Valuetainment - Episode 471： Greatest Promoter of Bodybuilding Opens Up

00:00:00.000 I'm Patrick Bedvig, your host of Value Tame, and today I'm sitting down with one of the

00:00:25.360 greatest promoters in the history of bodybuilding, Wayne D'Emilia.

00:00:28.620 And this man not only can tell a good story, but this man's got a lot of stories that have

00:00:32.720 never been told before.

00:00:34.080 Wayne, thanks for coming out.

00:00:35.080 Thank you.

00:00:35.580 So, Wayne, you're watching all these interviews with these bodybuilding interviews on this

00:00:38.860 entrepreneur channel called Value Tame.

00:00:40.560 What are you thinking when you're seeing some of these interviews?

00:00:42.540 They're living in the past.

00:00:43.780 They're living in the past.

00:00:44.700 Let's get to the present.

00:00:45.680 Okay.

00:00:45.920 Who cares about, you know, what went on in 1998, you know, at that Olympia when Chad came

00:00:54.580 in with the plasma expanders.

00:00:56.260 Let's, you know, here we are trying to keep the guys alive, to protect them from themselves.

00:01:04.840 From 92, Benaziza died in our arms, basically.

00:01:09.640 We were in Holland with the last show of the tour, and he was pushing it.

00:01:14.140 And we kept saying, you know, Momo, you know, pull back a little bit, pull back a little bit.

00:01:18.700 No, no, no, I got to win them all because they were all vying for weeder contracts at

00:01:23.500 that time.

00:01:24.720 The show ends, and I'm told by one of the other competitors, he was throwing up in the

00:01:29.040 back.

00:01:29.720 Well, extreme vomiting, diuretic overdose.

00:01:34.040 Momo, you've been taking diuretics.

00:01:35.300 Let's go to the hospital.

00:01:36.340 Contest is over.

00:01:37.100 You won.

00:01:38.640 Let's go to the hospital.

00:01:39.660 Just check it out.

00:01:40.300 Let's be safe.

00:01:40.840 No, I'm good.

00:01:41.420 I'm good.

00:01:41.800 I'm good.

00:01:42.580 We get on the bus.

00:01:43.680 We did the contest in The Hague, and we were all staying in Middle Harness.

00:01:48.180 Middle Harness is a little sailing town where Juliet Bergman, former Miss Olympia, lived

00:01:54.140 with her husband, Jim Lenzfeld, and they were co-promoters of the event.

00:01:58.860 So they put us in a hotel down there, and they had a restaurant there, and we were going

00:02:02.380 to have a party at the restaurant.

00:02:04.240 I knew the area well because my girlfriend at the time was a Dutch girl, French, Indonesian,

00:02:10.060 Dutch girl, and when she got pregnant with my son, she had met Juliet at one of the contests

00:02:18.060 when she was with me, and Juliet said, why stay where your mother lives?

00:02:23.240 Because, you know, America wasn't under my medical insurance, and she says, oh, I'll

00:02:28.840 have the baby in Holland.

00:02:30.220 It won't cost you a dime, as we hear about Bernie talking about all of that every night.

00:02:34.760 So I knew Middle Harness.

00:02:36.220 I knew the hotel and everything, this and that.

00:02:38.400 So we go back after the contest.

00:02:40.820 They had a party.

00:02:42.820 Momo's having trouble standing, walking.

00:02:46.200 His legs are like cement.

00:02:50.380 We call the doctor.

00:02:52.720 Doctor comes, and he checks Momo.

00:02:56.760 Vital signs.

00:02:58.060 Heart, pulse, blood pressure.

00:03:01.280 Normal.

00:03:02.100 We go, there's something wrong now.

00:03:03.440 Look, he can't even walk.

00:03:04.580 We think it's diuretic overdose, this and that.

00:03:06.540 He goes, he's over the age of 21, and his vital signs are normal.

00:03:11.200 I cannot force him to come in.

00:03:15.000 Okay.

00:03:16.360 Two hours later, again, he's getting worse.

00:03:19.740 We call the doctor again.

00:03:21.720 Again, Momo don't want to go.

00:03:23.340 Now it's food poisoning, he's telling us.

00:03:25.760 Okay.

00:03:26.800 Won't go in.

00:03:27.460 About 3 o'clock, we all go to bed.

00:03:31.880 You know, so I go down the street.

00:03:33.280 They were in the hotel.

00:03:34.140 I go down the street.

00:03:35.500 At about 5 a.m., there's knocking on the door.

00:03:39.760 I go, oh, what's going on here?

00:03:41.140 You know, I get out of bed.

00:03:42.020 I'm there with Tracy.

00:03:43.520 You know, and Marcellus was like three months old.

00:03:46.900 And it was a bodybuilder, Al Q. Gurley.

00:03:50.860 And he goes, you better come, Momo's bad.

00:03:54.040 So I just throw on clothes.

00:03:55.400 We run down the street.

00:03:57.580 We get there, he's on the ground.

00:03:59.640 He had vomited already.

00:04:01.980 So call paramedics, call the ambulance, this and that.

00:04:05.800 Porter Cottrell was there, the bodybuilder on the tour.

00:04:08.420 Porter was a fireman.

00:04:10.060 I was in Porter with CPR.

00:04:11.280 So I'm on one side.

00:04:13.160 I'm holding his left hand, looking for a pulse.

00:04:16.780 Art Bedway, one of the judges, is holding his head.

00:04:18.960 After we cleared his throat, Porter's doing CPR when they came.

00:04:25.000 I felt the pulse disappear.

00:04:27.260 I looked at Art and I go, he was gone.

00:04:31.140 They came, they put the electric things on him.

00:04:33.660 Boom, boom, boom, flatline.

00:04:35.060 Boom, boom, boom, flatline.

00:04:36.220 They tried it three, four times, strapped him up, took him.

00:04:39.160 We're all sitting there in a daze.

00:04:43.560 We knew something like this would happen because they kept pushing it.

00:04:47.400 Pushing it.

00:04:48.960 But now it's, it's real.

00:04:52.520 And then a phone call comes and the hotel person says, who's in charge?

00:04:58.580 Everybody points at me.

00:04:59.500 So I get the phone and they go, please come down.

00:05:02.760 Your friend has passed away.

00:05:04.920 You've got to do body identification and sign the documents and this and that.

00:05:08.840 Whoa.

00:05:09.060 Boom.

00:05:09.160 So we go.

00:05:12.720 Everybody comes with me.

00:05:14.320 We're all in shock.

00:05:15.660 We all go to the hospital.

00:05:16.840 It's like five minutes away in the next town.

00:05:18.680 And I go in to see the doctor that came twice that night and the head of the hospital there.

00:05:25.240 They don't have people dying in that little town.

00:05:27.240 And the doctor was crying.

00:05:30.300 He was a young fellow.

00:05:31.160 He was crying.

00:05:31.880 He goes, I don't know how this happened.

00:05:33.100 I don't know how this happened.

00:05:34.060 And I said to the doctor, how did it happen?

00:05:36.860 He goes, obviously, whatever they were taking, your vital signs stayed normal until the moment of cardiac arrest.

00:05:43.000 That the body compensated.

00:05:44.940 So as he had no circulation or whatever in his legs and then his arms, it was compensating until the heart went.

00:05:58.420 So, okay, you know, it is what it is.

00:06:01.840 But then all the things I never thought I'd have to do, you know, yeah, we had to go down.

00:06:07.220 They said, you have to go down.

00:06:08.580 He's in the morgue.

00:06:10.880 Everybody wanted to come down.

00:06:13.000 So here I got male bodybuilders.

00:06:16.700 I got Juliet.

00:06:17.580 I got other female athletes that were there that came to see the show.

00:06:22.180 And you go down into the morgue.

00:06:23.780 It's cold.

00:06:24.240 The thing opens up and there's a slab.

00:06:25.960 And there he is laying on the slab.

00:06:28.000 No shirt on with his perfect upper body.

00:06:30.680 No shoes on.

00:06:32.760 And just a tag on his toe, you know.

00:06:37.120 Some of the athletes couldn't handle it.

00:06:38.720 They started crying.

00:06:39.620 His training partner from France went grabbing the body.

00:06:44.140 Momo, come back, come back.

00:06:45.580 You know, we had to, my friend Art was there.

00:06:48.140 We had to peel them out of there, get them out of there.

00:06:50.380 I had to sign the documents.

00:06:51.640 And there were other complications.

00:06:55.720 Momo, you know, bodybuilders or ladies men, okay.

00:06:59.860 Momo was married.

00:07:02.760 He was engaged to another girl.

00:07:04.420 But he was there with a 16-year-old.

00:07:09.660 And she was there.

00:07:11.380 This poor little girl was devastated.

00:07:13.260 Cute girl.

00:07:14.040 Cute little blonde French girl.

00:07:16.880 Holding on to his flip-flops.

00:07:19.000 Crying her eyes out.

00:07:20.540 I mean, imagine what it's like for a 16.

00:07:22.500 She was 16, 17 in there.

00:07:24.300 She was young.

00:07:24.860 And, you know, so we get her out of there.

00:07:29.780 I'm saying, you know, I feel bad.

00:07:31.600 I'm going to have to, this poor girl's going to go home.

00:07:33.180 And then they go, where are you going?

00:07:36.040 They go, what?

00:07:36.960 You know, I signed the papers.

00:07:39.760 You're going to make arrangements to get the body out of here.

00:07:41.860 We don't do that.

00:07:42.720 You've got to buy a casket.

00:07:45.580 And then, you know, you don't think about these things.

00:07:47.720 I'm a bodybuilding promoter.

00:07:49.580 So here it was Sunday morning.

00:07:51.460 It's now by 7 a.m.

00:07:53.480 They helped me out because they understood the situation.

00:07:57.280 Had to buy a casket.

00:07:59.060 Had to rent a hearse.

00:08:00.660 Had to get space on the plane.

00:08:04.040 Cargo.

00:08:05.100 Just ship them back on the same flight as her to Lyon.

00:08:07.640 But now I had to have a hearse, pick them up there.

00:08:11.480 I had to have him set up for the body to be kept before they buried him.

00:08:17.160 And I had to call the family.

00:08:18.920 You know, you leave that.

00:08:20.720 It's like, what am I involved in this for?

00:08:23.440 What am I doing?

00:08:24.260 What year is this?

00:08:25.480 1992.

00:08:26.500 What other bodybuilders were there in the room when they came and they cried?

00:08:30.140 Any names or any major names or no?

00:08:32.820 Who was on that tour in 92?

00:08:34.880 Steve Brisbois was his training partner there.

00:08:37.980 And then Brisbois opened up to me and said, you know, I had big problems Thursday night, but we kept it quiet.

00:08:45.240 Sonny Schmidt was on that tour.

00:08:47.760 Al Q. Gurley was on that tour.

00:08:50.940 Terry Pastel was on that tour.

00:08:53.860 Just off the top of my head.

00:08:55.680 So, you know, we get rid of all of that.

00:08:58.380 I come home.

00:08:58.940 It was the last show of the tour.

00:09:00.100 And I said to Ben Weider, I said, you know, we've got to do diuretic testing.

00:09:05.160 We've got to get back into testing.

00:09:07.060 You know, this is not my job to go to hospitals with people.

00:09:11.020 Well, you know, this and that.

00:09:12.400 They didn't really want to get into testing.

00:09:13.760 We get to the Arnold Classic, the next big show in 1993.

00:09:20.780 And at the competitors' meeting, I said, look, we all know what happened to Momo.

00:09:25.640 You know, we all know that you guys are going to push the envelope.

00:09:30.400 But if somebody pushes it, tell me.

00:09:36.920 I mean, don't look at me as daddy that I'm going to yell at you.

00:09:40.000 We want to save lives.

00:09:42.140 We can't have this again.

00:09:44.680 Everybody yeses me, yeses me, yeses me.

00:09:46.700 You know, we do the contest, this and that.

00:09:48.480 And the contest is over.

00:09:52.560 And I go to the banquet at the Arnold that they had.

00:09:56.820 Back then, they used to hold it in the basement of Vets Auditorium.

00:10:00.760 And it was very loud and everything.

00:10:03.080 And my son by now was eight, nine months old, something like that.

00:10:07.980 And he was a mellow kid, but, you know, it was too noisy.

00:10:10.880 He said, let's go back, you know.

00:10:12.880 In Columbus at the Doubletree, you come in on the ground floor.

00:10:16.220 You go up six levels because they're all parking levels.

00:10:19.280 And then there's the lobby.

00:10:20.520 And then there's another bank elevator.

00:10:22.060 So we just come off.

00:10:23.580 Who comes off the elevator is Juliet and Jim Lentzfeld.

00:10:26.740 And Juliet goes, you better go to Mikey's room.

00:10:30.300 Mike Matarazzo.

00:10:31.160 I said, why?

00:10:32.540 It looks like the same thing as Momo.

00:10:34.900 I look at Art.

00:10:35.880 Art looks at me saying, oh, my goodness.

00:10:37.640 No, no, don't say that.

00:10:39.800 I said to Tracy, you know, can you take care of it?

00:10:42.800 She goes, don't worry, I'll go to the room.

00:10:44.080 Do what you got to do.

00:10:44.680 So we go up there and knock on the door.

00:10:47.220 It's Mikey's mother.

00:10:48.120 I knew Mikey's mom and dad.

00:10:50.220 Wayne, I'm so glad you're here.

00:10:51.340 You won't listen.

00:10:51.800 Now, every room was a suite, so you come into the living room.

00:10:56.120 And he goes, mom, okay.

00:10:57.720 Mom, I sit on the bed, and I put my hand on his thigh, and it was cement.

00:11:04.480 And so I go, Mikey, you're okay?

00:11:06.140 You're okay?

00:11:07.300 You think you're okay?

00:11:07.960 Come on, Mikey, get out of bed.

00:11:09.260 Knock me off the bed.

00:11:10.160 I said, make a multi-mineral solution, and I said, call an ambulance.

00:11:16.600 No, I'm not going to the hospital.

00:11:18.420 Mikey, you went too far.

00:11:21.460 We've got to save you.

00:11:22.280 So paramedics come, and they do the same thing.

00:11:27.580 Heart, pulse, blood pressure.

00:11:32.200 They go there normal.

00:11:34.060 Yeah, well, we went through this six months ago.

00:11:37.260 We did it in October.

00:11:38.140 Here it is March, five months ago.

00:11:41.240 Mikey goes, no, I don't want to go to the hospital.

00:11:44.680 The guy goes, the paramedics go, we can't take him in.

00:11:47.440 He's over 21.

00:11:49.020 I said, look, a guy died, and we're dealing with seconds here.

00:11:53.720 Take him in.

00:11:54.700 This is his mother wants him to go.

00:11:56.460 This is his girlfriend wants him to go.

00:11:58.620 He was dating at the time, Sandy Rydell, who was a female bodybuilder.

00:12:02.520 They go, we can't legally do it.

00:12:04.300 And I look at Art, and I go, take the keys.

00:12:08.780 And the guy goes, what?

00:12:10.240 Now, Art Bedway, big burly guy, he pins the guy against the wall.

00:12:13.640 He rips the keys off.

00:12:15.020 I said, either you work with us or get out of the way.

00:12:18.640 We're commandeering the ambulance.

00:12:21.220 And he goes, I'll do this, I'll do this, because they were afraid, because Art was big,

00:12:25.680 and I was going to get violent.

00:12:27.160 I wasn't going to let Mikey die.

00:12:29.600 We take him down.

00:12:30.660 We get him to the hospital.

00:12:31.420 We put him in there.

00:12:32.160 I put his mom and his girlfriend in the ambulance.

00:12:35.480 Me and Art ran the four blocks to the hospital.

00:12:38.020 Once we got there, we got there.

00:12:39.400 They're pulling in.

00:12:40.080 They're taking him out.

00:12:42.040 I said, he needs a doctor right away.

00:12:44.160 We're dealing, because by now he couldn't raise his arms.

00:12:47.080 We had just lived through this.

00:12:48.500 We get into the emergency room, and I go, I start yelling, I need doctors.

00:12:55.080 I need doctors now.

00:12:57.100 Right now.

00:12:58.180 Right now, I need doctors.

00:12:59.460 Well, security comes.

00:13:00.320 Luckily, it was Columbus, and they were all retired guys, and they weren't armed, and they

00:13:03.920 see Art, and Art goes, you come near us, I'll hit you, you know.

00:13:07.500 And five doctors come.

00:13:09.100 I said, he's got an overdose of diuretics.

00:13:11.300 He's doing this.

00:13:12.580 I said, we need IVs put in them.

00:13:15.060 We need slow drip, multi-mineral solution.

00:13:17.620 We need slow drip of things, just muscle relaxers, to relax them, this and that.

00:13:22.440 So they put IVs in his legs, in his hands, in his arms, okay?

00:13:26.900 Slow drip everything.

00:13:28.360 They got his pulse going.

00:13:29.660 It starts going down.

00:13:31.320 60, 59, 58.

00:13:33.380 We're watching it.

00:13:34.180 We're thinking we're going to lose him.

00:13:35.900 And it gets down to about 28.

00:13:38.720 It's in the 20s, and then it started coming back.

00:13:41.740 He was out.

00:13:42.340 His eyes are closed.

00:13:43.860 Started coming back, and then it got to 60 again.

00:13:47.680 And we just looked at all each other, me and the five doctors, and we just take a sigh of

00:13:52.280 relief.

00:13:53.100 And I sit down, and they go to me, wow, good thing you knew what to do.

00:13:59.340 Doctor, where do you practice?

00:14:01.940 I go, I'm not a doctor.

00:14:03.080 I'm a bodybuilding promoter, and we just went through this.

00:14:06.000 And I said, we're not out of the woods yet.

00:14:07.900 I said, when he comes to, we've got to find out how much growth hormone he's been on, because

00:14:13.380 if he doesn't have food, the growth hormone just eats, and it starts eating muscle, and

00:14:19.840 your heart is a muscle, and you could still go with the cardiac arrest.

00:14:22.760 So one doctor said, got wise with me, goes, oh, you're not a doctor.

00:14:26.960 What do you know then?

00:14:28.940 I said, you know what?

00:14:30.300 Take a blood test.

00:14:31.760 Check his metabolic rate.

00:14:33.540 Go ahead.

00:14:34.120 Check his metabolic rate.

00:14:35.780 So they take a sample of blood, and then the guy sheepishly comes back about five minutes

00:14:40.440 later.

00:14:41.380 Can't measure it.

00:14:42.140 It's off the chart.

00:14:42.860 I said, by now, Mikey woke up, and I said, we saved you from one thing, Mikey.

00:14:49.860 Tell me how much GH you took.

00:14:52.000 You could whisper it in my ear if you want.

00:14:53.840 I forgot what he said.

00:14:54.760 They eat or 10 IUs, but they don't eat, see?

00:14:57.580 They don't eat, so it burns all the fat.

00:15:00.860 And so I said, get all the candy bars and cupcakes from the nurse's station, get that.

00:15:05.600 Mike ended up staying in the hospital another four or five days before he could go home,

00:15:09.840 before he normalized.

00:15:10.520 We had incidents with Flex twice on the tour with diuretics, and one time when it happened

00:15:16.460 in Spain, we took him to the hospital.

00:15:19.440 They gave him some saline solution and everything, normalized him.

00:15:25.520 They were going to send him home.

00:15:26.560 I said, I don't feel secure.

00:15:28.080 I was putting him on a plane from Madrid to LA 10, 12 hours.

00:15:32.540 What if something happens over the ocean?

00:15:34.380 No.

00:15:34.860 He'll stay with us.

