be able to get some exclusive sit-down interviews with these guys. That's why I thought Sean Ray TV, which is basically aget because from that, I'll be able to get some exclusive sit-down interviews with these guys. That's why I thought, Sean Ray TV, which is basically a glorified YouTube channel, will be a place that I can just put this content

rather than giving it to a company that might dispose of me, or may not need me, or they say, who's Frank Zane? You get creative freedom. Yeah, I got creative freedom, and then I can also, again, go behind the scenes at the shows. I can also grab instantaneous content. These phones, they have like the 1080i, whatever.

I mean, they're crystal clear. And if I'm sitting like last year, I was backstage and I left my phone in the recording area where we were doing the play-by-play. And I walked outside, I walked right into the rock, right? Throw into the wanger. He's standing there by himself, just kind of waiting for his time to come on stage.

And we had this long conversation about the Sean Ray classic and Hawaii and this, that and the other and blah, blah, blah. I'm thinking to myself, if I had my phone, I could have captured some of that stuff, right? Some of these nuggets, because he's with seven bucks productions. And they were producing this thing, but I had this moment where if I had my camera,

I could have captured that candid moment on film. And in the past, who's thinking that way? So now I've got this producer's hat on. Yeah. I'll be able to get some candid behind the scene stuff. And who doesn't want to see, you know, LeBrona at home with his kids, got three boys, still got the LeBrona nutrition.

And one of them, I mean, Hunter's about to go pro. Oh wow, I don't know his son, he's big. Yeah, he's a big guy, like 250 pounds. Oh, shit. He's better than, better than Lee, because he's a bigger version. And of course, we saw what happened with Sergio Leva Jr. He wound up competing in the Mr. Olympia after

his dad. And there's not, these are all feel good stories. There's a lot of bodybuilders man that aren't doing well. And we need to find out why. And maybe they can help teach some of these guys some of the things not to do. It also humanizes them. I think it's, it's good to do. If you, at least if you're trying to grow the sport, it's good to humanize the athletes and some people see that they're real people. Yeah, and with me, the whole genre TV thing is an extension of my passion,

just to document some stuff along the way. Like I'm not trying to look for likes or follows. If it comes, it comes. But I want to have a place where people can go and find a little bit more meat because we don't have the magazines anymore. You know, if I went to go get a magazine, I knew probably who was gonna be in it and I could find certain features that I can relate to. But now we don't have the magazines anymore. You know, if I went to go get a magazine, I knew probably who was gonna be in it

and I could find certain features that I can relate to, but now we don't have that outlet. There's not a very many good bodybuilding YouTube channels either right now. Well, there's a lot that talks shit, you know. A lot of them that don't really give you information, but give a lot of opinion. Some like this will give it an athlete a voice

to kind of give you a feel for who they are and what they're doing But on an educational sense. There's really nothing out there's there's there's not much there You know if I don't I wanted to ask you a couple things and I'd be mad if I didn't want do you think that with your experience Do you have the ability you think to look at somebody and almost be certain if they're Anabolic enhancer not you know, it You know, that's a tough call, because I was accused of being on drugs long before I actually got involved with them, because I had, I was a genetic anomaly.

Like, there's no way you're 18 years old. I mean, when I would be on the stage and I wouldn't have competition, John Brown, he's notorious for telling the story that people were laughing at the L.A. championships because I was a teenager competing against men. I got third that year and they didn't believe I was a teenager. So there's certain people you can see that just have that it factor. But then again, you start having a factor in like

where's the desire in the mental side. Sometimes when you're gifted, you don't feel like you have to work hard. And so it doesn't, it doesn't turn. Roy Lidlmire, Matt Mendenhall, they have all the tools and they can't get over the hump because mental or whatever. You can see potential, but you can't guarantee success. Right, right. That's a different thing. But when you look at somebody who's vascular or lean,

yeah, I don't even give a shit. Like it's like the last thing I'm gonna think is like, are you on steroids? I never looked at someone go, are you on shit? I mean, right. Well, I know you did that with Michael Herne. Like, what, do you believe he's full of shit? No, of course, Mike knows I believe he's full of shit.

That's why he's sweating so bad. Did you see him sweat? Yes. He should have never wore a gray shirt. If you're gonna lie, you know, we're black. Yeah. It wasn't hot in that room. I had him in a hot seat though.

You did. So I think, you know, people are more inclined to believe what they see rather than what they hear. Like I was adamantly telling people I was natural when I failed the drug test at the Arnold because I was as natural as I could be at the time. Three months natural was natural. Right.

But I failed the test and I couldn't argue because I had taken what I tested positive for. Now, if you're talking to me while I'm sitting here, I'm telling you I'm natural, I'm natural but that doesn't negate the years of when I was using it. So when I had Mike in the hot seat, he might have been natural during that conversation. And in his mind, he's justifying, yeah, I'm natural.

But you know what? What sounds better for me to sit here and deny and then get people talking? I mean, what do we see with Lance Armstrong? What do we hear from Jose Conceco? What do we see with frickin' Mark McGuire? I mean, did anybody own up to it? I mean, I'm the only one.