00:15:35.780 So we go to Germany, and we're giving him fluids, and then he starts passing out.

00:15:39.840 I was there with Kevin Levroni, and he starts passing out.

00:15:43.960 We get him back to the hotel, and I call an ambulance again.

00:15:48.660 He says, Flex, we've got to take it in.

00:15:49.660 And of course, he don't want to go, but he's got to go.

00:15:52.060 We take him in there.

00:15:53.180 I get the guys to the theater.

00:15:54.780 You know, we're going to start judging, but, you know, we'll put it back a half an hour.

00:15:57.680 Everybody's worried.

00:15:58.680 He was in bad shape.

00:15:59.860 And I go back, and the doctor says to me, what is this man doing chemically?

00:16:05.900 I know bodybuilders take drugs, but he goes, his left kidney is basically shut down.

00:16:11.140 His right kidney is weak.

00:16:12.780 I said, Flex, you've got to give me your bag of goodies.

00:16:16.280 We've got to know what you're on so we can do all of this.

00:16:19.400 So we found out, this and that.

00:16:21.520 He was in the hospital close to a week.

00:16:23.180 You know, I remember I had a call.

00:16:24.980 Madeleine came over.

00:16:26.040 He was married to Madeleine at the time.

00:16:27.720 He had another incident at the time on the tour.

00:16:30.140 You know, we lost Andreas Munzer.

00:16:32.880 Combination of things, right after the San Francisco Grand Prix one.

00:16:36.100 Another time at the owner class, you can find this on YouTube.

00:16:39.000 Paul DeLette overdid diuretics.

00:16:40.820 Goes into the rear double bicep, and he locks.

00:16:42.740 That's right.

00:16:43.460 We took him off like a board.

00:16:45.400 But by that time, we had portable IV units backstage,

00:16:49.020 along with doctors, to start the IV before the ambulance got there.

00:16:54.540 I mean, that's how bad it was.

00:16:56.740 There was one Olympia where we had portable IV units

00:16:59.280 that had four guys on IVs between rounds one and two.

00:17:02.820 So I said to the weeders, look, we've got a diuretic test.

00:17:05.960 We've got to protect them from themselves.

00:17:08.240 These guys, like any athlete, is going to do anything they can to win.

00:17:12.980 We're all going to do whatever our profession is.

00:17:15.360 We want to win.

00:17:16.380 We're going to take that edge.

00:17:17.780 Okay, so he gives in.

00:17:19.640 So we're going to diuretic test.

00:17:21.660 And we get to that meeting in New York in 98,

00:17:24.340 and that's when Sean got up and said,

00:17:25.900 you know, what about these plasma expanders?

00:17:27.800 I don't even know what plasma expanders were,

00:17:29.840 and then it's all coming out.

00:17:31.120 And yeah, I mean, did I call Chad and probably threaten him?

00:17:34.640 Sure.

00:17:35.660 What are you doing, though?

00:17:37.120 I mean, we're all in this together.

00:17:39.840 We're all like a family.

00:17:41.340 When we were on the tour, if anybody said anything to anybody,

00:17:44.600 we'd all go after that person.

00:17:47.380 You know, they may fight like brothers.

00:17:49.440 But anybody go after your brother, you know, the whole family goes there.

00:17:51.900 That's the way it was.

00:17:53.180 Yeah, we all want the guys.

00:17:54.580 Yeah, I wanted all the guys to look as good as they can, but healthy.

00:17:58.320 And now you're doing something, you know, I think I threatened,

00:18:00.560 I'm going to test all your guys for plasma expand.

00:18:02.440 There was no test for that.

00:18:03.980 I was just shooting my mouth out because I was so upset.

00:18:06.380 And it's like, what are we doing?

00:18:08.200 You know, bodybuilding's supposed to be, you know, the ultimate male, the extreme,

00:18:12.640 you know, the look like this.

00:18:13.780 You know, we all, we look at the pictures when we're teenage boys.

00:18:16.460 I want to be built like this.

00:18:17.640 All the girls are going to love me and this and that.

00:18:19.340 A lot of times these guys are the most unhealthy on stage and their life is in the balance.

00:18:27.060 And it shouldn't be that.

00:18:28.400 It wasn't like that before.

00:18:29.760 Even though they did things, I wrestled in college.

00:18:32.460 And when you had to make weight, you know, they would tell you back then,

00:18:36.180 you know, stop drinking water for a day and a half or some stupid thing like that.

00:18:39.680 Okay.

00:18:40.480 Yeah.

00:18:40.720 And the water would come out and you'd make weight and then you drink water and you're heavier.

00:18:44.740 What do they do with boxing?

00:18:45.760 And what do they have to weigh in the day before?

00:18:48.180 You could put on 10 pounds, 20 pounds if you know how to do whatever you're doing.

00:18:51.820 Back in the old days, what did they eat?

00:18:53.400 I mean, when I started running Night of Champions and all those shows,

00:18:56.480 when the guys would come to New York, they'd stay at my house.

00:18:58.520 This was before I had children.

00:19:01.320 They'd have their tuna and water and they'd cut down their water

00:19:04.700 and they're just having protein and they're cutting back in this.

00:19:07.960 And they looked good.

00:19:10.100 You're going to tell me that the guys today look better than Robbie Robinson

00:19:13.920 and Danny Padilla in the 78, 79 Night of Champions

00:19:17.680 or Albert Beckles and Chris Dickerson in the early 80s.

00:19:21.260 Most people would prefer those physiques because they had a smaller waist and everything.

00:19:27.060 And they were healthy.

00:19:28.620 Wayne, let me ask you this.

00:19:29.600 What's your point with starting with these stories?

00:19:31.800 Because, you know, you're saying, Sean.

00:19:34.780 Yeah, I mean, you said, let's not live in the past and let's not,

00:19:37.500 let's talk about what's going on today.

00:19:38.580 And then you went right into it.

00:19:39.680 You sounded like a politician, like from yesterday's debate when you started with that.

00:19:42.820 But what is your point with starting with these stories?

00:19:45.720 What is your outcome?

00:19:47.180 Because...

00:19:47.780 They should drug test.

00:19:49.220 Okay.

00:19:49.600 So your outcome is they should drug test.

00:19:52.860 So are you going back to the time where you drug tested Sean Ray

00:19:55.680 and he came out positive and he didn't win the Arnold Classic?

00:19:58.360 Is that kind of where you're going with this?

00:19:59.720 Well, what we do in IFBB Physique America,

00:20:02.700 when Raphael Sintoka called me up after Jimmy split

00:20:05.560 and the IFBB, the parent IFBB had no American affiliate,

00:20:11.340 when he asked me to come back, I said,

00:20:13.200 the only way I'm coming back there has to be drug testing.

00:20:16.220 And he said, we drug test under water.

00:20:18.000 I said, well, every one of my contests will go under a random water drug test

00:20:21.400 and we'll drug test the number of athletes according to how many is in there.

00:20:25.140 So nobody knows if they're going to be tested.

00:20:26.660 So if there's, you know, say 24 athletes in a contest,

00:20:32.200 because we're building, we're small, we'll test two male, two female.

00:20:35.680 Baseball, what do they test?

00:20:37.600 You know, you've got 26 guys on the team

00:20:39.220 and they test one or two guys out of the 26.

00:20:41.620 That's all they test.

00:20:43.000 You know, of course, there's 162 games and we have maybe 20 contests.

00:20:47.040 But at least we're drug testing and people know we're drug testing

00:20:49.880 and if you get caught, according to the IFBB rules,

00:20:52.760 you're suspended for four years.

00:20:54.340 Who chooses who gets drug tested?

00:20:55.980 It's done by random.

00:20:57.760 How do you do that?

00:20:58.920 What's the approach?

00:20:59.640 We may take an independent person and put all the numbers down

00:21:03.260 and say, these are going to be the male numbers,

00:21:06.480 these are going to be the female numbers.

00:21:07.820 Pick two of each.

00:21:08.740 Is it done privately or publicly?

00:21:10.320 In front of the athletes.

00:21:11.480 Oh, okay.

00:21:11.920 You do this in front of the athletes.

00:21:13.240 Oh, it's very firm.

00:21:14.000 Okay.

00:21:14.260 Got it.

00:21:14.660 So it's not like, because, you know,

00:21:16.380 sometimes politically behind closed doors it's kind of like,

00:21:18.100 Oh, you picked on me.

00:21:18.920 Yeah, I'm going to pick on this guy.

00:21:20.200 Okay.

00:21:20.500 I get it.

00:21:20.920 So that's fair to do that.

00:21:21.900 No, it's got to be fair.

00:21:22.680 Assuming you do that way, that's very fair.

00:21:24.480 Yeah.

00:21:24.740 Okay.

00:21:25.980 You know, we'd send it to a lab or water lab

00:21:28.320 or they'd do the water test or whatever the heck the thing is.

00:21:31.240 I mean, there's a lot of things on a test that we don't need to do.

00:21:36.480 We haven't had any problems of diuretic overdose,

00:21:40.740 anybody cramping on stage that they had to come off.

00:21:43.860 We also had these guys.

00:21:45.460 We'd have a, you know, oxygen thing for them while on the side

00:21:51.000 when they needed oxygen.

00:21:52.760 Come on.

00:21:53.500 So you didn't like that era.

00:21:56.320 It doesn't sound like you're supportive of that era because-

00:21:58.760 Well, as the years went by, the drugs got more.

00:22:03.000 And I kept saying, you've got to remember my relationship with the weeders,

00:22:06.960 and this is another thing Sean didn't understand.

00:22:08.900 I know he made the comment because people called me and said,

00:22:11.500 the weeders were paying you money?

00:22:12.980 I said, no, I was paying them.

00:22:14.220 I was, after I was appointed to the position,

00:22:18.920 then eventually I started a company, IFBB Pro Division Inc.

00:22:22.700 My company, I pay taxes.

00:22:25.380 It wasn't a federation.

00:22:27.040 The IFBB recognized me to run pro bodybuilding.

00:22:32.080 It was my company.

00:22:33.260 So, yeah, if I acted like a dictator at times, like Sean said, yes, I did.

00:22:37.280 Because it was my company, and you cannot do what you want.

00:22:42.140 You're an independent contractor.

00:22:43.740 You can join my company of your own free will,

00:22:47.500 or you could join any other pro bodybuilding organization out there.

00:22:51.420 It was your choice because I was giving away more prize money than anybody else.

00:22:54.640 I was taking care of the athletes better than everybody else by flying them in,

00:22:58.280 taking care of their hotels, food allowance.

00:23:00.940 But you had to adhere to the rules.

00:23:04.060 You had to do press conferences, like anything, boxing, okay?

00:23:08.520 We just saw a championship fight.

00:23:10.180 Those guys had to do press conferences.

00:23:13.160 They had to do all sorts of publicity

00:23:14.740 because the promoters are putting up the money,

00:23:18.680 and you are the stars, and you've got to help generate the money.

00:23:23.200 Nobody cares about Bob Arum.

00:23:25.040 Nobody's paying money to see Bob Arum.

00:23:26.980 No one is.

00:23:27.520 Yeah, but they're paying to see the boxers,

00:23:29.580 and you've got to create that hype where you're watching them,

00:23:32.040 and they're bad-mouthing each other,

00:23:33.520 and they get you excited that,

00:23:34.840 I'm going to put down that whatever amount.

00:23:37.680 $90, $100.

00:23:38.160 Yeah.

00:23:38.400 Would you consider yourself a promoter?

00:23:39.720 Would you say you're a promoter?

00:23:40.540 By nature, you're a promoter.

00:23:41.800 Yeah.

00:23:41.900 Okay.

00:23:42.440 So, by the way, you sound like some of my other guests that I have here,

00:23:46.860 like mob affiliation.

00:23:48.220 Did you have any mob connections back in the days or no?

00:23:50.760 Because to be able to do that, you've got to have a strong personality

00:23:53.700 to handle other ego people.

00:23:55.940 Like Dana White, I'll give you an example.

00:23:57.940 Dana White's a promoter.

00:23:59.620 Dana is not scared of a lot of people

00:24:01.220 because Dana's coming from the streets where he's a tough guy.

00:24:04.760 To handle the guys that are UFC guys, you've got to be a tough guy.

00:24:08.460 To be a Don King, you can't be scared of people.

00:24:10.740 I know people that work.

00:24:11.480 I'm not scared of people.

00:24:11.860 What I'm saying to you is you kind of come across as that kind of a DNA.

00:24:15.280 How did you become who you were when you started promoting?

00:24:18.760 Like who was Wayne before he became the guy that's, you know.

00:24:22.020 I've always been this.

00:24:22.700 I've always been, when I played on baseball teams, softball teams,

00:24:26.360 I was always the captain, the coach, the this or that, the player coach.

00:24:30.080 Were you always pushing buttons or no?

00:24:31.480 Yeah.

00:24:31.800 I was always in a leadership position.

00:24:33.800 I'm a typical Leo, born in August.

00:24:36.260 Okay.

00:24:36.780 Got it.

00:24:37.560 Were you ever connected to the mob or no?

00:24:40.380 No, but they used to come to the shows.

00:24:42.240 Oh, to the shows as guests.

00:24:43.300 Yeah, they used to come to the shows.

00:24:44.400 Any big names or no?

00:24:45.500 Yeah.

00:24:46.160 Who?

00:24:46.620 I don't say.

00:24:47.660 Okay.

00:24:48.080 Anybody that's been a guest on my show?

00:24:50.000 No, he didn't.

00:24:50.940 Okay.

00:24:51.460 Got it.

00:24:51.880 No.

00:24:52.400 But his father's son.

00:24:56.400 Okay.

00:24:57.280 You know who I'm talking about.

00:24:58.200 I got it, yes.

00:24:58.920 Yeah, he was big into bodybuilding.

00:25:00.240 A lot of them were.

00:25:00.720 Yeah.

00:25:01.120 And a lot of them are friends of mine.

00:25:02.120 He just passed away, by the way.

00:25:03.320 Who?

00:25:04.180 Junior?

00:25:04.880 No, no.

00:25:05.520 Oh, no, no.

00:25:06.000 I'm not talking about that guy that was 103.

00:25:07.960 Oh, you're not talking about him?

00:25:08.820 No, no.

00:25:09.440 Gotti Jr.

00:25:10.060 Oh, I got it.

00:25:10.840 Okay, I got it.

00:25:11.460 Okay.

00:25:11.820 But a lot of the guys, you know, in Brooklyn back then in the late 70s, early 80s.

00:25:16.920 They were into it?

00:25:17.700 Yeah.

00:25:18.000 They were into training.

00:25:19.160 They'd come to the shows and this and that.

00:25:21.200 I didn't have no problem.

00:25:22.020 Would you consider yourself a tough guy or no?

00:25:23.800 No, a reasonable guy.

00:25:25.260 But I have to be tough.

00:25:26.100 I have to be tough when I have to be tough.

00:25:28.020 No, again, going back to it.

00:25:29.980 Like I said, you know what?

00:25:31.560 You get my face, I'll be right back in yours.

00:25:33.720 So what I'm saying is how did you become that?

00:25:35.540 Who pushed you around where you had to be tough?

00:25:38.280 Like how did you become the way you are?

00:25:40.400 I always was.

00:25:41.280 You grew up in the streets of New York?

00:25:42.880 Are you, where'd you grow up at?

00:25:44.640 I grew up in New York.

00:25:45.740 You grew up in New York?

00:25:46.560 Yeah.

00:25:46.840 And in high school, you were the leader in high school?

00:25:48.740 Were you the guy that played sports, the cool guy, the ladies guy?

00:25:52.120 Who were you?

00:25:52.620 I went to an all-boys school.

00:25:53.660 I went to Brooklyn Tech for smart guys.

00:25:55.500 Tough to be a ladies guy.

00:25:56.660 Yeah, tough to be a ladies guy.

00:25:58.400 Brooklyn Tech never had a prom.

00:26:00.540 You know, every year they try to have a prom.

00:26:02.660 How are they going to have a prom?

00:26:06.280 Okay, so what do you do after high school?

00:26:08.440 After high school, I went to college.

00:26:10.100 What are you trying to be at this point?

00:26:11.420 Are you trying to be-

00:26:12.080 I got a degree in engineering, and then I got a job out of college with AT&T, but I had

00:26:19.460 taken an elective in college in political science, in constitutional law, and it fascinated

00:26:24.440 me.

00:26:25.060 So I decided to go back to college because AT&T would pay for it, and I was saying, ah, maybe

00:26:30.880 I'll become a lawyer.

00:26:31.920 I can see that.

00:26:32.260 Went to take political science, and I took communications, but communications meaning debating,

00:26:38.120 persuasion, argumentation, to be an attorney or a politician.

00:26:42.080 I got those degrees, but I went to a bodybuilding show.

00:26:45.720 What year?

00:26:46.840 1973.

00:26:48.100 I wanted to go- there was two shows held- because bodybuilding world, they always do stupid things.

00:26:52.740 Dan Lurie used to be part of the IFBB.

00:26:56.340 He even said that he started the IFBB.

00:26:59.360 His son has incorporation papers, said he started the IFBB in 1948.

00:27:03.840 He incorporated it.

00:27:04.660 Ben Wheeler says he started in 1946.

00:27:06.960 Who knows?

00:27:07.860 They were at odds.

00:27:08.680 So Dan had the WBBG.

00:27:11.640 The Wheaters had the IFBB.

00:27:14.160 They put the shows on the same day to try and kill each other.

00:27:19.220 Dan goes and gets, as a special guest, Steve Reeves.

00:27:23.840 Now, I had seen Steve Reeves when I was 10, 11 years old in those Hercules movies.

00:27:28.260 I wanted to go buy a ticket to see it.

00:27:30.100 Because now I was working, I had money, I could buy a ticket.

00:27:32.900 Because when I was young, as a teenager, Mr. America, AAU, Mr. America, was always held

00:27:37.120 in York, Pennsylvania.

00:27:38.400 I was 13, 14.

00:27:39.440 My mother said, where are you going?

00:27:40.760 You're not going to York, Pennsylvania on a bus by yourself at 13.

00:27:44.220 You know, it's like, never win.

00:27:45.860 I got out of bodybuilding for a while.

00:27:47.400 I was into boxing.

00:27:48.380 I boxed for five years.

00:27:49.260 Did you- so were you bodybuilding?

00:27:50.920 I trained.

00:27:51.860 I never competed.

00:27:52.620 Okay.

00:27:53.140 Got it.

00:27:53.840 You know, when I found out about the drugs, I wouldn't take drugs.

00:27:56.420 Why not?

00:27:57.280 It harmed your body.

00:27:58.300 It was- it was defeating the purpose.

00:28:00.240 After that contest in 73, where Arnold won the Olympia, because I couldn't see Steve Reeves,

00:28:06.240 so I went to the IFBB show, I said, I'll see this fellow Arnold.

00:28:10.020 Because I was reading the Mac- it was at the bodybuilding, 66, 67, when Arnold first came

00:28:15.400 on the scene in the NAB universe.

00:28:17.260 But then I got into boxing, and I stopped bodybuilding, I was just total boxing.

00:28:21.940 And then I got back into it late 72 again, a friend of mine had a magazine.

00:28:26.240 I said, oh, I remember this guy Arnold with the funny last name.

00:28:29.720 He said, he's the greatest bodybuilder in the world, he's Mr. Olympia, this and that.

00:28:33.360 So I look at the thing, it was late 72, it said the contest was going to be 73.

00:28:38.180 I looked at the other thing, there's Steve Reeves, but I couldn't go to Steve Reeves,

00:28:41.380 so I bought a ticket to Brooklyn Academy to see Arnold.

00:28:44.680 And Arnold wins that night, and they give him the check, and he takes the microphone from

00:28:51.280 the podium, and back then everything had a wire, and he's pacing on the stage, looking

00:28:57.220 at the check, and I'm thinking, what is this guy doing, you know?

00:29:00.060 And then he just stops and he goes, I train all year, I train all year, last year they

00:29:04.780 gave me $1,000, this year $7.50, and he throws the mic on the floor and walks off.

00:29:08.820 I go, wow, what a wild sport, this is entertaining.

00:29:10.680 Why isn't this place sold out?

00:29:13.540 So I joined the gym, Mid-City Gym, that promoted the show, and I meet the guy that was the

00:29:19.420 promoter, Tom Minichiello, and he was the IFBB vice president at the time.

00:29:24.760 And so I joined the gym, and I said, oh, Tom, you know, I went to the contest Saturday.

00:29:28.760 Wow, Arnold's a character.

00:29:30.400 Yeah, that's Arnold being Arnold.

00:29:31.800 I said, well, why didn't you have any big sponsors?

00:29:33.700 And he goes to me, well, when big companies are ready to sponsor bodybuilding, they'll

00:29:39.640 come to me, because I run the Olympia, the big show.

00:29:42.300 And I go, but Tom, nobody comes to give you money.

00:29:44.720 You've got to go out and get it.

00:29:46.160 No, no, you're too aggressive, you're young, you'll learn.

00:29:49.280 Stay back, you wait, and people come to you.

00:29:51.260 And I walked out of that room thinking, if this is the guy that's in charge of the Olympia

00:29:55.640 and the vice president, and this is his way of thinking, I think I could take over this

00:29:59.140 sport.

00:29:59.980 I mean, that was the thought in my head.

00:30:01.720 In that moment?

00:30:02.320 In that moment.

00:30:03.800 So I became friends with Tom, and I said, you know, anything you need, because I was

00:30:07.840 still living home with my parents in Richmond Hill, Queens, by JFK Airport.

00:30:12.460 You know, so he goes, you know what, you could be my gopher.

00:30:15.520 Anybody that comes in, instead of me having to pay for a taxi, you could go pick them up

00:30:19.020 and bring them in.

00:30:19.680 I said, okay.

00:30:20.440 So that's what I would do.

00:30:21.740 So I got to know everybody.

00:30:22.960 The only guy that didn't come in that I had to pick up was Arnold.

00:30:27.660 Arnold demanded a limo or whatever.

00:30:29.200 I got to meet Arnold later on in 73.

00:30:32.820 He came back to New York to do something.

00:30:34.620 He was training.

00:30:35.060 He came in at lunchtime.

00:30:36.360 And he was in the locker next to me.

00:30:37.940 He said, hey, I go, hi.

00:30:38.820 I saw you in the thing.

00:30:39.660 Oh, yes.

00:30:40.200 Ba-ba-ba.

00:30:40.620 And we just told him, what's your name?

00:30:41.820 My name's Wayne.

00:30:42.360 And we shook hands and this and that.

00:30:43.720 And we trained a little bit together, this and that.

00:30:45.860 Just two guys.

00:30:47.180 You know, I wasn't a groupie.

00:30:48.440 And I think he enjoyed that because other guys, well, that's Arnold.

00:30:53.440 You know, this and that.

00:30:53.980 No, he's just another guy.

00:30:55.900 And, you know, we struck that up.

00:30:58.080 In 74, I helped Tom.

00:31:00.100 He ran the Eastern America in the spring and the Mr. Olympia in the fall.

00:31:06.760 And I helped him with everything, this and that, for free.

00:31:08.940 I bought my tickets.

00:31:10.140 But I did a lot of work.

00:31:11.300 And I was going to go around.

00:31:12.820 I'd go around a contest, no matter what the federation was, buy tickets.

00:31:17.800 And then offer my help backstage just to see what they were doing wrong.

00:31:20.840 Not what they were doing right.

00:31:21.900 Because they were, I'm thinking, like, why aren't these shows run better?

00:31:25.540 What's wrong here?

00:31:26.720 In January of 75, Tom goes to me.

00:31:31.760 I'm going to make you the Metropolitan Director of the AABA, which was the American affiliate to the IFBB.

00:31:39.160 Because they hadn't affiliated with the AAU-MPC yet.

00:31:43.020 You can run the Eastern America contest this year.

00:31:46.380 I said, wow, Tom, thanks.

00:31:48.000 I go into the gym.

00:31:49.420 All the guys that I'd see train at lunchtime.

00:31:51.720 I said, guys, guys, Tom's going to let me run the Eastern America this year.

00:31:55.740 And they go, ha, ha, ha, ha, they're laughing at me.

00:31:58.520 I go, it's so funny.

00:31:59.180 He goes, if he don't run that show, then we've got a show in the spring and then the show in the fall.

00:32:04.220 We'll go to the AAU, and he'll have no amateurs for the fall show.

00:32:08.520 So now you're going to lose the money instead of him.

00:32:11.960 And he's still going to get us in the fall.

00:32:13.420 I said, I'm not going to lose money.

00:32:15.160 They go, what do you mean?

00:32:15.700 I said, I'm going to get a sponsor to cover my expenses.

00:32:18.760 And they looked at me.

00:32:19.520 What's a sponsor?

00:32:21.040 I said, it's a company that gives you money in exchange for exposure.

00:32:26.520 They're looking at me.

00:32:27.320 Now, I'm 25 years old.

00:32:28.920 I said, I'm going to figure out my expenses.

00:32:30.620 So one of the guys that trained there was an assistant principal of a school around the corner.

00:32:35.280 And he just come to me.

00:32:36.120 He goes, Wayne, you want to use our school?

00:32:37.700 It's not that big.

00:32:39.160 But he says, you know, there was only like 30 people in the audience at the Eastern America last year.

00:32:45.060 So we've got 200 seats.

00:32:46.980 It's plenty big enough.

00:32:47.980 I said, okay, let me go see it.

00:32:49.140 We do it.

00:32:49.920 He says, I'll get it for you for free.

00:32:51.580 All you've got to do is throw 50 bucks to the custodian to come in on a Saturday.

00:32:56.140 I said, okay.

00:32:56.980 Make sure the lighting was good because I understood lighting a little bit.

00:33:00.460 Of course.

00:33:00.520 You know.

00:33:01.840 And so I figured out my budget.

00:33:05.820 Trophies, printing, whatever.

00:33:08.340 You know, we put posters up.

00:33:09.780 And my budget was $600.

00:33:11.980 So a friend of mine worked at JFK part-time in a hotel reservation company.

00:33:18.040 It was a husband and wife reservation company.

00:33:20.120 So if you came off a plane and you didn't know where to stay that night, you go to them.

00:33:23.700 They'd book you in a hotel and they'd get the commission.

00:33:26.040 And I said to them, look, you give me $600.

00:33:30.860 Everybody that comes in from this show will book a hotel room through you.

00:33:34.160 It was an amateur show.

00:33:34.960 They had a book.

00:33:35.780 But then they'll know about your company because of all the publicity.

00:33:39.540 Anything beyond that is gravy.

00:33:41.720 So we're going to break even here because you'll make enough money.

00:33:46.120 And then it's not because, like, all the guys coming in from California, you know, the Weeders, you know, photographers and this and that.

00:33:53.480 Have you yet met the Weeders or not yet?

00:33:55.560 Yeah, I had met the Weeders.

00:33:57.140 I met them at the show in 74.

00:34:01.500 I just said hello to them.

00:34:02.520 Oh, but not a real sit-down conversation?

00:34:04.760 Nothing yet?

00:34:05.440 No.

00:34:05.580 They don't really know who you are and what your aspirations are?

00:34:08.040 No.

00:34:08.140 Okay.

00:34:08.400 No.

00:34:08.740 I got my thing covered.

00:34:10.500 I had met Gene Mosay.

00:34:12.700 Gene Mosay at the time was the editor of Muscle Builder.

00:34:15.920 Unfortunately, Gene has passed away, too.

00:34:18.160 And I said to him, I'm going to run the East in America.

00:34:20.940 I called him up at the Weeders building.

00:34:22.920 And I said, can you give me an ad?

00:34:25.180 He said, well, I could give you half a column ad.

00:34:27.480 I'll run it for two months.

00:34:28.760 Okay?

00:34:29.760 So I had an ad in Muscle Builder for the contest.

00:34:31.960 I didn't know the concept yet of going around to other gyms and everything.

00:34:36.260 But I knew Mid-City Gym had to have about 500 members, so I got on every one of them.

00:34:41.080 You get your tickets yet for Eastern America?

00:34:43.080 You get your tickets?

00:34:43.800 Guys would say, wait, here.

00:34:45.040 Here's my $5.

00:34:46.560 Give me the stupid ticket.

00:34:47.820 Leave me alone.

00:34:48.340 Let me train.

00:34:48.800 And then I would go all hours of the day because I was at lunchtime, but guys that trained at night were different.

00:34:53.620 It was only open on Saturday.

00:34:55.400 It wasn't open on Sundays and stuff.

00:34:57.220 I sold the 200 tickets in advance.

00:35:00.960 Reserve in the front with chairs with an arm was $6.50.

00:35:05.700 Folding chairs behind them were $5.

00:35:07.540 And then, you know, standing room was $5.

00:35:11.900 So I made over $1,000.

00:35:14.400 I remember, I was working for AT&T making about $140 a week.

00:35:22.780 And here I am making $1,200, $1,500.

00:35:26.200 I knew I was going to make money, so I even bought a TV set for the winner, you know.

00:35:30.500 I figured, I don't know what to do, you know, making all this money.

00:35:32.760 I'll buy something else besides all the trophies.

00:35:34.520 So I go in Monday morning, everybody's telling me how great I am, Saturday night.

00:35:38.720 You know, it was a fun time, seeing all the guys from the gym.

00:35:41.200 And, you know, seeing the guys, all these guys come in businessmen in suits.

00:35:45.920 Now they're coming in, you know, the way they hang out on a weekend.

00:35:49.120 And, okay, so I go in on Monday morning, go train at lunchtime, and Tom goes, get in my office.

00:35:56.280 I go in.

00:35:56.880 I say, what's up, Tom?

00:35:58.100 You have a good time?

00:35:58.720 That was the worst contest I ever saw.

00:36:00.440 That was bad.

00:36:01.220 He reams me out.

00:36:02.220 I leave there, and in my mind, I'm in a daze.

00:36:04.900 I'm saying, wow, what's wrong?

00:36:07.220 So I go in the gym, and everybody's patting me on the back and this and that.

00:36:10.880 I said, why is Tom yelling at me?

00:36:14.440 Saying it was the worst contest ever.

00:36:15.860 And the guy that was the principal, you know, who just came in to train, and this educated

00:36:19.300 guy goes, Wayne, do you understand what happened?

00:36:22.260 I said, no.

00:36:23.340 He goes, he's jealous.

00:36:24.700 You did what he can't do.

00:36:26.760 He's lost money on that show, and you've made, you know, you didn't hide it.

00:36:30.560 You said you made, you know, over $1,000, close to $1,500, and he's jealous, and he knows

00:36:36.900 you're better, and he doesn't like you no more.

00:36:41.260 I said, but I'm running it under him.

00:36:43.860 I'm running it for his federation.

00:36:45.580 And they go, welcome to the business world, the real business world, the cutthroat business

00:36:51.440 world.

00:36:52.140 When you're very successful, some people don't like you.

00:36:55.840 They're jealous of you and this and that.

00:36:58.120 Okay.

00:36:58.700 By the time we got to the fall show, you know, he didn't want me involved with it that much

00:37:03.620 and this and that.

00:37:05.700 But what he did was, he had pictures up on the wall that my girlfriend at the time took.

00:37:11.340 She eventually became my first wife.

00:37:13.040 And he used some of these pictures on the poster.

00:37:17.580 I know what laws are.

00:37:19.420 So I said to him, I'm still training at the gym because I paid every month.

00:37:22.620 He wanted my money.

00:37:24.060 I said, you know, Tom, you're using Karen's pictures.

00:37:27.260 Well, they're on my wall.

00:37:28.400 They're mine.

00:37:28.860 No, they're ours.

00:37:29.400 They're stamped.

00:37:30.540 You could put them on the wall, but you're using them for advertising purposes.

00:37:34.540 Now, you've got to remember, back then, prejudging wasn't open to the public.

00:37:37.860 I don't know why.

00:37:39.120 That was another thing I'm saying.

00:37:40.320 They're throwing money away.

00:37:41.220 But that's the way they thought back then.

00:37:44.200 And I said, and only select people could be at the judging along with the judges.

00:37:49.000 Yeah.

00:37:49.520 So I said, you know, can me and Karen come and take pictures and this and that?

00:37:53.320 Well, I'll think about it.

00:37:54.260 Now, he had a partner.

00:37:55.840 We're going to go to the thing.

00:37:57.280 And I had met Joe Weider by the fall of 75.

00:38:00.580 What happened in the summer of 75, I had been writing letters to Joe Weider.

00:38:05.640 I didn't really know if there was a difference between Joe and Ben, you know, these guys.

00:38:09.080 You don't know yet.

00:38:10.180 Yeah.

00:38:10.580 I decide I'm just going to go.

00:38:12.760 So I get an airline ticket.

00:38:14.760 I get on a plane.

00:38:16.220 I rent a car.

00:38:17.860 I look on the map.

00:38:19.120 Woodland Hills.

00:38:20.220 I go to Irwin Street, 21100 Irwin Street.

00:38:23.820 So I just go one way or the other until I meet that number.

00:38:26.900 Wow, here's the Weider building.

00:38:28.060 I was impressed.

00:38:28.800 This beautiful, big building.

00:38:31.200 This is body building?

00:38:32.620 Wow.

00:38:33.740 So I walk in and they have these big paintings on each wall about, oh, 10, 12 foot.

00:38:39.160 Larry Scott, Arnold, Franco, all the guys, these big paintings as you walk in.

00:38:44.240 And I go, I'd like to see Joe Weider.

00:38:46.500 Is he at this point making money?

00:38:48.700 Joe?

00:38:49.100 Joe.

00:38:49.520 Oh, of course, yeah.

00:38:50.220 What kind of money is he making at this point?

00:38:52.340 Is it real money or not yet?

00:38:53.960 Oh, it's real money.

00:38:54.800 It's real money.

00:38:55.420 Yeah.

00:38:55.760 Okay.

00:38:56.360 Because you know the story about Arnold, how he talks about it in the book Total Recall.

00:38:59.300 He says, the first time I went out there to visit Joe, it was a little shack.

00:39:03.240 It wasn't like a big headquarters they had.

00:39:04.760 So this is at the point where-

00:39:06.020 Oh, this is the major building.

00:39:07.440 Got it.

00:39:07.640 This is the major building.

00:39:08.000 1975 or 76?

00:39:09.920 75.

00:39:10.380 75, okay.

00:39:11.400 Woodland Hills.

00:39:11.980 Woodland Hills.

00:39:12.640 Yeah.

00:39:13.200 I said, well, talk to Gene Mose.

00:39:15.040 He knows me.

00:39:15.800 Tell him Wayne from New York is here.

00:39:17.760 So Gene comes down.

00:39:19.620 He goes, hey, Wayne, you know, this and-

00:39:20.920 I said, I want to see Joe.

00:39:22.060 I want to- I got these ideas.

00:39:24.220 And he goes, okay, come on up.

00:39:26.060 So he introduces me to Annalise, Joe's secretary.

00:39:30.060 She goes, you got no appointment?

00:39:31.360 I said, no.

00:39:31.980 I came from New York.

00:39:32.860 I want to see Joe.

00:39:33.740 We'll sit here.

00:39:34.360 It was like 10 o'clock in the morning.

00:39:35.580 I sat there till 6 o'clock.

00:39:37.300 Every time she'd look out, you're still here?

00:39:39.000 I said, I'm still here.

00:39:40.060 So finally, she goes, he'll see you.

00:39:42.880 And Joe, what are you doing here?

00:39:44.740 What can I do for you?

00:39:45.700 I said, Joe, I said, I ran the Eastern America contest last year.

00:39:49.740 Tom got all upset and this and that.

00:39:51.760 I said, but I want to run pro shows.

00:39:53.240 All you got is Mr. Olympia.

00:39:54.720 And, you know, those are the stars.

00:39:56.560 And without the stars, it's boring.

00:39:59.400 I said, so I think bodybuilding should be like golf and tennis,

00:40:02.880 where there's Grand Prix things and you get points for the shows and this and that.

00:40:06.680 I had all these ideas.

00:40:07.900 He looks at me and goes, oh, that'll never work.

00:40:10.440 But it's not me.

00:40:12.380 You got to talk.

00:40:12.900 You got to talk to my brother.

00:40:14.620 Your brother.

00:40:15.820 Ben, he's the head of the IFBB.

00:40:17.380 I just run the magazines.

00:40:18.980 I don't do nothing.

00:40:20.260 Yeah.

00:40:20.800 That's both.

00:40:21.620 Was he telling the truth?

00:40:22.980 Well, he did run the magazines, but he was Ben's big brother.

00:40:25.480 He would always tell Ben what to do.

00:40:27.320 So he is just pawning you to Ben right now, but the final decision is going to be still him.

00:40:31.380 Well, to be part of the IFBB, it's going to be Ben, but, you know, they would always play good cop, bad cop.

00:40:37.580 Got it.

00:40:38.040 You know, so I'm saying, I came out here for, of course, four months later, I see Joe's editorial.

00:40:43.860 We've got to take pro bodybuilding and make it this, this, and this, you know, Grand Prix.

00:40:48.120 I'm saying that's just what I told him, right?

00:40:49.620 So I start writing, you know, you've got to remember, this was before email.

00:40:55.000 It wasn't even fax machines.

00:40:56.740 You had to write letters.

00:40:58.360 So I write letters to Ben Weider.

00:40:59.900 I'd like to come up and see you and this and that.

00:41:02.260 I get nowhere.

00:41:03.260 Other people that I was helping or bodybuilding, I said, write a letter to this guy.

00:41:06.900 Now, we get to the 75 show in New York.

00:41:10.900 Mr. Olympia was being held in South Africa, pumping iron, Pretoria.

00:41:15.460 I'm there, and the night before, everybody's in town, because I'm still picking up the guys,

00:41:20.160 because now the guys don't even go to Tom.

00:41:21.520 They can just call me up.

00:41:22.420 Wayne, can you pick me up?

00:41:23.320 My flight's coming in at this time.

00:41:25.200 So I bring them in, and I see Joe at Tom's gym, and he goes, oh, come get me.

00:41:31.280 I don't want to take a cab.

00:41:32.460 Joe was a little cheap.

00:41:33.720 Pick me up and take me, because it was being held at the old Felt Forum part of Madison Square Garden.

00:41:38.420 I said, okay.

00:41:39.040 So I pick up Joe.

00:41:40.060 Now, I had said to Tom, you know, maybe we'll get him prejudging, right?

00:41:43.900 Well, I've got to talk to my partner, Pete.

00:41:46.300 Yeah, I don't think there's a problem.

00:41:47.460 Okay.

00:41:47.900 So we get to the Felt Forum.

00:41:49.920 Now, they had New York City cops there.

00:41:52.720 My dad, former president of the PBA, Patrolman's Benevolence Association in New York.

00:41:59.120 At that time, in 75, he was the vice president.

00:42:01.980 He was known.

00:42:02.860 So we get there, and I said, you know, to go in through the back door, and we come with Joe.

00:42:09.360 And they go, what's your name?

00:42:10.680 I said, her name is Karen Clark, this is Joe Weider, I'm Wayne D'Amelia.