I'm the only one because it wasn't really documented. There was only 2,000 people there to witness my victory. And they heard about the drug test five months, four, five months later in a magazine. So I didn't suffer a consequence. But they did get rid of the drug testing because they realized that just there's no way they can continue down this road

as all these bodybuilders were falling victim of a drug test. So what do we want? We want to clean up the sport or just let the bodybuilders do what they will. And they made the right choice because if they had to stay that route, of course, Lee Haney would probably not have won in 1991. It served him well because he cleaned out for a year. And then when he got back on a shitty, he looked like freaking Superman. Yeah, I think the smartest thing would be just to adjust the criteria of judging so you can

direct people to that go crazy. You can't even do that man. If you got a car, you got a, you got a Porsche and you got a Corvette and I got a Ferrari and he's got a Volkswagen. Who runs the greater risk of freaking crashing? He's probably the least at risk. He's got a Volkswagen. Sure. But dude, no one's going to tell us how fast it's right. We know the speed limit. We all do. Who's going to tell you when to step on the gas and when not to?

You're going to test that sucker when you get on that open road to Palm Springs. You can't tell. I mean, it's just begging you to do it, right? The highways wide open. There's no cars in either direction. Fuck it. I'm gone. Yeah. Well, didn't they try a little bit with all the dyritic use in the 90s and the... The diuretics were killing people. That was that, you saw people cramping up on stage, Delet was carried off stage. Oh, Mohammed and Benaziza died because of diuretics in 92.

And that's when they switched from the anabolic in 1990s. It's true that the bigger problem is this diuretic stuff. And they tested from 92 to 2001. And of course, that's when Jay Cutler got second in the Mr. Olympia. It was my last Olympia. When he failed the test and they did nothing about it, that kind of sealed my fate in terms of deciding to retire. I failed the test and I got the money taken off of me and the title stripped and I think

that's what he failed and it left them alone. He threatened to lawsuit, he threatened to sue. The story goes that they left the samples between the pre-judging and finals in an unsecured area so that he could have actually proved that anybody could have tampered with this. There was no protocol, like we all pissed in a cup and after pre-judging, they were kind of left over there

on the sides, and that was a known fact. So he had a case that he could have brought a suit that the protocols of the collection of the samples could have been tampered with. And nobody did anything. You never got your money back? Well, he got second. I wound up in fourth place that year. He got second, and if he had a got knocked out, I wouldn't have bumped up to third in my

final Olympia. And to make matters worse, we all have to sign a contract to compete in the Miss Olympia. And if you don't, you can't compete. And Kevin LeVroni never signed his contract. And I knew about that. And they allowed him in anyways. And he showed up late for the athletes meeting. He was threatening with a fine and a suspension. They just kept making all these latitudes for Kevin. And of course, Kevin got third in the Olympia. And I was fourth. So the truth be told, Kevin would have been out. So he wouldn't even have been there. Jay would have failed the test. You know what? I would have got second place. And I would have been out. So he wouldn't even have been there. Jay would have failed the test. You were going to second place. And I would have told everybody to kiss my ass anyway,

because I was done. I was spending, a bodybuilder has to know when to go. And for me, it was no longer fun. I wasn't passionate about the contest prep. I knew there had to be more to life than just chicken and rice and eat, sleeping, and training. Mind you, I was on this grind from 17 to 36, and it was year in, and it was year out.

So long time. And it just, I'm like, okay, I could probably do this for another four years, but didn't, what am I gonna miss? I'm missing my nieces and nephews growing up. My friends are getting married. The kids are coming along. I mean, I got a house in freaking Urbale and a condo in Las Vegas and a condo, newport Beach, three bikes and two cars.

I'm never home. I'm coming home to a dog. There's gotta be more to it. And that hits you like a wave, man. It's like, what are you gonna do? And so it's like, I told Joe, I said, you know what? I just, it's not my passion right now.

I need to take a year off. Cause I hadn't taken a year off in 12 consecutive Olympias. And it's okay, take a year off. I said, the only Mr. Olympia press conference that was recorded and documented was the 2001 because I was just calling the judges out and He saw my venom about transparency and scoring prize money for all the athletes the judges the criteria I was letting it all go at that press conference so he knew that I was like at a boiling point. And I pretty much asked him for a year off. In 02, I took that year off.

That's when I got engaged. And then in 03, I got married. And I tried to buy myself more time. So I said, hey, Joe, I'm getting married. I don't know if I could do this, Mr. Olympia. I'm trying to keep the check on it. I don't know if I can do the other way. You should get married.

Yeah, yeah. So he was all about me trying to find my quan, my happiness, my quiet spot. And then he sold the company to AMI in 04. And I met with a supplement company called Viotech and they offered me an opportunity that pretty much was doubling what I was getting from Joe. And I never looked back at the stage because I was preparing for life after. So getting married in 03, the weaters selling their company in 04,

me signing on with a biotech nutrition. I had my kid in 2005, and I never looked back with a desire to pose, and I never posed again on a bodybuilding stage after 2002. Wow, you have a center daughter. I got three girls. Three girls, wow. Good for you, man.

Got a 10 year old, a 13 year old, and a surprise, 36 year old. Oh, what do you mean a surprise? What's surprise? What do you mean a surprise? Ancestry. Yeah. Got a 10 year old or 13 year old and a surprise 36 year old. Oh, what do you mean a surprise? Surprise. What do you mean? Surprise ancestry.com. Whoa. What a year ago. Just a year a year ago a year and a half. Wait, did you go on there? Did they find you? I'm sitting there watching the football game. Man, I get a message from my cousin. Hey, Dad. No, my cousin. I'm not from Alabama. My mom's brother, my mom's youngest brother's daughter was on ancestry.com looking for my mom's brother's dad. They have two different dads. And I guess when my daughter went on ancestry.com, they became a DNA match.