00:42:15.980 He goes, well, Joe Weider's on here, I don't see Karen Clark.

00:42:20.060 So Joe goes, well, she's with me, taking pictures for me.

00:42:22.880 So the guy goes, okay.

00:42:23.820 So the guy goes to me, you know Sam D'Amelia?

00:42:27.140 That's my dad.

00:42:28.120 I said, he's your vice president of the PBA.

00:42:30.140 So we are talking and this and that.

00:42:31.720 And the next thing, Joe comes, what the heck is going on in there?

00:42:35.420 They're throwing Karen out.

00:42:37.700 I said, what do you mean they're throwing Karen out?

00:42:38.980 Karen comes out, she goes, Tom's partner, Pete, doesn't want me in there.

00:42:43.560 I said, but he's using your pictures.

00:42:45.640 Those are your pictures on the poster.

00:42:47.380 He didn't pay you a dime.

00:42:48.400 That's technically against the law.

00:42:50.820 I go to Joe.

00:42:51.680 You go in there and you tell Tom, if he don't let us into the judging, I'm going to sue him.

00:42:58.000 Tom comes out all shaky.

00:42:59.180 You're going to sue me?

00:43:00.140 You're going to sue me?

00:43:01.600 Clean out your locker?

00:43:03.060 Get out of Mid-City Gym.

00:43:04.360 You're out of here and this and that.

00:43:05.640 I said, fine.

00:43:07.140 I leave.

00:43:07.720 Joe's going, where are you going?

00:43:09.120 Where are you going?

00:43:09.900 I said, I don't need this.

00:43:11.140 You're coming back tonight, right?

00:43:13.120 No, I'm not.

00:43:13.880 You think I'm going to give him any more money and buy a ticket?

00:43:16.980 I'll buy it for you.

00:43:18.080 And he did.

00:43:18.540 He bought us two tickets.

00:43:19.720 And he's cheap.

00:43:20.440 He's cheap and he bought it.

00:43:21.540 Yeah.

00:43:22.080 I was way in the back in the cheap seats, but he took Karen up front to take pictures for him

00:43:25.540 because he liked her pictures.

00:43:26.920 I went back to my locker, Mid-City Gym.

00:43:29.300 I took the thing.

00:43:29.840 They go, Wayne, what are you doing here?

00:43:30.760 I said, I'm out of here.

00:43:31.700 I told him the guys in the gym, you're quitting?

00:43:34.020 I said, yep.

00:43:34.640 I ain't going to deal with this no more.

00:43:36.480 You know?

00:43:36.920 I said, he can't handle it.

00:43:39.240 I said, Tom's a nice guy.

00:43:40.700 He's laid back.

00:43:42.360 You can't be nice as a promoter.

00:43:44.800 You've got to push, push, push, push every day.

00:43:47.240 That's how my brain goes.

00:43:48.460 And I said, you know, I want to do bigger things.

00:43:50.640 Yeah, I was in the back and, you know, I went out with Joe Weider and the guys that night,

00:43:53.820 not Tom, Tom wasn't with him.

00:43:55.440 I'm with all the guys and everything.

00:43:57.680 And I continue to write.

00:44:00.400 I said, you've got to talk to your brother.

00:44:01.680 Where's your brother?

00:44:02.700 Ben was there and then Ben took off.

00:44:04.940 You know, Ben didn't hang out with the bodybuilders.

00:44:06.780 Joe did.

00:44:07.440 And I said, you've got to talk to your brother.

00:44:09.180 Keep on him.

00:44:10.000 Keep on him.

00:44:11.040 So I write and write and write.

00:44:13.200 And finally I call.

00:44:14.880 And I get a secretary, Pamela Kagan, on the line.

00:44:17.220 And I said, hi, I've been writing.

00:44:19.880 She goes, are you the guy from New York with all these letters and you get all these people writing?

00:44:23.360 I said, yes.

00:44:24.040 I want to come up there and speak to him.

00:44:25.440 I got these ideas and Joe said I should speak to him.

00:44:27.920 So they go, okay.

00:44:28.820 The world champions, now the whole year went by.

00:44:31.240 We're talking now the fall of 76.

00:44:33.880 And I'm still going around to amateur shows learning.

00:44:36.080 World championships in Congress was going to be held in Montreal.

00:44:40.020 He said, she said to me, I'll put you down for a time with President Weider.

00:44:45.920 It was like seeing the Pope.

00:44:47.920 I remember the time.

00:44:48.800 I had a Thursday afternoon, 2.10 to 2.20.

00:44:51.000 So I check into the hotel.

00:44:52.640 You're going to be in.

00:44:54.500 And I get there early and there's all these people lined up.

00:44:57.700 I'm thinking like, wow, how do you do this?

00:44:59.220 Like a doctor's offer.

00:45:00.140 You pick a number.

00:45:00.780 What are you?

00:45:01.280 So I see this lady there and she has a pad and everything.

00:45:05.740 I said, are you Miss Kagan?

00:45:08.100 She goes, yeah.

00:45:09.680 She goes, you're the guy from New York, Wayne.

00:45:12.140 I could tell by the way you speak.

00:45:13.500 I said, yeah.

00:45:14.400 She goes, 2.10.

00:45:15.320 You're behind this guy.

00:45:16.320 And this and that.

00:45:18.960 Okay.

00:45:19.620 So my time comes.

00:45:21.840 I go into this room.

00:45:22.840 Ben had this big opulent suite.

00:45:24.900 And you go in and there's a chair there, just like a little folding chair.

00:45:28.880 And there was three steps up and Ben was in this big armchair like the king.

00:45:33.400 I felt like I was seeing the Pope.

00:45:35.720 And she goes, Mr. Weider, this is Wayne D'Amelia from New York who's been writing us for the past year.

00:45:41.040 So he looks at me and he goes, well, okay.

00:45:44.360 You got your time.

00:45:45.300 What do you want to do?

00:45:46.360 I said, I want to run pro shows.

00:45:47.840 I'm going to do this.

00:45:48.520 I'm going to do that.

00:45:49.180 Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

00:45:50.280 He looks at me.

00:45:52.340 Do you compete?

00:45:54.080 No, sir.

00:45:54.920 Do you own a gym?

00:45:56.180 No, sir.

00:45:56.560 I work for AT&T.

00:45:58.220 Do you even work out?

00:46:00.080 I said, Mr. Weider, you're skinnier than me and you're the president to this thing.

00:46:05.300 If I was in the gym competing all day, taking drugs, how could I be a promoter?

00:46:09.780 And he laughed.

00:46:11.360 And he goes, typical Ben.

00:46:13.200 Ben was a politician.

00:46:14.200 I learned a lot from Ben.

00:46:15.300 We'd fight all the time as years went on.

00:46:17.080 We'd fight constantly.

00:46:18.180 It was one of the reasons why I left.

00:46:19.180 I just had enough.

00:46:19.980 But I learned a lot from him.

00:46:21.180 I give him a lot of credit on a lot of things.

00:46:23.240 He goes, well, you know, Joe got the idea for a pro committee.

00:46:29.060 And only those people on the pro committee could run contests.

00:46:31.760 And we're going to start the pro committee tonight.

00:46:33.320 So if the chairman of the pro committee wants to put you on it, you could be on it.

00:46:39.160 I said, OK, who's the chairman?

00:46:40.900 Our greatest champion, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

00:46:43.180 I said, OK, OK.

00:46:44.760 I said, well, I met Arnold in the gym three years ago.

00:46:47.600 And I said, I'm good friends with George Butler.

00:46:50.000 And I'm an independent, unpaid consultant on Pumping Iron.

00:46:53.720 And whenever they have screenings in New York, I go to it.

00:46:56.240 And half the time, Arnold's there and we're goofing around.

00:46:58.760 So you and Arnold are getting along at this point.

00:47:00.720 Oh, yeah.

00:47:00.820 There's a relationship.

00:47:01.740 Yeah.

00:47:02.060 OK.

00:47:02.260 So he goes, well, if he wants to put you on a committee, it's fine with me.

00:47:06.560 I said, oh, thank you.

00:47:07.280 I shake his hand, leave, say goodbye to Mrs. Kagan, this and that.

00:47:10.880 No lie.

00:47:12.060 I go to the elevator.

00:47:13.240 I push the button.

00:47:14.060 The elevator door opens up.

00:47:15.280 There's one person in there.

00:47:17.100 Arnold.

00:47:18.240 I think to myself in that one split second, this is meant to be.

00:47:21.980 I go, Arnold, you're starting a pro committee tonight.

00:47:24.140 I want to be on it.

00:47:25.080 Ah, Wayne, OK.

00:47:26.120 Come to my room, 7 o'clock.

00:47:28.060 There's my room number.

00:47:28.900 OK.

00:47:29.720 So I go there.

00:47:31.080 The original committee, Jim Lorimer was there.

00:47:34.200 I had met Jim Lorimer at a contest the year before.

00:47:37.140 There was supposed to be another AABA contest in 1975.

00:47:40.460 And the promoter had four guest posers.

00:47:44.860 He was going to have Arnold, Franco, Louis, and Chuck Sipes.

00:47:49.200 1975, all big names.

00:47:51.140 But he forgot to do one thing.

00:47:53.080 Sell tickets and get amateur athletes in the show.

00:47:56.240 The only athletes were the guys that came with me from Mid-City Gym.

00:47:58.980 And he sold two rows of tickets, but he double sold the first row.

00:48:06.340 And the guys were fighting.

00:48:07.380 And Arnold goes, I have a friend here in Columbus that could help out.

00:48:10.880 And he calls Jim Lorimer.

00:48:11.940 That's how I met Jim Lorimer.

00:48:13.320 Got it.

00:48:13.600 1975.

00:48:15.260 And me and Jim always hit it off.

00:48:17.000 I'm saying, can you believe this guy sells the whole place?

00:48:19.360 There's 4,000 seats in here.

00:48:20.640 And he sells the first row twice.

00:48:22.540 That's the only people he had.

00:48:24.220 So Jim Lorimer was on that committee.

00:48:26.980 And John Balick was on that committee from Iron Man and this and that.

00:48:31.000 But I'm looking at the guys.

00:48:31.980 I'm saying, I already got a tentative date on a venue in New York for the spring of 78.

00:48:37.000 I figured I'm going to do a spring show.

00:48:38.740 Again, going back a little bit.

00:48:40.860 That Monday after the first show I ran in 75 when Tom reamed me out,

00:48:46.920 I saw all the guys in the gym were talking.

00:48:48.620 So I see another guy there that I'd see every day.

00:48:51.380 And I go, what did you think of the contest?

00:48:53.820 He goes, oh, I couldn't make it.

00:48:55.680 I got a flat and I never got there.

00:48:57.720 I said, really?

00:48:58.920 He goes, yeah.

00:49:00.220 I said, you got your tickets?

00:49:02.260 He goes, yeah.

00:49:03.100 He said, I bought a reserve.

00:49:04.280 I said, here, here's $13.

00:49:05.480 Give me the tickets.

00:49:06.100 I gave him a refund.

00:49:07.600 So he goes, I see you here every day.

00:49:09.820 He said, who did your ad?

00:49:10.860 I said, I did.

00:49:11.720 You know, copy thing.

00:49:13.000 I said, it's terrible.

00:49:14.620 It sucks.

00:49:15.500 I said, really?

00:49:16.260 It's just like the ads in a magazine.

00:49:17.680 He says, well, the ads in a muscle magazine don't know what to do.

00:49:20.360 He gives me his card.

00:49:21.180 He says, after we train today, come on up to my office.

00:49:25.340 I'm the vice president of on-air design for NBC.

00:49:28.400 So I go up there and we talk.

00:49:30.740 And I said, I tell you what, let's be partners.

00:49:33.780 I got all these ideas, staging and everything, but I can't do all this artwork.

00:49:37.840 I'm not an artist.

00:49:38.700 You do the ads.

00:49:40.080 I come up with crazy ideas for staging because, look at the stages.

00:49:44.140 Black curtain and a thing.

00:49:46.220 No, it's got to be staging.

00:49:47.660 We've got to do this.

00:49:48.320 We've got to do that.

00:49:49.660 And you do that.

00:49:50.440 And I take care of the money.

00:49:51.320 I sell the tickets, this and that.

00:49:52.280 And we split 50-50.

00:49:53.460 He goes, fine.

00:49:54.000 We shake.

00:49:54.500 We never had a contract.

00:49:55.800 I said to him, I'm going to go up there and get the rights.

00:49:59.460 He'd laugh at me.

00:50:00.420 He goes, okay, whatever.

00:50:01.520 Charlie was a little older than me.

00:50:03.260 Charlie's still alive.

00:50:05.040 And he'd go, okay, you know, go ahead, do your thing.

00:50:08.780 So I come back to the room after saying I'm going to see Arnold that night.

00:50:11.700 I say, yeah, I'm going to be on the committee.

00:50:13.700 Only people on the committee can run it.

00:50:15.400 I'll let you know who's on the committee after I go there tonight.

00:50:18.140 And I looked around.

00:50:19.020 I'm saying, maybe Arnold and Jim Lauren are going to do it because they're going to run the Olympia here.

00:50:23.340 They just ran the Olympia in 76.

00:50:26.180 And they're running it again.

00:50:27.280 But nobody else in that room is going to run a show.

00:50:29.620 And I got the date set.

00:50:31.280 So when I got back and everything, wrote a letter to Ben Weider.

00:50:35.620 And I said, how do I go about locking in my show?

00:50:40.320 I'm going to do a show in the spring of 78.

00:50:43.160 I need 18.

00:50:44.180 I figured I needed a year and a half.

00:50:45.880 I couldn't do it that quick from November to May.

00:50:48.940 I never run a big show that I wanted to do, prize money and this and that.

00:50:53.960 I don't remember.

00:50:54.900 The prize money in the 1977 Mr. Olympia was only $12,000, $5,000 or $15,000 total.

00:51:01.820 And I was going to give away $10,000.

00:51:03.400 And there wasn't many sponsors for big shows.

00:51:05.960 I figured I'm going to sell every seat.

00:51:09.380 I will sell every seat.

00:51:10.940 I don't care what.

00:51:11.600 At $16.50 or at $6.50?

00:51:13.940 Oh, no, no.

00:51:14.540 Now I'm doing a pro show.

00:51:16.220 The judging was $5.

00:51:18.180 Well, now I'm going to first show that the judging was open to the public.

00:51:22.900 How many showed up?

00:51:24.640 Oh, I had over 1,000 people.

00:51:26.540 At $5?

00:51:27.380 Yeah.

00:51:28.180 Okay, so you made, this is in 1978, September?

00:51:31.700 In May of 78.

00:51:33.040 And the finals I sold for $10,000, $12,000 and $15,000.

00:51:36.940 I was sold out before I went in.

00:51:39.020 And then, you know, you talk to the theater manager and they'll do standing room half and

00:51:44.200 half because it's all cash.

00:51:46.700 I did well.

00:51:47.600 We made money.

00:51:48.200 We made about $7,000, $8,000 profit on that first show.

00:51:53.220 Well, which was a lot back then, you know, $3,500, $4,000 a piece, me and Charlie.

00:51:58.440 Are you still working at AT&T or no more?

00:52:00.300 Oh, yeah.

00:52:00.600 Oh, you're still working at AT&T.

00:52:01.680 Oh, yeah, I've been working a full-time job, yeah.

00:52:03.560 How long were you at AT&T?

00:52:05.660 Until 1985, 86.

00:52:08.460 Oh, okay, so you did all this stuff while you're still working full-time at AT&T.

00:52:11.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:52:11.760 Okay, got it.

00:52:12.760 And are you married still or you're not married anymore?

00:52:15.060 I got married in 77.

00:52:17.420 So by the time this show went in 78, I was married to Karen at the time.

00:52:21.060 And running the show and working for AT&T, I just bought a house, this and that, and then

00:52:28.500 the guys would come stay in my house.

00:52:29.900 I bought a big house for the bodybuilders to stay in my house.

00:52:32.860 Now, the interesting story about that 78 show, I go around, earlier in 77, late in 77,

00:52:39.880 Dan Lurie ran a contest and he advertises Arnold versus Sergio.

00:52:44.640 Everybody wanted to see that again.

00:52:47.520 And they were saying, he put down, invited to compete.

00:52:54.260 But it was in very small print.

00:52:57.320 Everybody saw the pictures, Arnold and Sergio.

00:52:59.760 Everybody bought tickets.

00:53:01.180 Sergio showed up.

00:53:02.080 Arnold wasn't going to show up because he was under the IFBB and they said you're not

00:53:05.220 allowed to go into a non-sanctioned event.

00:53:07.480 Sound familiar?

00:53:07.940 You know, so he didn't show.

00:53:11.160 All the gyms that sold tickets for Dan Lurie, all the fans were yelling at the gym owner

00:53:16.760 and everything, you know, I want my money back.

00:53:18.940 I went to Bayono versus Sergio, he wasn't there.

00:53:22.540 So here I come in January 78 and I got a poster.

00:53:26.460 The biggest star in the sport at that time was Robbie.

00:53:30.880 Robbie came on the scene, the Black Prince, the Afro, the vest all shredded up, you know,

00:53:36.580 all those lats coming out, this and that.

00:53:38.820 Danny Padilla, Boya Co., had joined the IFBB two years before from being in other things.

00:53:44.560 I got them all on this poster, beautiful poster with overlays and mezzotints.

00:53:49.540 Charlie did it, of course.

00:53:50.540 It was better, you know, when we did an ad, like the first poster, Joe Weider goes, who

00:53:53.740 did this ad?

00:53:54.220 He called me up.

00:53:54.960 Who did this ad?

00:53:56.200 It's better than any ad in here.

00:53:57.480 You're making me look bad.

00:53:59.040 I said, my partner, Charlie.

00:54:00.340 I want to talk to him.

00:54:01.840 I want to hire him.

00:54:02.660 Later on that year when we had the universe in 78 and Acapulco, he goes to Charlie, you

00:54:08.360 know, I want to hire you.

00:54:10.120 Charlie goes, well, you got to pay me more than NBC.

00:54:12.820 He goes, well, what are they paying you?

00:54:13.980 This was 1978.

00:54:15.180 Charlie was a vice president.

00:54:17.060 He goes, I'm getting paid 80 grand plus other things.

00:54:19.860 And Joe goes, what?

00:54:21.000 You know, Joe was freaking out.

00:54:22.680 How can anybody pay anybody like that?

00:54:24.780 You know, Charlie was, Charlie would run the affiliates convention.

00:54:27.940 Was Joe a millionaire?

00:54:29.260 Yeah.

00:54:29.760 At that time?

00:54:30.440 Yeah, but Joe was cheap.

00:54:31.180 Okay, yeah.

00:54:33.280 So, I go to the gym in Bath Beach Gym in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in 1978.

00:54:42.840 Everybody with John Travolta in the gym, the black slick back hair, the white t-shirt with

00:54:49.120 their pack of cigarettes under the arm, just right out of the movie.

00:54:52.700 I come in.

00:54:53.380 I'm going to go to that gym because that's the big hot gym.

00:54:58.160 And I go in there and I go, hi, you're the owner?

00:55:02.540 He goes, yeah.

00:55:03.800 Who are you?

00:55:04.380 I said, hi, my name's Wayne and I'm going to be running a show in May and I'd like you

00:55:07.760 to put up my poster and sell tickets for me.

00:55:10.980 He looks at the thing.

00:55:14.180 That's Robbie Robinson.

00:55:15.500 I said, yeah, he's a friend of mine.

00:55:17.480 Who the heck are you?

00:55:19.300 I said, well, you know, I'm just, I'm a promoter.

00:55:23.300 I just sold tickets for Dan Lurie.

00:55:25.340 We all know who Dan Lurie is.

00:55:26.460 Look, his name is on every one of the plates in my gym.

00:55:29.900 You know, because Dan Lurie made barbells.

00:55:32.740 And he said he was going to have Arnold and Sergio and Arnold don't show up and everybody

00:55:37.200 wanted money back.

00:55:37.980 And now you come in here, you're going to bring in Robbie Robinson and Danny Padilla

00:55:41.220 and Boyer Co.

00:55:43.360 Get out of here, he goes to me.

00:55:45.760 I said, no, they're going to come.

00:55:48.400 And this guy comes here and this guy comes here.

00:55:51.320 Cameron goes, I think it's going to be a hit.

00:55:54.400 I go, I'll tell you what.

00:55:56.660 I'll tell you what.

00:55:57.760 I look at him like this.

00:55:59.660 I take out my wallet.

00:56:01.820 I said, here, it's my driver's license.

00:56:04.500 It's got my address on it.

00:56:06.960 He goes, yeah.

00:56:08.140 I said, see this phone number on here?

00:56:09.440 Because Ticketmaster didn't exist yet.

00:56:11.240 This is how far back we're going.

00:56:12.460 No, Ticketmaster.

00:56:14.460 The last three weeks at the box office or else by mail order if you wanted information,

00:56:18.620 that was the phone number in my kitchen.

00:56:21.460 That's my home phone number.

00:56:24.440 Give me that calendar.

00:56:27.140 And he looked at me.

00:56:27.760 I said, give me the calendar off the wall.

00:56:30.100 Now he's backing up a little because I'm getting aggressive.

00:56:33.320 May 6th, Saturday, May 6th, the contest.

00:56:36.100 Monday here, the 1st.

00:56:39.920 We go back this day in April, this day in April, 8 p.m., Robbie Robinson.

00:56:47.640 I'm going to bring Robbie Robinson to your gym three weeks, approximately three weeks before the show.

00:56:54.740 But when I do, then you're going to put my posters up and you're going to sell me tickets.

00:57:01.060 Copy down my address.

00:57:02.000 And if I don't do it, all your Guido friends here, they can come and take me out.

00:57:07.380 And they're looking at me.

00:57:08.300 Copy it down.

00:57:09.680 They go, you're a cocky guy.

00:57:11.200 You know that?

00:57:11.900 I said, copy it down.

00:57:13.700 So they copied down my address and everything.

00:57:17.460 I go home.

00:57:17.820 Karen goes, you sure?

00:57:19.800 I said, come on, what did we do in the summer?

00:57:22.620 We spent two weeks at Robbie's house.

00:57:24.860 So I call up Robbie.

00:57:26.320 I said, Robbie, you know, nobody wants to sell these tickets and, you know, I got you center on the thing.

00:57:30.140 Could you come to my house like a month before?

00:57:32.080 He goes, yeah, no problem.

00:57:34.360 I said, good.

00:57:35.360 I said, I'll set up your airline ticket.

00:57:36.660 I'll fly in, his wife at the time, Elaine.

00:57:39.520 I said, I'll fly in Elaine, too, so you and Elaine.

00:57:41.680 As long as you want Elaine here.

00:57:43.320 You know, I always got to double check that with bodybuilders.

00:57:45.480 No, no, yeah, me and Elaine will come and this and that.

00:57:47.560 So he comes a week before.

00:57:49.160 I said, I know I got him.

00:57:51.160 So I said, so I set up like five gyms to do that.

00:57:57.080 We're going on that Monday night, eight o'clock.

00:57:59.800 I said, let's leave.

00:58:01.140 I'm in Westbury, Long Island.

00:58:03.180 We've got to take the Belt Parkway all the way down in there.

00:58:06.740 Good hour plus.

00:58:08.180 Let's leave early.

00:58:09.800 So we go, we can't park within six blocks of the gym.

00:58:13.820 Now I had been called.

00:58:14.820 I called Johnny Barbero, the owner.

00:58:16.560 I said, remember, I'm coming Monday night.

00:58:18.480 I called him the Thursday before.

00:58:20.220 He goes, you better.

00:58:21.820 He said, I got signs up.

00:58:23.160 You better.

00:58:24.240 Or we're coming out there.

00:58:25.620 I said, no problem.

00:58:27.460 You know.

00:58:28.440 So we parked a couple of blocks away.

00:58:29.980 And we're walking.

00:58:30.720 Me and Robbie are walking together, talking.

00:58:32.540 Our wives are behind us talking this and that.

00:58:34.460 And we're walking.

00:58:35.920 Get to the street where the gym is.

00:58:37.380 The gym is three quarters of the way down the street.

00:58:39.020 And there's like a banners up.

00:58:40.820 And there's like 30, 40 guys outside.

00:58:44.500 And he goes, man, we're all them people.

00:58:46.580 You know, Robbie with that D room.

00:58:47.680 We're all them people there.

00:58:49.560 I said, that's the gym.

00:58:50.680 They're there for you.

00:58:52.060 Grabs on to my arm, man.

00:58:53.820 These are all crazy people from Brooklyn, man.

00:58:55.480 All these crazy white Italian people.

00:58:56.940 I'm holding on to you.

00:58:57.860 You're going to make sure I get saved.

00:58:59.500 I said, don't worry.

00:59:00.000 You're not going to do nothing.

00:59:00.840 You just do what I tell you to do.

00:59:01.980 We're going to sell tickets.

00:59:03.420 And they're going to love you.

00:59:05.340 I said, because you came to them.

00:59:07.500 They're going to love you.

00:59:09.520 So as we're getting close to somebody goes, there he is.

00:59:12.280 Now, you know when a bunch of guys talking, you hear that low rumble.

00:59:16.300 Silence.

00:59:17.480 I was like Moses.

00:59:18.800 And Robbie was my scepter.

00:59:20.140 And I'm parting the Red Sea.

00:59:21.720 They just opened up.

00:59:22.480 And they're staring.

00:59:24.240 And we go into the gym.

00:59:25.680 It was a storefront.

00:59:26.540 And the gym was in the basement.

00:59:27.820 And everybody goes and stands along the thing.

00:59:29.580 And we walk in.

00:59:30.260 And there's Johnny, his father, his brothers, his uncles.

00:59:34.280 I go, Johnny Barbero?

00:59:35.860 Robbie Robinson.

00:59:37.500 And they're there with their mouth open.

00:59:39.720 The father takes a hefty trash bag, takes everything off the shelf for you, Robbie.

00:59:43.360 You came to our gym.

00:59:44.680 Can we take a picture?

00:59:46.020 You know.

00:59:46.840 And this and that.

00:59:48.100 And Robbie goes, yeah, sure.

00:59:49.100 This and that.

00:59:49.780 I said, now remember, Karen's got tickets.

00:59:51.820 She's going to count them out with you.

00:59:53.560 We got a bunch of tickets.

00:59:54.880 We're going to go downstairs.

00:59:55.880 Is everybody in down the gym?

00:59:56.800 He said, it's so packed down there, you can't even breathe.

00:59:59.540 I said, we're going to go down there.

01:00:00.820 And then you're going to announce, because they all had the little speaker system, Robbie's

01:00:04.380 going to be competing in this show, and we got tickets on sale.

01:00:08.560 That was the deal.

01:00:09.560 He goes, you got it.

01:00:10.820 So we go downstairs.

01:00:12.480 And it was wall to wall.

01:00:13.760 You couldn't even train.

01:00:15.880 Robbie goes, man, what do I do?

01:00:17.560 I said, you're going to stand on the bench.

01:00:20.000 You're going to take off your shirt.

01:00:21.300 And you're going to hit some shots.

01:00:23.380 He goes, okay.

01:00:24.340 Just as long as I get out of here alive.

01:00:25.860 And then I'm going to take you home and feed you.

01:00:27.540 Okay.

01:00:28.260 You know, you feed a bodybuilder.

01:00:29.280 That's right.

01:00:29.940 He's in great shape.

01:00:31.780 You know.

01:00:32.380 And they're going crazy, because back then, no internet.

01:00:35.780 This was the pages of the magazine coming to life.

01:00:39.000 And you've got to remember, 1978, the magazine was black and white.

01:00:44.540 Here's Robbie in the flesh, in color, right in front of him, on a bench, posing.

01:00:48.900 And you're looking at him saying, wow, this is real.

01:00:51.960 Look at this.

01:00:53.540 And I, when he finished his posing, I said, in two and a half weeks, on May 6th, Robbie

01:01:00.180 Robinson is going to be competing in New York at the Town Hall, and Johnny's going to have

01:01:04.200 tickets.

01:01:05.300 Get your tickets there.

01:01:06.380 Go, yeah, Robbie, we're going to be there for you.

01:01:08.740 We left him 100 tickets for the finals and about 40 tickets for the judging on a Monday

01:01:14.320 night.

01:01:14.720 Tuesday afternoon, he called me, and he said, I need more tickets.

01:01:18.900 So, we had five gyms like that.

01:01:21.360 And Robbie was the one that did the publicity for me the first year.

01:01:24.440 They were chanting his name in the theater.

01:01:26.260 Yeah, he was the best bodybuilder on stage, but he was also the favorite.

01:01:30.040 And they were chanting away and this and that.

01:01:32.540 I had Ricky Wayne, who was the editor.

01:01:35.980 He was the emcee.

01:01:36.920 I said, Ricky, I want this showmanship.

01:01:39.440 He says, okay.

01:01:40.180 I said, I want you in a tux.

01:01:41.340 What color do you want?

01:01:42.320 And he goes to me, peach.

01:01:44.700 I said, fine.

01:01:46.140 You know.

01:01:46.740 I looked around.

01:01:48.340 I found him a peach tuxedo.

01:01:49.840 Put him in peach.

01:01:50.620 I said, no podium.

01:01:52.260 I want you walking around like a stand-up company.

01:01:54.120 He goes, I love it.

01:01:55.340 Because Ricky was into that, too.

01:01:57.480 We did all of that, you know, standing room only.

01:02:00.960 The aisles were filled with people.

01:02:02.520 Everybody's this and that.

01:02:03.260 Now, the original name of the contest was the American Professional Bodybuilding Championships.

01:02:10.080 The theme was A Night of Champions.

01:02:13.480 Because we were going like boxing.

01:02:15.260 The thriller in Manila.

01:02:16.560 Every boxing match had a theme.

01:02:18.640 Two months after the contest, a kid calls.

01:02:20.360 I get a phone call because I was the ticket number.

01:02:23.120 I want to buy tickets for Night of the Champions, too.

01:02:25.460 I said, no, the name of the contest was this.

01:02:27.820 The guy goes, weren't you there?

01:02:29.800 It's called Night of Champions.

01:02:31.380 And I'm thinking back.

01:02:32.680 And I say, yeah, it was.

01:02:34.640 You're right.

01:02:35.060 Night of Champions.

01:02:35.900 Yeah, tickets will go on sale.

01:02:37.340 He goes, but then I was saying I needed a bigger theater.

01:02:39.640 I was negotiating with the bigger Beacon Theater.

01:02:42.380 Had 3,000 seats instead of 1,500.

01:02:45.100 I remember calling up Charlie that day.

01:02:46.720 Charlie, Charlie, this is the name of the contest.

01:02:48.280 It's going to be called Night of Champions.

01:02:49.340 What are you talking about?

01:02:50.160 He goes, the kid named it.

01:02:51.380 They're naming it.

01:02:51.940 Like Rocky 2, Night of Champions 2, like this 2, Night of Champions 2.

01:02:56.380 We're going to go room and numbles like the Super Bowl, this and that.

01:02:59.060 Okay?

01:02:59.400 He goes, okay.

01:03:00.280 You know, if that's what you want, yeah, go ahead.

01:03:02.660 And that's how it became Night of Champions.

01:03:05.080 And we did things, that show that we did for 26 years, we did things unique.

01:03:11.680 It got so unique, if we want to use that word, the weeders wouldn't come no more.

01:03:15.580 You're running a circus in A2.

01:03:19.560 I decided, you know, what we're going to do, Carlos Rodriguez was a bodybuilder who lived

01:03:26.280 in Arizona, but he was really from New Jersey.

01:03:28.960 And Carlos said, Night of Champions is going to be my last show.

01:03:31.820 I'm going to retire.

01:03:32.580 I said, tell you what, after you pose, you know, you could do it from the stage.

01:03:37.960 And then I go, let me ask, Carlos, you live in Tucson, Arizona.

01:03:42.520 You ride a horse?

01:03:43.560 He goes, yeah.

01:03:43.940 I'm going to rent a horse.

01:03:46.760 You come out on a horse, get off the horse.

01:03:50.120 I said, well, put a little thing there that you tie the horse up to for the stage for your

01:03:53.820 posing.

01:03:54.180 Then you do your posing routine in front of the horse.

01:03:56.740 You go to the stage.

01:03:58.000 You retire.

01:03:58.980 And then when you get on the horse, we'll play that old cowboy song from that TV show

01:04:04.580 of, I don't know, it was Gene Autry or whatever, Happy Trails.

01:04:07.520 And you ride off into the sunset, and we'll dim the lights.

01:04:11.680 He goes, okay.

01:04:13.300 The Sunday before the show, I'm home on a Sunday afternoon.

01:04:17.280 I'm looking, you know, tickets are going.

01:04:18.900 I'm almost sold out already.

01:04:20.900 And Wayne, I got bad news.

01:04:22.940 I said, what up, Carlos?

01:04:24.700 I hurt my back.

01:04:25.820 I can't move.

01:04:26.440 I can't come.

01:04:27.680 I got the horse.

01:04:29.180 I can't come.

01:04:32.380 He hangs up.

01:04:33.420 I'm depressed.

01:04:35.000 I'm walking around the house depressed.

01:04:37.520 I call up Charlie.

01:04:38.700 Charlie goes, it was a dumb idea anyway.

01:04:41.000 What the heck is in your head?

01:04:42.400 I said, no, I got to do something.

01:04:44.680 I said, I had my, I was set on the horse.

01:04:47.780 You know, it's something that's never been done.

01:04:50.440 We got to do things.

01:04:51.540 You got to be creative.

01:04:52.740 You got to be entertaining.

01:04:54.000 The bodybuilders all do the same things.

01:04:55.680 We got to be creative.

01:04:57.900 Well, whatever the heck.

01:04:59.160 Go ahead.

01:04:59.560 Whatever you want to do.

01:05:00.240 I'm looking at the list of competitors.

01:05:03.040 Hmm.

01:05:03.940 Hmm.

01:05:05.080 And one name catches me.

01:05:07.520 I wonder.

01:05:09.980 I call up the place I was going to rent the horse from.

01:05:12.020 Because I couldn't cancel it on Sunday.

01:05:13.480 They were closed.

01:05:14.860 I go, guys, the guy that was going to ride the horse, he hurt his back.

01:05:19.840 He can't do it.

01:05:21.620 Now, this was movie animal rental.

01:05:24.000 They do it for films.

01:05:25.060 It was in New Jersey somewhere.

01:05:27.460 I said, do you happen to have a camel?

01:05:30.380 And they go, yeah, George.

01:05:31.800 I said, that's the camel's name?

01:05:32.760 Yeah.

01:05:33.120 I said, great.

01:05:33.640 Can I rent the camel?

01:05:35.180 He goes, yeah.

01:05:36.620 I said, okay, I'll rent the camel.

01:05:38.000 He said, you're going to like it.

01:05:38.660 The horse was $800.

01:05:39.800 The camel's only four.

01:05:40.740 Not many people rent camels.

01:05:41.980 I said, fine.

01:05:43.080 He said, the only thing, you know, the camel comes in a little bigger truck.

01:05:46.180 It's going to come in a 45-foot tractor trailer.

01:05:48.380 So you've got to get the police, the pardon off, all of that stuff.

01:05:51.100 Back there on the back end of 76th and Amsterdam so they could get in the back door of the Beacon

01:05:57.380 Theater.

01:05:57.700 I said, no problem.

01:05:58.660 You know, called my dad.

01:05:59.540 He called the precinct.

01:06:00.900 We got the pardon off.

01:06:02.160 I say, I'm not going to tell nobody because nobody will believe me anyway.

01:06:05.700 I'm not even going to tell Mohammed McCauley, who's from Egypt, that he's going to be on

01:06:09.340 a camel until that night because I don't want him pulling out.

01:06:13.320 So I casually mention it that morning to someone and they go to Mohammed.

01:06:19.480 Mohammed, I think Wayne said he's got a camel coming.

01:06:22.820 You're going to come out on a camel tonight.

01:06:24.920 He goes, where's he going to get a camel from in Manhattan?

01:06:27.700 You can't get a camel.

01:06:28.980 So we do the judging and everything.

01:06:30.960 Guys go disappear.

01:06:33.560 I have the camel come at 6 p.m.

01:06:36.940 Police are there, you know.

01:06:38.260 The cops are going, you really renting a camel for a bodybuilding show?

01:06:41.020 I say, yeah.

01:06:42.320 Sure enough, 6 o'clock, here comes this tractor trailer, right?

01:06:46.420 And out comes, you know, I said, you got the camel?

01:06:48.660 And the guy goes, yeah, George is in there.

01:06:50.300 George is very mellow, this and that.

01:06:51.760 So they bring George out.

01:06:52.720 So here's 6 o'clock on a Saturday night in May on Amsterdam in 76, and out comes this

01:06:59.400 camel.

01:06:59.700 And I go, oh, guys, you sent me the wrong camel.

01:07:03.400 They go, what do you mean?

01:07:04.780 It's got one hump.

01:07:05.860 Doesn't he need two humps, and the guy rides in between the humps?

01:07:09.220 He goes, first off, do you know how rare a two-hump camel is?

01:07:13.240 I said, I have no idea.

01:07:15.360 He goes, secondly, we got the hump basket.

01:07:17.720 He sits in the basket.

01:07:19.160 I said, oh.

01:07:19.800 And then as he's standing there on the thing, I said, you know, when I was a kid, I'd see

01:07:23.180 camels in the zoo.

01:07:25.400 He's kind of big.

01:07:26.640 He goes, oh, yeah, there's a big camel.

01:07:28.320 I said, how are we going to get him in the door?

01:07:29.840 It's only 8 foot high.

01:07:31.080 He says, we'll tell George to get on his knees, and he'll crawl in.

01:07:33.980 I go, wow, look at that.

01:07:36.980 So George crawls in, and we put him behind the back curtain.

01:07:40.060 You have the front curtain, the stage.

01:07:41.980 You know, the curtain goes up.

01:07:42.900 It says Night of Champions, the platform, whatever staging.

01:07:45.700 And behind the back curtain, it was about 10 foot to the wall.

01:07:48.840 So we put George back there.

01:07:50.200 And he just sits down, and he's chewing on his cod.

01:07:53.760 Nice guy petting him.

01:07:55.340 What a nice little animal.

01:07:56.560 He's big.

01:07:57.460 And they put the basket on him.

01:07:59.320 The guy starts coming back.

01:08:00.500 One of the guys looks.

01:08:01.220 Oh, my God, he's really got a camel.

01:08:03.800 So they go tell McCauley, Wayne's got a camel.

01:08:06.800 It's backstage.

01:08:07.580 No, he doesn't.

01:08:08.360 So the guys all come down.

01:08:09.660 It's about 6.30, and they're looking.

01:08:11.840 There's the camel.

01:08:12.900 I said, come on, you're from Egypt.

01:08:14.320 He goes, what do you think we live in?

01:08:15.940 We drive cars on the street.