They started communicating with each other while that was happening. My cousin contacts me because we speak, and she says, hey, there's a girl on here saying that you might be her dad. Get the fuck out of here. I said, give me her name and her number, and I called her right away, and I just started going to just investigating,

and she found her mom. And her mom was my next-door neighbor, one house away from where I was born and grew up. I was born and grew up in the same house. One house away was her mom who told her that I'm one of possibly three guys that she had her, but she didn't know who the dad was. What?

And I said, okay, so she gave me her mom's name, told me where her mom is from, the timeline, everything fell into place. So I'm taking this like, okay, let me talk to my mom. Let me talk to my mom. How old are you? How old are you? Did this last year? No, no, no, no, how old are you? I was 15, I, let me talk to my mom. Let me talk to my mom. How old are you? How old are you? Dude, this is last year.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, It was definitely contagious because I was coming home from football and I climbed the balcony after football practice But it was it was a forgettable experience for me But her mom not so much for her her mom remember now mind you she's 35 at the time and she's got a master's degree Right around the corner. She's from over there by near Oakland a free month or something

And so she's got three kids, married three kids. So I have grandchildren. Hello. Grandpa. Two boys and a girl. Have you met her in person? Oh, yeah. We're family now.

She called me dad and the kids called me poppachon. So when I got her on the phone and we went down and had the DNA test together, 99.99% that I am the dad so it was confirmed Two weeks later and I'm sorry a week later I flew up here to San Francisco and I spent the whole day getting to getting acclimated to everybody It was it was it was almost seamless in terms of the embracing of it all and then a month later She came down met my mom my sister my, my wife, my kids, and everybody kind of like, was all right, my wife still got the poker face.

She's like, I go, relax, you were nine years old when this happened, and I didn't know that this happened. But nonetheless, it could have been a whole lot worse because if I had found out 20 years ago, it could have changed the course of my entire, my whole existence. But her parents moved back up to you to her parents, her adoptive parents. She was adopted six days after. She was given up for adoption. Oh, wow.

And she was given up for adoption because her parents, I think she's got the story from her parents, parents, her grandparents, the whole black white thing wasn't working in 81 and they were Mormon. And so giving her up for adoption was the best opportunity for her to have a good life. So her adoptive parents, they also raised two other adoptive kids

and had two of their own. And when they moved it back to Utah, she stayed in Northern California with her grandparents, adoptive grandparents. When they both died, that's when she went on ancestry.com to find out who she is. She found her mother first who's not receptive to anything. Her mom pretty much acknowledged, yeah, I'm your mom, but have a good life.

Sure. She has seven other kids. Whoa. And I'm sure that would open a whole counter wax if she went over and integrated herself into a family that's not receptive. Mine opened their hands and she's part of the family. She just moved in September about a half an hour away

from where I'm at. So we'll be able to grow up together. Wow. I have a whole I to grow up together. Wow. I was flying back before that. When you first saw, I mean, do you see the resemblance right away? Like, how much? You know, it's a strange occurrence

because she's Milato, her mom had red hair and blue eyes. So she's mixed and I'm part Puerto Rican. So I'm trying to see me in her. And as I start to spend more time with her, I see some things. Like mannerisms and maybe attitude and things like that. Yeah, facial expressions. I mean, it's a mannerisms and maybe attitude and things like that. And facial expressions. I mean, it's a weird fucking feeling, dude.

I bet it is. I'm looking at this full grown woman going, what? How? But she's so cool. Is the other side of the pillow we talk, we text. I mean, my youngest daughters in love with her, like they talk all the time. Big sister. My middle daughter still got the poker face like mom.

I can imagine, I'm trying to figure out what they're thinking. I can't put myself in their shoes, but I do know that in my shoes, life is too short. And that's my blood, and I'm an embraceer the same way that I've been said. I mean, listen, the love I have from, before I met my wife, my dog was my everything,

my dog, right, from the cradle to the grave. And now my kids come along, it's a whole different type of love, and now that I've got this full grown, ready-made family, all I can do is be available. I can't raise her, she's grown. They just purchased their second house. I mean, everything's functional about this situation that I'm in.

Now you're ready for the other shoot-a-drop? Oh, shit. Well, two weeks later, my daughter connects with another girl, and it's my brother Chuck's daughter. My brother's one year older than me, and the exact thing I just went through, my brother went through. He didn't know he had a kid?

1986. Was he an athlete too or what? My brother was a cross-short. College football player. College football player in University of Reno, Nevada. Oh my God. She starts talking to my daughter. She says, hey, I found my dad.

And maybe ask your mom if she knows anybody by the name of Chuck Ray. And the mom's like, yep. Now the mom's floored because she thinks that this daughter of hers belongs to her ex-boyfriend or ex-husband or whatever. Well, the mom was blindsided. She doesn't know that that one night stand

What was my brother's kid and my brother's laughing at me for a little bit had a nice little fun time until I said hey Chuck I got a lady on the phone that says in 1986 You are across the hall from her and you guys actually had a two-time look up now my brother can't remember yesterday So here he's talking to this lady and he he does the DNA test, and it's 99.99. Oh, she has three grandsons. Oh my God. And ss3.com. So you can imagine my dad passed away in 2010,

but my mom's going, what the hell? She became a great grandma overnight. When the hell will you guys up to? We just grew. That's what we're doing. So with your kids, you got got your girls the younger ones if either one of them ever want to get into a stage Presentation sport like I got a daughter. I have a daughter that's an actor dancer in a singer If you don't know Google her Asia Mane Ray. She just dropped a new

New song and these music scene CD She was the daughter of OG Simpson, on OG Simpson versus state of California. Oh, wow. She was on Dance Mall. There she go. She had her own show, her own reality show called Raising Asia. She's been on Grey's Anatomy.