01:08:17.280 We don't drive camels.

01:08:18.940 Yeah, but for this, you're going to do the camel.

01:08:20.100 Story of my life.

01:08:20.680 I said, you know, I said, you're a great bodybuilder, but you're always overlooked.

01:08:26.660 This will put you on the cover of every magazine in the world, and this will set us apart from

01:08:33.580 everything.

01:08:34.260 I said, come on.

01:08:36.220 He said, okay.

01:08:37.140 I said, now you get in the basket, and the camels stand up, and this and that.

01:08:42.100 So McCauley sits in the basket.

01:08:43.360 No, McCauley's only 5'3".

01:08:44.660 He sits in the basket, but he doesn't hold on.

01:08:48.300 And when George goes to stand up, he puts one leg out this way.

01:08:51.020 Mohammed went out the back that way and rolled on his head and goes, I ain't doing this.

01:08:54.680 And he runs upstairs like a jilted lover, goes in one of the dressing rooms, six flights

01:08:59.180 up, closes the door and says, I'm not coming out.

01:09:01.640 I got to go up there.

01:09:02.560 Come on.

01:09:03.420 And the guys were laughing because I'm going, come on, Mohammed.

01:09:05.860 Please come out.

01:09:06.860 Please come out and talk to me, Mohammed.

01:09:08.540 Come on.

01:09:09.000 Give me another chance.

01:09:10.280 Give me another chance.

01:09:12.580 I'm begging.

01:09:13.320 I'm begging.

01:09:14.180 And one of my backstage guys goes, you got another problem.

01:09:17.160 I said, what's that?

01:09:18.060 The union wants to kill you.

01:09:19.520 I go, why?

01:09:20.260 The camel just relieved himself.

01:09:21.640 I said, whoa.

01:09:25.820 So I go down and I see them and they want to kill me.

01:09:28.460 I'll give you an extra hour overtime.

01:09:29.900 I said, let me go out the front.

01:09:31.900 So the people are starting to come in and the front curtains are closed.

01:09:34.380 And I see the judges.

01:09:35.200 I remember I see Jim Mannion.

01:09:37.320 Nobody knew I had a camel.

01:09:38.780 And Jim Mannion goes to me, you know, we've got to do something about their diet.

01:09:42.080 I could smell their gas from out here.

01:09:44.040 Of course, it's the urine from the camel.

01:09:46.060 So they got, they got to get buckets and mops and this and that.

01:09:48.740 I said, Mohammed, get in the camel.

01:09:51.080 He says, I can't run a camel.

01:09:53.880 I said to the guy that came with the camel.

01:09:56.600 I said, you look like a camel guy.

01:09:58.440 He has a beard and this and that.

01:10:00.320 I don't know.

01:10:01.340 I said, you take the camel out.

01:10:03.640 You make them sit down.

01:10:04.960 Mohammed's got to hold on.

01:10:06.520 Okay.

01:10:07.860 So we agree to do it.

01:10:09.140 Mohammed was, I think, competitor number three that night.

01:10:11.180 So the curtain closes, you know, after competitor number two and the emcee goes.

01:10:16.640 Tonight you're going to see something that you've never seen on a bodybuilding show before

01:10:20.360 and you may never see again.

01:10:22.560 The magic of Egypt.

01:10:24.740 Mohammed Makaoui.

01:10:25.940 And we play some kind of majestic music.

01:10:28.600 He was going to pose to Chariots of Fire, but we played some other majestic music.

01:10:32.720 The curtain goes up and out of the corner over there, all of a sudden the guy comes leading

01:10:37.000 out and the people are cheering and then they see the camel, this gigantic camel.

01:10:40.920 Mohammed's hung up on one side and doing a one-on-bicep.

01:10:43.040 I got a picture on my phone too to show you.

01:10:45.040 One-on-bicep like this and there was silence for about two seconds and then they go nuts

01:10:49.560 cheering.

01:10:50.320 And he takes the camel around the platform in the front and Mohammed's waving to the crowd.

01:10:56.140 The camel's getting a standing ovation.

01:10:58.080 Goes and the camel sits down.

01:11:00.960 Mohammed jumps out of the hump seat, whatever you call it.

01:11:04.840 The guy goes to me.

01:11:05.520 What do I do?

01:11:05.860 I go kneel down majestically.

01:11:07.660 So he kneels down on one knee like this, holding the camel's head to his.

01:11:13.120 And Mohammed gets on the platform and then they start that Chariots of Fire music, you

01:11:17.100 know, very majestic.

01:11:17.900 He poses to his team.

01:11:19.260 Now, he's supposed to then get back in the hump seat and ride around and go off.

01:11:24.280 He looks at me when he finishes posing Mohammed and he takes off the other way.

01:11:28.200 He ain't getting back on that thing again.

01:11:29.460 So the guy goes like this.

01:11:31.440 I go.

01:11:33.760 The camel gets up.

01:11:34.840 The camel gets a standy ovation.

01:11:36.380 Okay.

01:11:36.880 Monday morning, I get a phone call from Montreal, Canada, Ben Weider.

01:11:41.180 What are you doing?

01:11:44.060 You running a circus?

01:11:45.380 Go to Ringling Brothers.

01:11:46.840 Go to that circus.

01:11:47.980 This is a bodybuilding show.

01:11:49.640 You don't have animals on stage.

01:11:51.660 I've had calls from all over the place.

01:11:53.560 I said, these pictures are going to be everywhere, Ben.

01:11:55.480 We just did something no one's ever done.

01:11:57.820 Don't you understand?

01:11:58.760 Ben, you know, it's entertainment.

01:12:00.720 You know, people say they can't believe what they saw.

01:12:04.040 They're glad they took pictures.

01:12:05.300 You're crazy.

01:12:06.560 You're crazy.

01:12:07.180 Go run a circus.

01:12:08.280 Go to the circus.

01:12:09.200 You're no longer part of the IFBB.

01:12:11.000 Go to the circus.

01:12:11.680 Ben, wait.

01:12:12.580 You see everything.

01:12:14.100 Sure enough, it ended up on every magazine around the world.

01:12:18.280 And even though people down there, he goes to me, yes, you got publicity.

01:12:22.240 Yes, the crazy fans in New York liked it because I had it taped.

01:12:26.060 You know, and I sent them the tape.

01:12:27.380 I said, listen to the fans on here.

01:12:29.460 Do you have that tape till today?

01:12:31.220 Yeah.

01:12:31.660 I sent it to Wayne Galash.

01:12:33.300 And he wants to do a whole big thing, like DVDs of the history of Night of Champions

01:12:39.000 with me doing a voiceover and this and that.

01:12:40.840 But, you know, they never came to Night of Champions again.

01:12:44.840 Now, I've had a bull steer on stage.

01:12:47.520 Our theme that year was more beef than a cattle ranch.

01:12:51.120 Okay.

01:12:52.280 So Charlie goes, what kind of theme is that?

01:12:54.480 I said, well, I said, you know, I talk to the animal rental place all the time.

01:12:57.800 They got a bull steer.

01:12:59.100 I'm going to get a bull steer on stage.

01:13:00.640 He goes, you know how big they are?

01:13:02.080 I said, yeah, they told me it's a little over 2,000 pounds.

01:13:05.500 So I said, build me a corral and the hay and everything.

01:13:10.100 I said, and the bull steer, he goes, but what if he goes crazy?

01:13:14.400 Oh, I said, no, he comes with his thing.

01:13:16.660 I said, the bull steer's name is Richard.

01:13:18.760 The camel was George.

01:13:19.940 The bull steer was Richard.

01:13:21.280 I said, the old lady comes, is his master, and she's going to sit on side stage.

01:13:25.160 As long as Richard can see her, you can do anything.

01:13:28.120 Before the show, we put him in the corral because when the thing opened up and we had some of

01:13:34.220 the guys that weren't competing, including Sean, in cowboy hats and everything with the

01:13:38.860 bull steer.

01:13:39.380 But before the show, I'm in the back.

01:13:40.760 I'm in there with the bull steer.

01:13:41.840 I'm picking things like this, his horns.

01:13:43.800 And he was, as long as she was there, I could do anything I wanted to him.

01:13:46.500 You know, the show starts and Lonnie Tepper was the emcee from Iron Man.

01:13:53.500 And he goes, every time I emcee this show, I never know what's going to happen.

01:13:57.940 It was almost like on cue.

01:13:59.700 The bull steer turns around, lifts his tail and poos on the stage.

01:14:03.500 On stage.

01:14:04.320 On stage in his corral.

01:14:05.660 People can see it.

01:14:06.520 Oh, yeah.

01:14:06.940 They were cheering.

01:14:07.760 New York, they were cheering.

01:14:08.800 We had to close the curtains to get the union guys.

01:14:12.940 I had to give them another hour overtime to clean the bull steer.

01:14:16.160 But bodybuilding has to be entertaining.

01:14:20.160 When's the last time it was like that?

01:14:22.300 Last time I ran neither champions or the Olympia.

01:14:24.640 Bodybuilding hasn't been entertaining since I left.

01:14:26.720 They don't do nothing, things like this.

01:14:28.980 Bodybuilding hasn't been entertaining since you left.

01:14:31.300 It's boring now.

01:14:32.120 Let me ask you this.

01:14:32.880 Why do some people not like you?

01:14:34.740 Because I was successful or I was domineering.

01:14:40.820 I'm putting money and ideas and everything to build a sport.

01:14:44.960 When I took over the Olympia, prize money was $50,000.

01:14:49.600 We won't even get into sanction fees.

01:14:51.680 And when I left, prize money was $410,000 and a Cadillac Escalade.

01:14:55.540 When did you leave?

01:14:56.480 2003 was the last Olympia I ran.

01:14:58.480 I had over 5,500 paid people and over 6,500 in the place with comps at Mandalay Bay.

01:15:05.840 Now they're in the Orleans Arena, which is not Mandalay Bay.

01:15:10.020 And people loved Mandalay Bay because everything was in the same facility.

01:15:14.820 See, it's only the athletes that don't like me because, you know, I made them go to the banquet.

01:15:19.380 I said, VIP ticket holders.

01:15:21.260 Why would the athletes not like you, though?

01:15:24.420 Because I told them they had to do certain things or else I'd find them.

01:15:27.060 I want to show you a video. Hang on, hang on.

01:15:28.280 Because I know your stories.

01:15:29.340 I've got to pace myself because you're, you're, you're, I ask you one question.

01:15:33.480 You can go for two hours.

01:15:34.440 So I've got to pace my time and queue with you.

01:15:36.260 I told Kanye.

01:15:36.720 No, it's all good. I don't mind it.

01:15:38.340 I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the one that's.

01:15:40.260 And I didn't even drink a Red Bull before I come.

01:15:42.040 This is natural.

01:15:42.720 Well, wait till we get you the monsters.

01:15:44.540 So, so let me pull this up.

01:15:47.000 So, Paul, I got the videos here.

01:15:49.860 Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to play two of them.

01:15:51.880 Okay.

01:15:52.400 Okay.

01:15:52.600 And I want to see your reaction.

01:15:54.240 Obviously see what you're going to say here.

01:15:55.520 And then I want to play Sean's video and then I know I'm going to get a reaction from you.

01:15:58.840 So here's you.

01:16:02.100 You'll know exactly when this is.

01:16:04.100 Watch this one here.

01:16:05.340 This is you.

01:16:07.520 I have a question for Wayne.

01:16:10.120 With you guys, the IFBB band and the use of Synthral,

01:16:13.680 how do you plan on enforcing that for the contest?

01:16:16.660 Quite honestly, the problem we're having is that the lab is having a tough time coming up with a test.

01:16:25.400 At that time, yes.

01:16:26.560 To recognize Synthral in the urine.

01:16:29.700 Right.

01:16:30.460 They thought they had a test.

01:16:31.860 They didn't.

01:16:32.220 So the judges will be instructed that if the muscle looks unnatural,

01:16:37.280 and you can see Synthral on the lights,

01:16:39.800 you'll be instructed to vote the athlete down.

01:16:44.340 I would do something that nobody does in this sport.

01:16:47.420 I was the head of pro bodybuilding.

01:16:49.080 Okay.

01:16:49.620 I was the promoter of the Olympia.

01:16:51.140 Yeah.

01:16:51.740 And I would do the press conference,

01:16:54.260 and the press conference was not staged like now.

01:16:58.820 Okay.

01:16:59.280 Where they have things.

01:17:00.120 I would let anybody ask me anything,

01:17:02.560 and I would answer it.

01:17:04.820 Because I had nothing to hide.

01:17:07.060 One time, our buddy Sean goes,

01:17:10.480 why aren't we getting more money?

01:17:12.140 Because the athletes could ask too.

01:17:13.800 I could be a target.

01:17:15.160 Anybody could ask.

01:17:15.960 If you wanted to ask me a question,

01:17:17.040 is Jim Mannion going to answer questions?

01:17:19.860 Did David Pecker answer questions when he was running the Olympia?

01:17:22.780 Jim Mannion's running everything now there?

01:17:25.560 Did Raphael Suntoka do that?

01:17:26.840 Nobody.

01:17:27.340 I went out there.

01:17:29.080 We have 1,500 people at the press conference.

01:17:32.860 I made the guy.

01:17:33.720 They didn't like it.

01:17:34.300 I made them dress in a suit.

01:17:36.340 They're not dressed in suits now at the press conference.

01:17:39.160 I wanted them to look professional.

01:17:41.780 You know, you take NBA players.

01:17:44.520 They go on a plane.

01:17:45.240 They've got to be dressed.

01:17:46.660 You're representing your league.

01:17:48.760 You're representing your profession.

01:17:50.620 You're a professional.

01:17:54.300 Look it.

01:17:56.400 You know what they didn't want?

01:17:57.060 You're going to go up there on sweatsuits and everything?

01:17:59.580 No.

01:18:00.320 You go dressed.

01:18:01.480 Once a year, you buy a suit and you go dressed.

01:18:06.020 And a lot of fans say,

01:18:07.160 wow, they guys look so good.

01:18:08.520 And, you know, the guys would get into colorful things.

01:18:10.480 You could look at some of those outfits.

01:18:11.900 Colorful, wild.

01:18:12.600 But it was different.

01:18:15.060 And fans loved it.

01:18:16.740 Like I said, 1,500 people at the press conference.

01:18:21.400 Let me play this other one.

01:18:22.680 Here's...

01:18:23.380 One, 100,000 people don't watch that webcast.

01:18:28.760 Yeah, this is it.

01:18:29.320 Last year, we did it for free.

01:18:31.120 Less than 7,000 people came in worldwide.

01:18:35.080 Actual numbers, Sean, you can check with the Weaver Company.

01:18:37.700 Okay?

01:18:37.900 And that was for free.

01:18:39.220 This year, depending on what kind of modem you have,

01:18:42.080 is how much you pay.

01:18:44.200 We'll see how many people log on there.

01:18:46.600 So it's not a million dollars or 25 million.

01:18:50.260 Your math is a little off, Sean.

01:18:51.380 It's 2.5 million.

01:18:53.260 If you mean the math is correct.

01:18:54.400 But anyway, we're not making a million dollars.

01:18:57.000 Okay?

01:18:57.520 Secondly, Sean's mouth has never heard of it in a contest.

01:19:00.660 Judges don't care.

01:19:01.480 Sean can say what he wants.

01:19:02.400 He knows I always tell him that.

01:19:03.620 No problem.

01:19:04.460 Third, what I will do.

01:19:05.860 And this is the third time in all the years I've been involved I've done this.

01:19:10.420 And the other two times, again, we have problems with athletes confronting judges aggressively.

01:19:18.400 I will instruct Carlo Tiani, who's doing this on a computer, to set up the program,

01:19:25.200 give down and break down sheet to everybody.

01:19:28.740 Okay?

01:19:30.000 Once I left, I didn't do that.

01:19:31.940 The judges are supposed to stand behind your score.

01:19:36.500 Here's the thing.

01:19:38.400 Sean made things.

01:19:39.480 The Weider Company tried to do a webcast.

01:19:42.200 And Sean said something like, you got, you know, 100,000 people watching it at $10 a piece.

01:19:47.800 That's a million dollars.

01:19:48.840 Where's our money?

01:19:50.780 It wasn't that money.

01:19:51.940 And Vince Scalise, who was the editor of Muscle and Fitness at the time that was doing it,

01:19:56.120 I said, there's Vince right there.

01:19:58.160 Vince, how many people did it?

01:19:59.240 And Vince told them.

01:20:00.100 They did it for two years.

01:20:01.200 They lost money two years.

01:20:02.220 You're in the production business.

01:20:04.520 Think about doing a webcast back then, 20 years ago, with three, four cameras and everything else.

01:20:12.300 Your production costs was run $40,000, $50,000.

01:20:15.600 They were barely breaking even.

01:20:17.940 You only stop doing something when you're losing money.

01:20:21.660 You don't stop doing it if you're making money.

01:20:25.360 It wasn't making money.

01:20:28.100 The webcast.

01:20:29.360 And it was being run by the Weider Company, not me.

01:20:32.020 Why would they want it to continue?

01:20:33.780 Why wouldn't they want it to continue?

01:20:35.080 They were losing money.

01:20:36.140 No, no.

01:20:36.540 The athletes.

01:20:37.440 They thought they were making money and we were pocketing it.

01:20:40.080 Sean makes up things.

01:20:41.480 Sean has the, you know, the world according to Sean.

01:20:46.400 Okay?

01:20:46.760 I drove him out of the sport.

01:20:49.320 How the heck did I drive him out of the sport?

01:20:52.360 In 2001, he's made these things.

01:20:54.680 He can go yak his mouth all he wants.

01:20:57.500 You know, there may come a day where I say, you know, Sean, if you write it or you say it,

01:21:01.680 it's called libel, slander, defamation of character.

01:21:03.960 Maybe I'll sue you because then you're going to have to prove it.

01:21:06.760 In 2001, when he supposedly said I drove him out of the sport, he was 36 years old.

01:21:11.780 He was coming to the end of his time.

01:21:15.040 Okay?

01:21:15.300 Other guys were going and they were all annoyed because they looked at Ronnie Coleman as like

01:21:21.280 their little brother and all of a sudden, little brother got bigger than everybody and

01:21:24.600 was winning and was wiping the floor with everyone and they were wondering why they were not winning

01:21:30.240 or whatever and they didn't like him winning.

01:21:31.860 I don't know what it was, but I didn't drive him out of the sport.

01:21:36.480 You know, when he failed that drug test, I didn't give the urine sample.

01:21:44.640 I didn't collect the urine sample.

01:21:46.400 Dr. Bob Goldman did back then.

01:21:48.180 I didn't take it from the cup and put it into the two vials.

01:21:54.160 Well, Shawn did.

01:21:56.140 Shawn filled out the forms.

01:21:58.100 Shawn put on the labels.

01:22:00.140 Shawn put on the caps.

01:22:01.700 He gave it to Dr. Bob Goldman.

01:22:03.460 He signed the documents.

01:22:04.460 Goldman signed the documents.

01:22:05.960 Goldman took the samples, put it in the package.

01:22:08.700 Goldman sent it to the lab that he was using.

01:22:11.460 Not me.

01:22:12.260 This was under Goldman.

01:22:13.140 That's what Ben Weider wanted.

01:22:16.140 Those were tested.

01:22:17.400 The lab called Goldman, said, this athlete failed because they didn't know one athlete

01:22:22.100 from another.

01:22:23.640 Goldman called Ben Weider and Ben Weider said, you've got to tell him he failed.

01:22:27.920 We don't want to.

01:22:28.920 Okay.

01:22:29.920 So, I called Shawn.

01:22:30.920 I found out.