She got like a million four followers on Instagram. I mean, how's that possible? You're 13, you got a million four followers in it. Wow. She got 330 some odd. Well, fuck, we should have interviewed her. She's bigger than dad. She is. I'm known as Asia's dad. She got 330 some odd. Well fuck we should interviewed her. She's bigger than dad

I'm known as Asia's dad She got like 330 subscribers on YouTube. I'm over here struggling to get like 5000. Wow But she's she's killing the game right now in terms of being a triple threat actor dancer and singer She's saying with Mariah Carey last year doing wow I competed at the beacon theater the night of champions. She's over there singing with Mariah Care. That's crazy. I take her to the American Idol because I'm friends with Harry Connick Jr. Next thing I know she's on Harry Connick Jr.

singing songs and you know, that's great. So she's doing the thing. My youngest daughter Bella is more shy and more conservative. She's a gymnast and she horseback rides. She's just being a normal kid. This one in the business,

Asia, she's 13 going on 30. It's in me pictures with Jamie Fox going, Dad, do you recognize this guy? Hey, do you know this guy? It's Quincy Jones. I'm like, what the heck? You know, Viola Davis, I mean, she's just in she's in that space. Wow. And it's a fun ride because I'm watching it happen. And she doesn't know like the resume of some of the people she's in and around right but she's she's definitely has that effect. Are you are you really protective of her? Mom mom mom's doing all that she mom is that she's not a Hollywood kid by any means we're from Orange County but mom is at all the auditions and in dot n' a T's and crossing on she's the momager um but she is moving with some heavy hitters and her stars on the rise.

It's going to, she's going to put herself in a position where she's going to be fine. It's the younger one. I got to make sure she finds her passion and has that normal seat because Asia's home school, 4.0 student being home school for the past six years. Wow. But she is an overachiever. She was like a national dance champion at the age of five. She went on a TV show called Ultimate Dance Competition with a bunch of 13-year-olds and she made the top three. That's how she wound up on dance moms

and then raising Asia came after that and then she started doing her music. She's got music videos on there with two and three million hits. So she's doing it without any, I support it, I try to be a fan of it, because it's like, if I get in there, she's a girl, I get in there, I have different opinions than mom,

and I don't wanna have that argument. So I let mom manage that. Good deal, proud dad. Yeah, let's get it fun to watch. That takes me away from the whole bodybuilding thing, see? So it's cool. I have that balance. Some bodybuilders, they don't transfer to anything.

I've transferred into a gymnastics dad, and I'm over here, I got a new family with grandkids, I got to deal with it. I got a whole lot more on my plate than going to the gym today. Wow, that's awesome. It's fun though. Something else I wanted to ask you,

back to the bodybuilding conversation. How much do you know about the Kai Green story and the competing in Olympia anymore? A lot about it, man. When I told you I'm an idiot, Savant like I know you are dude. So enlighten me a little bit. 2007 or 2006 Kai Green was dead last in the Sean Ray Classic that Phil won. You talk about opposite ends of the spectrum right. Phil star shoots right up in 2006 because he wins right out of the gate and goes into York and wins. Kai Green's at the back of the pack and has like two bucks in his pocket.

I had a $10,000 Best Poser award that Kai won that day. And that's what was able to keep him in the game. A year later, he comes back and he wins the show. He wins a 25 grand and the $10,000 Best Poser award, not a bad year for Kai Greins. Then he goes back home and wins the New York show,

just like Phil did the year before and that's where that rivalry began. He went on to win the Arnold Classic and he got a couple of second places to fill in the Mr. Olympian. Kai Phonomenon kind of took off. I think somewhere along the way, Kai realized that, you know, Weeter AMI did not renew his contract and yet Phil was with Weeter AMI when he got second. So Phil, if you think about it, Phil is contracted by the company, putting the Mr. Olympia on.

And I'm second, and I don't have a contract anymore. I gotta believe that he's gonna win the contest. Why am I gonna do it? So let me go do these Arnold classics, and he goes and changes focus, and he's winning over in Brazil, and he's winning over in Australia.

And somebody got in his year, I believe, and said, look, you know what, if they're not gonna pay you to compete in the show the way they pay Phil, don't do it. Like, don't give them the satisfaction of giving you second place again. I think it was a bad move. Oh really? Well you're a competitor, you compete first

and everything else falls. We don't know who he is. We take him out of that Olympia lineup. He's not as established as he is because he's competing against lesser caliber athletes and shows he should win. You got to compete against the best if you want to be the best.

Right, right, right. Wasn't there also another league that was trying to start at the same time too? Yeah, but it wasn't rivaling the Olympia. Yeah, it wasn't a Mr. Olympia league. It was just some federation that wanted to use Kai, another discrunter promoter that fell out of good graces of the IFB, was trying to snatch Kai over and use him as a figurehead. But Kai got some bad advice because then he made it easy for Phil. Kai was chomping at the bit and he was in his prime and hungry and then by principal chose to sit out. Well, that would have been, that's cool

the first year, but the second year you got to get back in the game because clearly you're the number two bodybuilder on paper, but everyone's dream is to be Mr. Olympia. I mean, that's the only reason I lifted weights. Is this about money? I mean, I never Mr. Olympia. I mean, that's the only reason I lifted weights. Is this about money? I mean, I never competed for the money. I mean, the bodybuilding platform is how I was making money, but the dream of chasing the Mr. Olympia title was always the number one focus.

And when I saw him do that, I thought, all right, his focus is not there. This is more about the manager and politics and the bullshit. And you can't win a contest as big as Olympia when you're thinking, hey, I need a free booth for my supplement company. And I need to be contracted by you like that other guy is like, I didn't know how much money Lehanie or Dorian Yates or Ronnie was getting from Weeter. I didn't care. I don't, I don't care about what I was doing. And if I wasn't contracted by Joe at the time, that title would have

given me validation to up my appearance fees. So somewhere along the way, it turned into a business decision for Kai to sit out and then actually become a protester of the Olympia because in his mind, he's realizing, they're not gonna let me win. He gave in to like, it feels contest because he's a weeder guy.

I'm not a weeder guy, so let him have it. And now... He would've won this last one. Most definitely. Because you know, and he still looks like he hasn't really stopped doing the business. You know what I mean? He looks like he's still in the game. But if I'm him watching what happened, I'm getting ready for this next Mr. Olympia. Absolutely. Because he can beat Sean Rodin. Yeah. And now Phil, you know, on the like every Mr. Olympia, they get worse as time goes on. And even though Kai's older, we don't know what kind of ailments Kai's dealing with. I mean, when you take time off, things start to fall apart.

He could be hurt. I don't know. But if he's not, he should be getting ready to come back. It's almost like, uh, what was that movie? The, the black film that they just made and the guy came home to get the tie, get his crown, uh, just, you guys don't watch black movies. The biggest, the biggest movie of the year last year. The biggest movie of the year. From the year last year. Take color out of it.

You remember the African guy? I don't know. I can't believe I'm drawing a blank. I'm drawing a blank. I'm a movie guy. There's only like one black movie. I just keep the exception of coming to America 30 years ago. I just keep thinking of get out.

That's the only movie I can get out. That was great movie. Yeah, the black guys all died in that movie. This is one, this is a feel good black film, kind of like on a fun like Disney type, where the guy goes home, he's like black Panther. Come on man. Oh, like Panther. Yeah, gee, I used to sit in, but remember the guy

in black? Oh, it's a bit tidal. Come on, that was the biggest boxbuster ever. Oh yeah, that's the worst. All right, so remember the guy in blindfolded. All right, it's a bit tidal. Come on, that was the biggest boxbuster ever. Oh yeah, that's the best one. All right, so remember the guy comes home, he's gonna get his title back from the guy. This is what I would expect from Kai Green, like come home and fight this guy

and get what's rightfully yours and the whole, everything will be forgiven. I gotta imagine Kai's got more longevity too because he didn't start really pushing the gear until he competed naturally for a long time. Trying to call him was the same way. Call him and then all of a sudden he obviously got on the gear, knew his body and responded like crazy. So you got to imagine the guys got some longevity over some of these other guys. You know, it's like this. I said this about being a promoter like a Don King. If I'm

Rob and Chang, I'm flying or AMI, I'm flying Kai Green out. We're gonna have a conversation. Oh, this will be exciting, man. Let's find out what it is that we can mutually do to make this for the fans and for the history. There's no guarantee you're gonna win, but the storyline would be good. Let's announce that. I bet it up like a fight.

Let's get you started early and let's find out how we can mutually benefit from this. We'll give you something to accompany a booth. Those booths at the Olympia aren't cheap, by the way. But it's like, you watch how the UFC, which I think they do such a brilliant job of hyping up the fights and generating so much interest. Bodybuilding could totally do that.

You get kion, you start creating this like stir before the competition. Let me tell you what we do. We shoot ourselves in the foot. These guys don't want to take pictures before the contest. They don't want to make an announcement because then they locked in, it's a commitment. And you know what, that's what kills us.

Like we need to know the shit now. Like if I'm Kai Green, I got one more year in here. Yeah, start the shit talking now and all that stuff. If I'm Kai and I got one more year, I'm like, okay. Well, I mean, I may not like the chip. Me and Sean Road might get along fine. I don't have the bad mouse, Sean Road. But what I need to do is promote me

Right, I've been gone for three years. Let me get out in front of this thing and be the dictator of my comeback to come back to get what I left And then language for three years. I don't care if he shows up. I got one last run at this thing and right now This is the climate that needs to do it. Somebody has to get ahold of chi green and go look dude It's not playing with us. It's kind throughout a picture after the Mr. Olympia says, do you guys miss me? Of course we miss him. You know, I mean, we got Sean Rodin, who's great, but there's a lot of chinks in his arm and you turn, you chon, Sean around to the back and Kai is going to win it all. Yeah, he'll eat him up. Um, so I don't know what, what we're waiting for, like, we're talking to everybody, but Kai, like Kai's a guy that needs to get in front

of this thing, but it's a strange industry. When you start getting those followers and those minions, it's hard to even get an audience with somebody like him. You gotta go through these different layers to try to like, let's have a conversation. Oh, you know he's doing, he's making cartoons, he's at Comic Con, he's over doing the film in China, and you can get domesticated and civilized and comfortable,

and getting ready for the Olympians, not something you can have heartedly do. You know, you can't domesticated and civilized and comfortable and getting ready for the Olympia is not something you can have heartedly do. You know, you can't just come out of retirement and go, okay, I'm gonna do the Miss Olympia. You saw what happened to Kevin and Veroni. You saw what happened to Flex Wheeler. This is not a sport where comebacks are notoriously well accepted.