01:22:31.920 I remember calling him that he was guest posing somewhere, I believe in Toronto.

01:22:36.940 And I called him in his hotel room and said, Shawn, unfortunately you failed a drug test.

01:22:41.140 You've got the option of doing sample B.

01:22:44.740 You could be there when they test it and this and that, you know, normal procedure.

01:22:49.600 But you know, I didn't fail the drug test.

01:22:51.180 I was just the messenger.

01:22:52.180 But he hated me for that.

01:22:53.980 That's okay.

01:22:55.100 That's his prerogative.

01:22:56.100 You know, Shawn Ray and I are not, you know, bosom buddies.

01:23:02.080 Some of the guys I'm still friends with, some I'm not.

01:23:04.740 Which ones are you friends with?

01:23:05.780 Which one are the-

01:23:06.780 I'm good friends with Paul DeLette because Paul DeLette's a promoter like me.

01:23:08.940 He runs the WBFF.

01:23:09.940 Right.

01:23:10.940 And we talk all the time, talking promotion strategies, this and that.

01:23:15.740 What did you do this?

01:23:16.800 What did you do that?

01:23:17.800 I was always good friends with Kevin, you know.

01:23:19.860 But you know, when we took pictures, you know, they told Kevin, no, we don't want you talking

01:23:23.440 to Wayne, you know, all these things, you know, you're not allowed to do.

01:23:25.800 Why not?

01:23:26.800 Jim Mannion's insecurities.

01:23:27.800 Jimmy's insecure that way.

01:23:28.800 I don't know why.

01:23:29.800 I don't have- I don't hold no real will against Jimmy.

01:23:32.380 What was the different style of Jim running it versus you running it?

01:23:35.140 Obviously, he's not anymore because it just took place last two weeks ago, but what's

01:23:38.940 the biggest difference between you running it versus Jim running it?

01:23:41.380 Well, let's take the Olympia.

01:23:43.480 The Olympia, I would use 12 judges, okay, to make it as fair as possible.

01:23:49.800 Six foreign judges, six American judges, okay?

01:23:55.060 We had a computer program developed where the computer would select randomly each round

01:24:03.880 the random judge, so no one knew who the random judge was.

01:24:08.940 And then the computer would eliminate the three highs and three lows to get to it.

01:24:13.660 So in that method, if you wanted a 50-50 shot to fix a contest, you'd have to buy off nine

01:24:21.620 judges, and if you wanted a 100% shot, you'd have to buy off ten.

01:24:27.220 Who's going to buy off ten judges and how are you going to keep ten judges quiet?

01:24:30.440 It is impossible.

01:24:31.800 And it was the fairest way, and no one knew who the alternate was.

01:24:35.120 But Sean talks about the fact that for seven years straight, it was the same judges.

01:24:39.380 Well, here's the thing.

01:24:41.960 Jim Mannion picked the American judges.

01:24:44.080 He don't say nothing against Jim Mannion because he needs Jim Mannion to let him in shows now.

01:24:47.940 Jimmy picked the American judges, I picked the foreign judges, okay?

01:24:52.820 There would be a change of the judges.

01:24:54.840 When we had panels of eight and nine, there'd be a change of two or three judges.

01:24:59.120 You don't change the whole panel.

01:25:00.180 Look at boxing.

01:25:01.180 Do we almost know some of the boxing judges' names that we see them all the time, right?

01:25:08.340 I mean, where are you going to get people that understand the sport that are competent?

01:25:13.140 Most ex-athletes don't want to judge.

01:25:16.220 Why isn't Sean judging now?

01:25:17.980 Why doesn't Sean go to Jimmy and say, I want to judge Mr. Olympia?

01:25:22.040 He doesn't want to because if he makes a decision, he knows whoever he doesn't put first, only

01:25:26.320 the guy in first is going to like him and everybody else is not, and he wants to be in the media

01:25:30.520 part of this because I heard he's part of Digital Muscle now.

01:25:34.760 They won't talk to him.

01:25:36.760 You know, when you're a judge, you're stating your opinion, and people are not going to like

01:25:42.940 you because you state that opinion.

01:25:45.800 Because you're voting on a person's most personal thing, their body.

01:25:51.980 And they put in time and effort and, you know, the strain of going to the gym two times a day,

01:25:59.700 and everything you've got to do to win.

01:26:02.780 And then somebody rips you apart, saying, well, you know, your back wasn't as good as the

01:26:05.880 other guy.

01:26:06.880 You know, there's all the controversy from the 1981 Mr. Olympia when Franco won.

01:26:14.380 The change we made after that, there was points.

01:26:18.120 So when people say, how did Franco win that?

01:26:20.300 Look at the score sheet.

01:26:22.120 You know, Jimmy was a judge on that.

01:26:25.480 Jimmy had, I think he had Padilla first, but he gave a 20, but he gave Franco a 20.

01:26:32.480 And Dominic Serta was a judge.

01:26:33.520 I think he had Platt first, but he gave Franco a 20.

01:26:36.260 So all these guys had a couple of 20s, but Franco had a lot of 20s because everybody would

01:26:40.080 give him a sympathy vote.

01:26:41.540 And when you eliminate the highs and the lows on just seven judges back then, it wasn't

01:26:46.000 even eight, seven, you know, one high and one low, that's how he won.

01:26:51.720 Did I think he should have won, looking at as an observer, and I co-head judged that with

01:26:55.840 Oscar State?

01:26:57.840 No.

01:26:59.120 Do I know what happened?

01:27:00.500 Because back then, at the Olympia, that was in, 81 was in Columbus.

01:27:06.180 They would do three rounds in the afternoon, which I could never understand why.

01:27:10.600 If I pay for the judging, I see round one quarter turns, I see round two, seven compulsories,

01:27:14.780 I see round three, the posing.

01:27:16.320 Why am I going to pay more money to see the posing at night?

01:27:19.180 Made no sense to me.

01:27:20.180 I split it up.

01:27:22.360 But when we came back, I remember me and Oscar went back and we're adding the scores, and

01:27:29.500 we look at each other, Franco's going to win, three rounds, Franco's going to win.

01:27:34.600 So we come back to the thing, Roger Schwab was a judge, Dominic, Winston Roberts, all these

01:27:39.460 guys, you know, they all had their guy who they thought was going to win, you know, this

01:27:43.420 guy thought Dickerson was going to win, he was in great shape.

01:27:45.840 This guy thought Roy was going to win, Roy Callen, he was in great shape, well, Franco's

01:27:49.260 going to win.

01:27:50.260 How?

01:27:51.260 I said, well, you gave him a 20 in this round, and you gave him a 20, and you gave him a 20,

01:27:55.040 and we had to change the placement, which forced the judges to judge, because now you couldn't

01:28:01.960 give away two or three 20s, now first, second, third, fourth, fifth.

01:28:09.240 Where I say in there, we're going to give down the breakdown sheet, the judges didn't want

01:28:12.460 that, because then the athletes would see-

01:28:15.880 I got it.

01:28:16.880 Yeah.

01:28:17.880 Who paid the judges, by the way?

01:28:18.880 Who?

01:28:19.880 The contest paid the judges.

01:28:20.880 What do you think about that?

01:28:21.880 The fact that you're paying the judges.

01:28:22.880 So the loyalty of the judges is to the guy that cuts the check, isn't it?

01:28:27.140 No.

01:28:28.140 You sure?

01:28:29.140 No.

01:28:30.140 The judges were selected, I told you, Ben wanted Jimmy to select the American judges

01:28:35.580 from the MPC, fine, and I selected the foreign judges.

01:28:39.620 We'd try to alternate a couple, like I said, we'd alternate a couple here and there.

01:28:43.040 You can't change the whole panel every year, there's not enough competent people in the

01:28:46.920 sport.

01:28:47.920 Now, yeah, okay, you're a judge, you're assigned to judge the Olympia.

01:28:51.000 What do you mean by that there's not enough competent people in the sport?

01:28:53.300 Say that again?

01:28:54.300 You don't think there's enough competent people in the sport to judge?

01:28:57.240 The Olympia level?

01:28:58.240 Yeah.

01:28:59.240 No.

01:29:00.240 To change the judging panel every year?

01:29:01.460 No.

01:29:02.460 Now, these guys that are judges, these guys that are judges, I mean, if they don't, if they do

01:29:08.400 something out of control, you're probably not going to bring them back next year.

01:29:11.820 Yeah.

01:29:12.820 Exactly.

01:29:13.820 Yeah, but that's also, like, for the athlete, it's kind of like, well, then, you know, they're

01:29:16.820 afraid of the guy that's cutting the check, though.

01:29:19.340 Doesn't that kind of make it uncomfortable for the athlete that's-

01:29:21.080 Cutting what check?

01:29:22.080 They get food allowance money.

01:29:23.080 Well, what I'm saying is, still, that's even scarier, the fact that they're not getting

01:29:26.720 paid nothing.

01:29:27.720 Why would I take it seriously?

01:29:29.720 They apply to be a judge.

01:29:32.300 They work their way up to be a judge.

01:29:34.780 People want to be involved in the sport.

01:29:37.220 You start at a local level, I want to learn to be a judge, okay, you could test judge here,

01:29:41.960 you could do this.

01:29:42.960 It's like that in any sport.

01:29:43.960 How do you become an umpire?

01:29:44.960 Let me ask you.

01:29:45.960 Who pays the umpires?

01:29:46.960 Let me ask you this.

01:29:47.960 Phil Heath against Rodin.

01:29:49.900 In your judgment, who should have won?

01:29:51.280 I can't say unless I was there.

01:29:52.560 I can't go by pictures, and I haven't been to a contest since the last Olympia I ran.

01:29:56.600 So you don't, you can't say unless if you go there-

01:29:58.980 I know this, that you, unless I'm there, and sitting in close proximity to the judges,

01:30:06.200 so I see the same view as them, I will not give an opinion.

01:30:09.880 When's the last time you were at a Mr. Olympia?

01:30:12.320 The last one I ran in 2003.

01:30:14.320 So from 03 till today, you haven't gone?

01:30:16.200 Nope.

01:30:17.820 So from everything you've ever seen, all the bodybuilders you've ever seen, who's

01:30:21.400 your top five?

01:30:22.400 Best physiques?

01:30:23.520 So I know you're dodging-

01:30:24.520 You're dodging the-

01:30:25.520 No, no, no.

01:30:26.520 In no particular order?

01:30:27.520 No, no.

01:30:28.520 I want order.

01:30:29.520 Like, put it in order.

01:30:30.520 Well, in order, counting everything.

01:30:31.800 Not just body.

01:30:32.800 Everything.

01:30:33.800 Arnold has to be first.

01:30:34.800 Who's second?

01:30:35.800 I would go with, um, you know, and you've got to go by certain years.

01:30:40.600 I would say Arnold, 73, 74, which I believe was his best.

01:30:44.600 I was there.

01:30:45.600 I saw it.

01:30:46.600 Even though 75, it was very good.

01:30:47.600 And I saw, oh, I mean, I owned the outtakes at one time.

01:30:50.420 So I saw all 110 hours of pumping iron.

01:30:53.420 But I still think 73, 74 was his peak.

01:30:56.420 75, in my opinion, he came back just to do the movie and this and that.

01:31:01.100 Wasn't gung-ho like before.

01:31:02.420 You've got to remember, 73, when he competed, he had tore his knee, guest posing after the

01:31:08.420 72 Olympia in South Africa, guest posing for Reg Park.

01:31:12.420 He had a knee surgery.

01:31:13.420 So he came back with a vengeance because people said he wouldn't come back and he, those two

01:31:18.420 years, he was right on the money.

01:31:20.420 Dorian Yates in 93, uh, one of these pictures here.

01:31:23.420 It was those, this, this one where, the original picture, I think it was taken by Kevin Horton

01:31:30.420 where he had the pants around his ankles.

01:31:32.420 That was before he tore anything.

01:31:34.420 You put him at second.

01:31:35.420 I don't know.

01:31:36.420 I don't know how to put him at second.

01:31:37.420 Sure.

01:31:38.420 In the top five.

01:31:39.420 Let's put him at top five.

01:31:40.420 Okay.

01:31:41.420 Lee Haney.

01:31:42.420 Weak.

01:31:43.420 Again, what was Lee Haney weaknesses?

01:31:44.420 He had none.

01:31:45.420 Right there.

01:31:46.420 I can't go by the guys after I left.

01:31:48.420 It's fine.

01:31:49.420 I'm saying up to a three, but that's plenty of names there, up to a three.

01:31:51.420 Yeah.

01:31:52.420 I guess the other two would be Ronnie and Sergio.

01:31:57.420 Sergio Oliva.

01:31:58.420 Right.

01:31:59.420 So you're leaving out a lot of names.

01:32:00.420 You're taking me top five.

01:32:01.420 You've got to leave somebody out.

01:32:02.420 Okay.

01:32:03.420 So Sergio for you and then Ronnie.

01:32:05.420 At their time.

01:32:06.420 At their peak.

01:32:07.420 At their peak.

01:32:08.420 Yeah.

01:32:09.420 Who they're competing against in their era.

01:32:12.420 I'm not taking Sergio from 68 and putting him next to Coleman of 2001.

01:32:18.420 Sure.

01:32:19.420 Different era.

01:32:20.420 Different time.

01:32:21.420 At their time.

01:32:22.420 Sergio in 1960.

01:32:23.420 Nobody would compete against him.

01:32:24.420 He was so good.

01:32:25.420 You know, he was, he was unbeatable.

01:32:27.420 You know, Lee Haney at his peak.

01:32:29.420 Okay.

01:32:30.420 There was more pros then, but Lee Haney was very good and very complete and very big.

01:32:35.420 What was Lee Haney's weakness?

01:32:37.420 I mean, if he had a weakness a little bit, it was his posing and he worked on it.

01:32:42.420 You know, because we judged posing then.

01:32:44.420 You know, Dorian too.

01:32:45.420 Weakness was posing.

01:32:46.420 He worked on it.

01:32:47.420 By the way, another change I wanted to make to make it better.

01:32:50.420 I wanted two scores given for posing.

01:32:54.420 Because the way the rules were written and I wrote, wrote those original rules with Oscar

01:32:58.420 State.

01:32:59.420 Round one when they were doing quarter turns.

01:33:02.420 You're judging the same thing but a different form.

01:33:06.420 So when you're doing the quarter turns, proportion, symmetry and balance comes more into play than

01:33:12.420 muscularity.

01:33:13.420 When you're doing the seven compulsories, muscularity comes more into play because you're flexing.

01:33:19.420 In round three, the way it was written, and they don't go by it anymore anyway, the athlete,

01:33:27.420 the first two rounds, the judge is saying to the athlete, this is the way I want to see

01:33:30.420 you.

01:33:31.420 Round three, the athlete is presenting their body to the judge the way they want to, choreographed

01:33:39.420 to music, and you only judge what you see.

01:33:44.420 So, for example, Mohamed Makawi, we'll take him because we're talking camels.

01:33:49.420 He was very good at three quarter back shots.

01:33:52.420 But straight arm back, he was no good.

01:33:54.420 In his posing routine, he didn't do no straight arm backs.

01:33:56.420 He just did three quarters.

01:33:57.420 He showed his body to his best advantage.

01:33:59.420 You can hide your weaknesses.

01:34:01.420 What I wanted as routines became more entertaining, as I was pushing for that, you take like Vince

01:34:08.420 Taylor.

01:34:09.420 By the time Vince Taylor was really getting into the posing, doing the robot and doing Macarena

01:34:14.420 man and all that sort of stuff that brought the house down, he was around 40.

01:34:20.420 So, his physique couldn't stand next to the other guys, but he was definitely the most entertaining.

01:34:27.420 So, I wanted the judges to give two scores, one for the entertainment value of the routine.

01:34:33.420 So, on the entertainment value, yeah, Vince would have gotten a first.

01:34:37.420 And it would have forced the athletes to do better routines because that's what you're

01:34:44.420 selling to the audience.

01:34:45.420 Why am I going to buy a ticket to the show if I'm going to see the guy come out there

01:34:50.420 and hit four poses and then walk to each side of the stage and go like this and hit the

01:34:54.420 same four and then walk to the other side and do the same thing?

01:34:57.420 No.

01:34:58.420 I mean, I was the one that came in with the first Night of Champions that you pose to your

01:35:01.420 own music.

01:35:02.420 I couldn't understand that when a guy gets posed, he posed to his own music.

01:35:09.420 But when they went in a contest back then, they would either play Exodus over and over

01:35:14.420 again from that old movie from the 1960s or in Columbus, they had the organ player playing

01:35:19.420 something as the guy was posing.

01:35:21.420 And I'm saying, first Night of Champions, round three that we're doing at night, you're

01:35:27.420 posing to your own music.

01:35:29.420 Because I was good friends with Ed Corny, and Ed was posing to my way.

01:35:34.420 Whenever he gets posed, even if he wasn't in tip-top shape, he'd bring the house down.

01:35:38.420 He was known as the greatest poser.

01:35:39.420 Yeah.

01:35:40.420 And so when Ed was going to do that first Night of Champions, you know, as I said, you're

01:35:47.420 posing to your own music.

01:35:48.420 They couldn't believe it.

01:35:49.420 They said, really?

01:35:50.420 We can pose to our…

01:35:51.420 Yeah.

01:35:52.420 Let's do it.

01:35:53.420 We're going to put on a show.

01:35:54.420 The crowd loved it.

01:35:55.420 Within two years, every amateur show in America, a kid was coming with his own music to pose.

01:36:00.420 We'd change the whole thing.

01:36:02.420 It's got to be entertaining.

01:36:04.420 Why did we watch the boxing match, okay, last week?

01:36:09.420 Why did we watch football?

01:36:10.420 The show coming in.

01:36:11.420 The way they came in was a show.

01:36:12.420 The whole show, the whole this, the whole that.

01:36:14.420 Right.

01:36:15.420 It's a show.

01:36:16.420 It's entertaining.

01:36:17.420 The day.

01:36:18.420 Bodybuilding?

01:36:19.420 Yeah.

01:36:20.420 No.

01:36:21.420 Not at all.

01:36:22.420 No.

01:36:23.420 Okay, so let me ask you this.

01:36:24.420 Recent transition with Jake Wood, and you got, you got right now, you know, the personalities.

01:36:29.420 Jim Mannion, okay, you got…

01:36:31.420 Jimmy's old school.

01:36:32.420 You know, Jimmy's old school.

01:36:34.420 Jimmy, Jimmy would always say to me, why are you spending so much money on staging?

01:36:38.420 I said, because I got to give the people a show.

01:36:41.420 Ah, he'd go to me.

01:36:42.420 How about David Pecker?

01:36:44.420 David Pecker had the option of really doing something special and taking the thing more

01:36:50.420 mainstream with his mainstream publications, and he didn't do it.

01:36:55.420 And, you know, they didn't know how to make things work.

01:37:00.420 I left everything at Mandalay Bay, okay?

01:37:03.420 6,500 people.

01:37:05.420 The next year, I left, right?

01:37:08.420 They didn't reimburse me for the… I had the deposit down for the next two years.

01:37:12.420 They didn't pay me back for the deposit on 2004, okay?

01:37:15.420 I could have screwed them if I wanted to, because it was in my name.

01:37:19.420 I could have left them hanging.

01:37:21.420 But I didn't.

01:37:22.420 They did it.

01:37:23.420 They didn't know how to treat the people right, you know?

01:37:28.420 And I don't know what happened.

01:37:30.420 It went downhill.

01:37:31.420 You know, they had a lot less people.

01:37:34.420 First year, I wasn't there.