Even though Arnold and his prime from 75 to 80 took five years off came back in one, even though he won, everybody talks shit about him. It was very controversial win. Well, in in what way because I've had this debate before because Who was second? Yeah, that's a good question. Okay. That's my point right there It's a controversial win, but nobody knows who the fuck second place was a forgettable content who was second that year It was Chris Dickerson Dickerson. He's smaller than me. You know, it's funny He's a you know tell me that Chris can stand next to Arnold on a bad day. No. And so Mike

Mincer was the one that's the controversy, right? Because Mincer and him got that big old fight back. Mike wanted it to be a controversy. Mike was fifth place. There's four people between him and Arnold. He's making the biggest noise. You're not even in the argument. You're not even in the argument. But everybody, oh Mike Mincer should have won. Mike couldn't be Frank Fain. So nobody remembers who second was, but everybody remembers that that's a controversial win for Arnold. What a great point.

And Arnold, while he, we were comparing him to 1975. That's what I think a lot of controversy. Absolutely, he's a shell of a man. He's an actor, he's domesticated. He's, he's jumping in at the last minute. He doesn't look, but Chris Dickerson standing next to him was like me standing next to Ronnie in his prime. Yeah.

I mean, they just went, like Chris is shorter than me. Chris is 5'5 and on a good day by himself, he does look like Mr. Olympia. But at this time in 1982, years before he won, he looked like, you know, Arnold's son. We just looked too small. I mean, it's the disparity in the height. It was just so now Arnold kind of wide-waisted the legs were slender. But when he hits his famous Arnold shots and his arms next to Chris's yeah, I mean Chris's arms were maybe 16 inches And Arnold's got these 22 inch arms and he commanded the attention

Chris didn't have the same charisma. He developed it when he became mr. Olympia But Mike Mitzer put his name in the mix and it wasn't in the mix Do you think we're ever gonna see another? Maybe not there's no only ever going to be one Arnold, but do you ever see, do you ever think that maybe we're going to ever see another bodybuilder who's going to take and have that presence to really go mainstream? Because Arnold, what Arnold did for bodybuilding, no, but no bodybuilders ever done since. And again, he's, he's unique. But do you ever think that, do you think that might happen? How don't we gone through that with like every sport? I remember in the

90s, when, or the 80s, when we had showtime and Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas and Larry Bird and you had all these guys that were great in that era. And then it was like, where's the next superstar that's gonna come from? And then there's this down thing. And suddenly here came Kobe Bryant and Alan Iverson. I mean, they start to, they come in spurts, right?

And even in boxing, it's like Muhammad Ali is done. Who's next? Larry Holmes is not. He was like the champion for like 11 years and they come in spurts, right? And even in boxing is like Muhammad Ali is done. Who's next? Larry Holmes is not. He was like the champion for like 11 years and they're all forgettable, right? And then we had Mike Tyson, right? Mike Tyson came along and we remembered why we love boxing. And then Mike's gone and I never really bought

into Linux Lewis. I mean, you know, and the holy film. Yeah. But after my brother, yeah. I know, I mean, the whole, there were, Klichko was champ for like 10 years. Yeah. I'm like, when did that happen? the whole, and there were, Kletchko was champed like 10 years. Yeah.

I'm like, when did that happen? Fantastic. Where did I go? What happened to professional boxing? But it's like, even right now, do we know who the, who the champion is? Anthony something? No, no.

Yeah, and who cares, right? Bodybuilding is gonna go through that. I agree. Like, we had Arnold and he had that dominating personality and even the Mr. Olympia's following Arnold and nobody had that charisma. No, Phil. Phil is flat as fuck.

Yeah, but you know what, let me just tell you something. Arnold had the creator and Joe Weeter, right? And Arnold had the politics and marrying a Kennedy. And he also had the acting. That's because he had swag though from out the gates. He did, but he got the rates he had swathly. He's coming to this sport just to be a great athlete. How many boxers when they put the mic to them?

Don't even know what the fuck to say after this world championship. Well, that's what we need. We need a conomer-grager of bodybuilding. And that will happen, don't you think? Well, I don't know. I mean, bodybuilding, you're still talking testosterone. We got a guy that starts talking shit like that. It might be a problem.

It's that. He might, like, like, Flex wanted to kick my ass. I'm so glad he didn't. But you get to the point where you you start putting yourself above others. It's people that are judging you can knock you down. It's a subjective sport. Conor can get out and fight. And you saw what happens to a big mouth. You get to fucking knock out. So in bodybuilding, you can only have so much swagger. But most of us are trying to just develop our physique, not

trying to develop a personality. I think the personality is now coming with the digital age, you know, with these social media guys. Right, right. You don't hear or see the bodybuilders trying to come out of the box like, I'm the shit, you know, it's hard to say, I'm the shit and I'm the man unless you have that at stand out trophy. And when Phil did it at Backfire, like he lost the contest and now he's making all these

excuses for losing and no one wants to hear about it. You know, I think Phil probably would have done himself a favor if he had just said, you know what, I came in with one arm tied behind my back. I have this stomach issue. I have to have a second surgery. I looked at the pictures. I saw the video. I saw where I could have, yeah, I see where Sean could have anybody could have beat me.

I'm off. So look at, even when I'm off, I got second. So, you know, congratulations, but he's not doing that He's really antagonizing Sean by making him sound like he's not worthy and there's a conspiracy that they knew Friday night Of course you knew Friday night pre-jewelting is to determine who's leading and after Friday you were trailing There's no conspiracy you know You have this stomach issue and now you acknowledge it because you have to go under the knife again He hasn't done that so he's really the on at the top of the food chain. That's where you can talk shit and Sean Rodin hasn't said a word He won mr. Olympia and we're probably not gonna hear anything

But that's not what we're looking for what we're looking for is somebody that can promote the winner like I don't think muscle and fitness and AMI Have the right guy that they can put on him you know, Good Morning America, or Jay Leno, and not Jay Leno, what's the guy's name? Jimmy Kimmel, I'm sure I'm age. Jimmy Kimmel, but those guys have a media platform. They should be taking this guy and putting him everywhere. You know, they got national inquiry

or you got Mr. Olympia, put him in the places of opportunity. But they gotta have that personality. That's true. They gotta have that personality. Kai has got some interesting, you know, some interesting things about him that I could see, like the way he poses and moves. And he's all shy and quiet got to have that person out. Kai has got some interesting, you know, some interesting things about him that I could see like the way he poses and moves and-

Yeah, but he's all shy and quiet. Yeah, that's it. That's true. It's still like pulling teeth. Yeah, he's true. Some guys would benefit from having a PR person. That's a lot. They're really key in on hiring managers

to help the manager will help get them work, to get them money, but not many of them will hire a PR person to get them publicity. What was the rocks interests? The rock is always, you know, like a lot of celebrities that play sports, he played football, you know, the train at Golds Jam. I mean, they get their inspiration from the bodybuilders.

You need to be surprised. I used to walk into Golds Jam and Apollo Creed would come over. I'm like, Apollo Creed. Yeah. Let me see your arm. Show me your calf and Gregory Hines. Remember the tap dance? There's a lot of people. Hulk Hogan, Lyleyle Zato with the irony about Lyle Lyle Zato I loved the Raiders back in the day and I used to date one of the Raider cheerleaders

And so having Lyle talked to me was like royalty and the next you know when I'm winning the national championships He's introducing me, you know from walnut California sugar Sean Ray whatever and I had that little connection with this guy That I idolize because I was a football player and it all came back to the gym. He was looking at me in the magazine. So when I walk in the golds gym, you know, and you got magic in there and Michael Thompson and all these Q-honor Reeves,

these guys revered the bodybuilders because the magazines made us celebrities and they were following our routines. That's a real ego booster. When you're a bodybuilder, and you think these guys don't recognize you, and they come over, can I get a picture with you? It's like, aren't you?

Well, you know, it's kind of a trip. But the rock, he's always come from a workout background. And he had a production company kind of highlight the Mr. Olympia, his ex-wife, who's now his manager, Danny. She's actually a pro figure competitor. So she's heavy in the game, and won her pro card. competitor. So she's heavy in the game and won her pro card. And he was there.

I was there when she won her pro card. He was sitting behind me. I was too kind of shy. And I want to turn around and go, do I get a picture? But ironically, when I saw him in the hallways, like he knew me and he knew Flex. He's been following this sport. Awesome. When you have that commonality about the weights, it strips away all the celebrity.

Well, we talk about this whole time on the show that there's something that's unique about people that are really, really in a training way. The thing that we all have in common is we're growth-minded. We're trying to improve ourselves. And that's a common stream that I think you can find and I think that's really, and you can always, once you strip down all the other bullshit, we can all see kind of eye to eye on that. I think that's cool. Yeah, and it's like the leaders Joe and Van, they did a book called Brothers in Iron, and that's kind of really what takes away the economic disparity and the political

and the religious differences. This is a sport where none of that shit factors in. You know, if I go in a gym in any place in the world, I mean, because of what I've done on a bodybuilding thing, I'm pretty much acknowledged or I'm accepted. And it's probably one of the few places that could actually happen, where you can actually move around the world as an athlete

and not have to run into any kind of political bullshit, you know, bodybuilding and weight training, there's that one common, you don't have to speak English to work out with me. You know, which is cool. We have that one common thing and that's what brings people together in terms of like brothers and iron.

So did the rocks production thing take off? Because he was trying to do that. That was one of the reasons. A couple of years ago didn't. It didn't, I mean, he highlighted it. And I saw I saw was a highlight reel is about, I don't know, I think maybe 10 minutes long. And then they replicated that again this year

on seven bucks production. He didn't come. That's it. That's it. That's it. And you know how you got that name, right? No. He had like seven bucks in his pocket. And he was about to turn it all in and told it had in

and Hollywood and he that's when it hit for him. And at the time he hit, he arrived in Hollywood. He had seven bucks in his pocket. Oh, that's a cool story. That's cool. He's like, I'll never forget I was ready to quit. I was ready to walk away and like right when this whole opportunity came, I had seven bucks.

I think that's really cool that he would actually remember that because now he's got like $150 million. Yeah. Whatever the hell is. But he's doing, you know what, you don't get there unless you're like accessible, social, and personable. I mean, I don't know how many followers he has on Twitter or Instagram. It's like a hundred and something million.

That's what's saying. He's one of the highest. And he's on every frickin magazine and he's on every talk show. He's everywhere. He's got to know anybody. He doesn't like him. Yeah. they have like a show coming on like a warrior type. I don't know that No, yeah, it's kind of like a American ninja type. Yeah, yeah, you can see that no I don't want sports. Yeah, it was just highlighted on one of the NFL games So we're at the Olympia and he's giving a video message. Hey guys. I can't be there

You know, I'm filming right now, but I love you guys. I wish you all the best and history is gonna be made He gave I mean he supports what we do. And we've always had someone of high caliber outside of bodybuilding that's always kind of endorsed what we do. So that's just along got the classic Lifetime Achievement Award. And you know, that whole 50 cents was there last year. It's not 50 cents, it's 50 cents.

50 cents. Yeah. I gotta get it right, because I, you know, they can start typing on it, so you've spent these days, Mugger. But yeah, all these guys, I saw JJ Watts at the Arnold Classic, and so a friend of mine, Dan Solomon, we do the podcast for the Olympia every year. He's just been promoted to be one of the, helping create the promotion of the Olympia.

He's gonna bring that back. I mean, there's a lot of celebrities that come to the Olympia, and they don't even announce them. Like they're there, and they don't say anything back when Joe was alive, they made it a point to kind of tie Hollywood to this industry and now Dan Solomon in his position is gonna try to bring some of that back. That's awesome.

Yeah, definitely there's definitely something unique about lifting weights that connects other people who do the same thing. It's a pretty awesome feeling. 97 Olympia, we had Dana Carvey, MC in 1998. We had Sinbad. When I went to the 94 Olympia, 94 Olympia, I used to date a model.

She was just a Victoria Secret model, but she went on to become a little bit famous. You guys know? Man, you might have some more kids out there. You know who, you're careful man. You know who Brooke Burke is? That'll work out there. Yeah, that's all right.

Oh wow. I was dating her and I took her to the 94 Olympia, but then when I got there, I saw it had an Nicole Smith. I'm like, I had nothing to do with that Nicole Smith. She was hot, she was the guest girl doing trophy presentation. But at the time, Brooke was nobody. She was just being a victorious secret model, but it's funny where we come from

because she was at a photo shoot, doing a little thing and then I was doing a cover shot and then we wound up dating after that and then she went on to huge fame after I dumped her because I was too busy being a bodybuilder. She didn't want a guy that wanted to lift weights all day and that's not fun. But I was in love with the bodybuilding

so you're gonna lose, you cannot keep that going with a girl that's like, hey, I wanna go shopping, I wanna spend time, I wanna, you know, all your weights are more important and you're always looking at yourself, you can't compete with somebody like that. Were you able to make that transition really smooth? Like, were you, because, you know, somebody who's competed,

I know how selfish the sport is. You have to be, to be successful. Oh, yeah, there's no question. Were you able to make that a seamless transition to, you know, being the super selfish guy to all said, now, family man and wife and... Well, I mean, yeah, because it was, you know, part of the retirement side was me longing for what

I didn't have. I looked around and for me success was what am I missing? Not what do I have. I mean, the cars, the bikes, the homes, the travel, the money, I was there. So what am I missing? I'm missing like my best man at my wedding, who I've known since preschool. He's got his kids that he's taken to sports events and I don't have any, I got a dog, right? So I wondered what I didn't have. And so it was a selection process of gosh, now what? I mean, you travel the world, you meet different kind of girls from different countries,

and God, if you have a kid with this girl in another country, it can get ugly, like, you know, Canada or Brazil, and when you break up, I had to process a lot of stuff because my entire career was told, the only thing that's going to ruin your career is a girl. And it's like kryptonite. Because at the end of the day, if you have a bad relationship, it's going to carry over to the gym. It's going to affect your appetite. It's going to affect your relationship with training and your focus and trust me.

Literally all the bodybuilders I knew that tried to get married were getting divorced. And they didn't last long on the landscape of being good because all this other shit's taken place. So it was something that I didn't desire while I was bodybuilding. I desired to send out trophy. And the only thing that got me out of bed every year after I lost was trying to win the Mr. Olympia. I didn't have this obsession with it,

but it gave me a certain amount of freedom. Like I never wanted to work. And I knew that long as I'm doing this, it's not work. I didn't consider it work. And I imagine football players probably feel the same way until they start feeling the aches and pains of the business, the elbows, the joints, the hips, the next thing you know, they don't want to play anymore. But those football players wind up typically retiring because of injury. Bodybuilders typically, some of them wind up because of injury or because of relationships or because of financial hardships or those types of things. I walked away because I

was trying to get that next phase of life of having a family and I knew that I couldn't have one while I'm bodybuilding. Good deal man. I'm glad I had you on the show. That's all good. Very glad to have you on the show. It's great talking to your show. They called me the mouth back when I was competing. You fit right in there. I enjoy what I do and it's weird too. Yeah, yeah, awesome. I enjoy what I do and it's labor love. I mean, look, I mean, the best part about it is being done as a competitor,

there's more satisfaction in promoting because I get to see it come full circle with guys that are gonna be coming up to me in five years. I competed in your show and you had any of my award or you announced me when I was on stage. I mean, that's for me, I still get a kick out of it. And hearing about my career that I forgot about so many years ago is also a kick because when you're on

that one track focus, I only let in the things that were gonna help me. Like I wasn't trying to make memories. So when I travel the world, I hear these things and I see pictures and stuff. For me, it's like, yeah, I was there. I didn't have to win it, I was there, right? I mean, that's cool.

Awesome, bro. We'll see. Thanks for coming on, yeah, I was there. I didn't have to win it. I was there, right? I mean, that's cool. Awesome, bro. We'll see. Thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. Go forget to check out Seanray.fitness and Seanray.tv. Thank you for listening to MindPunk. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

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