01:37:36.420 And then they went to Mandalay Bay, because this was told to me by Mandalay Bay people,

01:37:41.420 that they went in and they wanted Mandalay Bay to be a sponsor of the event

01:37:44.420 and put up big money and give them this and that.

01:37:46.420 And they said, we don't do that.

01:37:47.420 We've got a line of people for this thing.

01:37:49.420 And they went down the strip to find other people to run the show.

01:37:52.420 And then they came back to Mandalay Bay.

01:37:54.420 Two, three hours later, they already had it rented to someone else.

01:37:58.420 I had a great deal with Mandalay Bay.

01:38:00.420 I was friends with everyone there.

01:38:02.420 They took care of me.

01:38:04.420 You know, the last year I ran, I had 512 booths at the Expo.

01:38:13.420 Okay?

01:38:14.420 They don't have nowhere near that now.

01:38:17.420 I mean, as for Jake Wood, I mean, I don't know Jake Wood.

01:38:20.420 I mean, I know obviously he's got a lot of money, because according to the New York Post,

01:38:24.420 he paid $70 million for the Olympia and the magazines.

01:38:29.420 According to the Keith Kelly at the New York Post, they had a whole article about it.

01:38:33.420 You know, and so he's got lots of, you know, he's an aeronautical engineer,

01:38:36.420 so he's a very smart fellow.

01:38:38.420 You know, I've heard that he sold his company, according to his writing, for lots of money.

01:38:44.420 I heard that he developed a rivet for commercial jets.

01:38:47.420 So he's a smart guy.

01:38:49.420 Okay?

01:38:50.420 Aeronautical engineer, I understand engineering, smart guy.

01:38:53.420 Dan Solomon.

01:38:54.420 Dan, what did Dan promote before last year's Olympia?

01:39:00.420 Nothing.

01:39:01.420 Okay?

01:39:02.420 Dan Solomon's a nice guy.

01:39:04.420 I met him briefly before I left.

01:39:07.420 Nice fellow.

01:39:08.420 Nobody says a bad word about him.

01:39:10.420 Nice guy.

01:39:11.420 You know, but does he have that drive?

01:39:15.420 Does he have that energy?

01:39:16.420 Does he have that foresight?

01:39:18.420 Does he have that creativity?

01:39:19.420 What you have to be to be a promoter?

01:39:22.420 You know, what is the stage going to be?

01:39:24.420 What is this going to be?

01:39:25.420 How are you going to get the people in there?

01:39:27.420 You know, I look at the other thing, too.

01:39:29.420 In a certain way, I feel sorry for Robin Chang because they didn't give him things to work with to market it.

01:39:42.420 Okay?

01:39:43.420 Meaning?

01:39:44.420 Athletes.

01:39:45.420 I mean, I was lucky I was in the right place at the right time, and I had a lot of marketable athletes.

01:39:53.420 Okay?

01:39:54.420 And no knock on these guys, but nobody's breaking down doors to see Brandon Curry or Phil Heath or whatever.

01:40:03.420 They can say what they want about attendance, but you hear all these stories about comping this and comping that.

01:40:09.420 And again, if the Olympia is making that much money, why are you selling it?

01:40:14.420 Okay?

01:40:15.420 If the Olympia is making that much money, why did they fire Robin Chang?

01:40:19.420 Okay?

01:40:20.420 Robin's doing the work.

01:40:23.420 Okay?

01:40:24.420 I know what it takes to run that contest.

01:40:26.420 Okay?

01:40:27.420 He's working on that show all year, did it for like 14 years.

01:40:31.420 Okay?

01:40:32.420 And they just fire him.

01:40:34.420 You know?

01:40:35.420 Why?

01:40:36.420 You know?

01:40:38.420 He can only do what he has.

01:40:41.420 Okay?

01:40:42.420 If you don't have marketable athletes, then you've got to go...

01:40:46.420 You know, I was lucky the position I was in.

01:40:49.420 I would see athletes and, you know, okay, you know, that guy, if he wins the German championships, when I first saw Gunter, you know, we're going to get him, got to get him to California and this and that.

01:41:04.420 He's marketable.

01:41:05.420 You know, with Milos and Nasser, they were from the former Yugoslavia.

01:41:12.420 And when everything split up, that formula, it didn't exist no more.

01:41:17.420 You know?

01:41:18.420 But these were good bodybuilders that were marketable.

01:41:20.420 I remember when I brought Nasser in, you know, when Vince McMahon took a lot of the marketable guys away in 91, and I brought all these other guys from Europe that nobody had ever seen.

01:41:31.420 One of them being Dorian Yates, 90, 91.

01:41:34.420 And Dorian, Nasser, that's when I got Pastel, Benfado, Benaziza, Munzer, all these new guys.

01:41:42.420 And everybody's saying, where did you find these guys?

01:41:45.420 All these guys were in Europe.

01:41:46.420 They won there.

01:41:47.420 And the fact that the other guys were gone, it was the opportunity, okay, I'll give you an invite to Night of Champions where I'll pay your way.

01:41:55.420 Because maybe they couldn't, they didn't have the money to come to, and they wanted to, but they didn't have the money.

01:42:00.420 So it opened the door, and I would travel around a lot and go to local contests all around the world to always look for other guys.

01:42:08.420 I also looked in, you know, loopholes, like take Charles Claremont.

01:42:13.420 Charles Claremont was four or five time NABBA Universe winner.

01:42:17.420 Tremendous bodybuilder in the late 80s.

01:42:19.420 There was always the thing in England, who was better in the late 80s, Claremont or Yates.

01:42:24.420 Claremont won everything, and he didn't want to compete no more.

01:42:27.420 There was nothing else, because they wouldn't let him in the IFBB.

01:42:30.420 And I said, Ben, this is crazy.

01:42:33.420 This is the best athlete in NABBA.

01:42:36.420 He's retiring.

01:42:37.420 He's only 28 years old.

01:42:39.420 And he's a good looking guy, beautiful symmetrical physique, marketable.

01:42:44.420 Well, you know, he has to go through the British Federation.

01:42:49.420 I said, you're going to tell me he's got to go into Mr. London to qualify for the British Championships and then go into the British Championships.

01:42:55.420 And, you know, if he goes into Mr. London, who's going to compete?

01:42:59.420 Who's going to hurt who if he goes into Mr. London?

01:43:01.420 If he goes into Mr. London, nobody else competes.

01:43:04.420 You know, I went, rules, rules, rules, which annoys me, these rules sometimes.

01:43:09.420 So I got to be friends with Claremont because I was just looking at pictures of him saying, we need this guy.

01:43:15.420 Look at him.

01:43:16.420 Another great bodybuilder.

01:43:17.420 All I wanted to do was put great bodybuilders on stage, entertain the audience.

01:43:21.420 So I got to know him.

01:43:23.420 I said, you know, they want you to go to the British thing, you know, this and that.

01:43:27.420 He goes, you know, I'm under a Barbados passport.

01:43:31.420 Oh, really?

01:43:33.420 I said, according to IFBB rules, you represent the country of which passport you're under,

01:43:40.420 and the head of that federation can recommend you for pro status.

01:43:45.420 Without ever winning a country, they can take a nobody and recommend them for pro status.

01:43:49.420 So I got in touch with the head of the Barbados Federation.

01:43:53.420 I said, you know, Charlie Claremont, this and that.

01:43:55.420 And he goes to me, wait, I'll send you a letter of recommendation.

01:43:57.420 I just want one thing.

01:43:58.420 You know when you do the score sheet?

01:44:00.420 Put down Charles Claremont Barbados, not Charles Claremont England.

01:44:03.420 I said, done.

01:44:05.420 So he gets a pro card, the head of the English Federation at the time, Julian Feinstein.

01:44:09.420 Friend of mine.

01:44:10.420 Oh, he's pissed.

01:44:11.420 Ben's pissed.

01:44:12.420 I said, let me read you the rules, Ben.

01:44:14.420 Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

01:44:16.420 Here's the letter.

01:44:17.420 Can't say nothing.

01:44:18.420 Can't say nothing.

01:44:19.420 I said, you know what?

01:44:20.420 And when your brother sees him, he'll be out in California, fly him out to California,

01:44:25.420 take his picture, put him in the magazine because he's marketable.

01:44:28.420 And it sells tickets and it sells magazines, which is what happened.

01:44:31.420 You know, sometimes, you know, the rules, if you're going to bend the rules, you've got

01:44:37.420 to bend it for the betterment of the federation, not for an individual, you know, promoter of money

01:44:42.420 or this or that.

01:44:43.420 You know, all these guys don't know.

01:44:46.420 As I built that European tour over the years, 11 times, the promoter flopped.

01:44:51.420 Couldn't pay his bills.

01:44:53.420 I paid the prize money.

01:44:55.420 And, of course, Ben Weider, well, you pay me my half of the sanction fee.

01:45:00.420 He wouldn't even let me off the hood.

01:45:01.420 I said he lost money.

01:45:02.420 He didn't care.

01:45:03.420 He didn't care.

01:45:04.420 I had to pay him that half.

01:45:05.420 I paid.

01:45:06.420 Okay.

01:45:07.420 My company.

01:45:08.420 That's why.

01:45:09.420 I'm running the Olympia.

01:45:11.420 I got to sell VIP seats.

01:45:13.420 That last Olympia, I had 660 VIP seats sold going in every seat.

01:45:20.420 That's $650.

01:45:22.420 You can multiply it out.

01:45:23.420 Times how much per ticket?

01:45:24.420 650.

01:45:25.420 650?

01:45:26.420 That's 600 tickets.

01:45:27.420 660 tickets.

01:45:28.420 But it gets even better.

01:45:30.420 In that last Olympia in 2003 that I ran, I go back to my room after the judging.

01:45:35.420 Now, there was a lot of things going on in that show.

01:45:37.420 And my room is the sweetest packed.

01:45:39.420 I would have Dinah Anderson, a former female bodybuilder, and her husband in the other room

01:45:44.420 because she was a legal secretary.

01:45:46.420 And Carlo was there from Italy because he was the computer guy and other people.

01:45:50.420 And I can't even get into my room.

01:45:51.420 I said, what's going on here?

01:45:53.420 They go, Wayne, it's sold out.

01:45:55.420 And they want tickets.

01:45:56.420 And guys are going, Wayne, please, please, please.

01:45:59.420 I said, let me see what I can do.

01:46:01.420 The other guy that was there was Giorgio Tuchelos, the star of Ancient Aliens.

01:46:06.420 Giorgio's like my other son.

01:46:07.420 I met him in Europe when he was 16.

01:46:10.420 He wanted to be a promoter.

01:46:11.420 He did promote for me for five years.

01:46:13.420 And he was up there, too.

01:46:14.420 He'd always help me at show.

01:46:15.420 So I call the box office.

01:46:17.420 I go, Kim, I'm looking at the schematic.

01:46:19.420 Can we fit in two other rows of folding chairs in the back on both sides of the center section?

01:46:26.420 She goes, Wayne, for you, I'll, because I take the girls from the box office out every time I go on a production meeting.

01:46:32.420 I go on a Friday because they'd never go back to work.

01:46:34.420 I'd take them to the Mexican restaurant.

01:46:35.420 We'd all get drunk.

01:46:36.420 They call the fire marshal.

01:46:38.420 They call the head of Mandalay Bay and everything.

01:46:41.420 They go, Wayne, they'll do it.

01:46:43.420 They'll add two rows of 16 on each side.

01:46:46.420 That's 64 seats.

01:46:48.420 But the fire marshal wants his two sons to be able to go backstage.

01:46:52.420 And some of the executives want their sons.

01:46:54.420 I said, have all the sons come.

01:46:55.420 They'll be hanging with me backstage the whole show.

01:46:58.420 They go, done.

01:46:59.420 So I go to the people in my room.

01:47:00.420 I said, they're printing up tickets now.

01:47:02.420 I said, Georgia, go down to Kim and get the tickets.

01:47:05.420 You're going to get the finals.

01:47:07.420 You'll get the banquet.

01:47:09.420 And you'll get the seminar tomorrow.

01:47:11.420 I'm not going to charge you $650.

01:47:12.420 I've got to charge you $600.

01:47:14.420 And it's got to be cash.

01:47:15.420 You've got time.

01:47:16.420 When Georgia comes back, you get in a line.

01:47:19.420 You give me the cash.

01:47:21.420 Sold in no time.

01:47:22.420 They wanted to see a show.

01:47:23.420 They know it was going to be a good show.

01:47:25.420 They know it was going to be entertaining.

01:47:26.420 We ran that show.

01:47:27.420 We had a script on the night show.

01:47:30.420 Both that and Night of Champions.

01:47:32.420 Minute by minute.

01:47:33.420 We knew exactly everything.

01:47:35.420 We'd collect the music on the Wednesday night at the meeting.

01:47:38.420 We knew the order of the competitors.

01:47:40.420 Let's say a guy had a music.

01:47:42.420 Eight, nine minutes.

01:47:43.420 I go, hey, you've got eight, nine minutes on.

01:47:45.420 Oh, I'm only going to do the first two minutes and 45 seconds.

01:47:47.420 Okay.

01:47:48.420 We did it.

01:47:49.420 Put it on there.

01:47:50.420 Put it on a mini disc.

01:47:51.420 Cleaned it.

01:47:52.420 So the acoustically was perfect.

01:47:54.420 On a mini disc in that order.

01:47:56.420 We just pushed the number.

01:47:58.420 Song number one, push it.

01:48:00.420 Comes right out.

01:48:01.420 So if he wanted it, as he enters the stage or in position, we had it.

01:48:04.420 We had it all there.

01:48:05.420 Everybody's on headphones.

01:48:07.420 The sound guy, the lighting guys, Charlie calling the show, me backstage, other backstage

01:48:11.420 people.

01:48:12.420 It was one like a regular Broadway play.

01:48:14.420 The stagehands would say to us, we can't believe you do so much here for a one night

01:48:18.420 show.

01:48:19.420 What kind of money are you making at this time?

01:48:21.420 At the Olympia, I can tell you the money on the Olympia.

01:48:24.420 And, you know, I'd fight with the weeders on the Olympia because they always wanted more

01:48:28.420 and more.

01:48:29.420 That last Olympia, our expenses were 1.65 million.

01:48:32.420 And we gave away 400,000, 410,000 and the Cadillac Escalade.

01:48:37.420 And we took in about 2.26, almost 2.3.

01:48:44.420 So we made close to 600,000 on the show.

01:48:50.420 But when you look at it percentage-wise, we were making like 27% of the gross.

01:48:56.420 A normal business, if you do 10%, you're doing great.

01:49:00.420 Normal is 8%.

01:49:01.420 We were doing 27%, 28%.

01:49:04.420 Is that what the athletes were upset about?

01:49:06.420 The fact that they could have gotten more cash out of it or no?

01:49:08.420 I was raising the prize money every year.

01:49:10.420 You don't know what the attendance is going to be.

01:49:13.420 I raised it every year.

01:49:14.420 And then every year, they're adding in.

01:49:15.420 You've got to remember, that was just the men.

01:49:17.420 I had women's bodybuilding.

01:49:18.420 Yeah.

01:49:19.420 I had fitness bodybuilding.

01:49:20.420 And by 2003, I had figure.

01:49:22.420 One of the problems that they have now is you've got so many divisions.

01:49:27.420 Last year, they gave away about 1.45 million in total prize money.

01:49:33.420 Okay?

01:49:34.420 800,000 to the men.

01:49:35.420 Total prize money.

01:49:36.420 You've got Dwayne Johnson with Athleticon saying on the bodybuilding part,

01:49:40.420 they're hinting that they're going to top the Olympia.

01:49:43.420 Well, you're going to have to go more than 1.5 then.

01:49:46.420 Because the Olympia, if they do all the things to add wellness in another division,

01:49:51.420 they're going to go over 1.5.

01:49:53.420 It's not just Mr. anymore.

01:49:55.420 You know, it's all over the place.

01:49:57.420 I look at what they're doing at Athleticon, and you've got to remember,

01:50:00.420 the Olympia, the focal point was Mr. Olympia bodybuilding.

01:50:04.420 Everything was bodybuilding.

01:50:05.420 We'd start on Wednesday night.

01:50:07.420 They laughed at me saying,

01:50:08.420 what are you going to do on Wednesday night?

01:50:10.420 Muscle movie night?

01:50:11.420 I said, yeah.

01:50:12.420 I was going to get the fans in earlier.

01:50:13.420 Get them in the mood.

01:50:14.420 It's for free.

01:50:15.420 The hotel's giving me the room for free.

01:50:18.420 I've got to pay $150 for the thing to project it on the screen.

01:50:22.420 But with every movie each year, I'm going to bring in somebody.

01:50:25.420 So, of course, the first year is Pumping Iron.

01:50:28.420 Everybody's seen it.

01:50:29.420 But I brought in George Butler.

01:50:30.420 And they could ask Georgie any question about the film and this and that.

01:50:34.420 450 plus people showed up.

01:50:37.420 Now, of course, every room night, I get credit for free rooms and I get a kickback, okay?

01:50:43.420 After you pass so much, they make you all these deals and everything.

01:50:46.420 And the more I got, that's why I got the expo hall for free.

01:50:50.420 I got 168,000 square feet at Bayside B for free because I booked so many rooms.

01:50:57.420 I had so many room nights in the place, okay?

01:51:00.420 The guys liked me so much, the union guys, they'd say to me, Wayne, nobody's in here.

01:51:07.420 When do you want to come in and set up?

01:51:09.420 And I go, well, set up days back then with $25,000 a day plus union.

01:51:13.420 Where are you going with this?

01:51:14.420 What's the point?

01:51:15.420 I'm just saying because where I'm going is where the money is, why we made so much profit

01:51:20.420 because I made deals with people.

01:51:22.420 Right, so let me ask you a question.

01:51:23.420 In 2003, your last one you did, how much did First Place make?

01:51:27.420 400,000, you had to make 100 or 125 plus the car.

01:51:36.420 So I'm winning 100 grand plus the car to Escalade.

01:51:39.420 Yeah.

01:51:40.420 So First Place is winning somewhere around $200,000.

01:51:42.420 150.

01:51:43.420 Yeah.

01:51:44.420 Because the car is 50 grand, let's just say.

01:51:45.420 It was fully loaded, extended Cadillac Escalade.

01:51:47.420 That's about 60 grand.

01:51:48.420 60 grand, yeah.

01:51:49.420 So I'm winning between 160 to 180, depending on if it's 120 or 100.

01:51:53.420 And now it's up to?

01:51:54.420 $400,000.

01:51:55.420 Yeah.

01:51:56.420 From 03 to now $400,000.

01:51:58.420 Growth, okay, say 120, it's 3X.

01:52:01.420 Okay, I mean, it's gone relatively high.

01:52:03.420 So let me ask you this.

01:52:05.420 You know, you go into Dana got heat because Dana wasn't paying the fighters well, okay?

01:52:12.420 That's what Dana White was getting heat for.

01:52:14.420 You got in mob world, Paul Castellano got heat because he wasn't sharing the profits that

01:52:20.420 the family was making.

01:52:21.420 So eventually they took him out.

01:52:22.420 Kind of like they took you out.

01:52:23.420 Okay.

01:52:24.420 Eventually.

01:52:25.420 They took me out.

01:52:26.420 I quit.

01:52:27.420 I would say.

01:52:28.420 I get it.

01:52:29.420 But also at the same time, you don't have a lot of allies with these competitors.

01:52:31.420 Because when I look from the outside, you're like the ideal promoter to do this kind of

01:52:35.420 stuff.

01:52:36.420 But let me get to my question.

01:52:37.420 Here's my question for you.

01:52:38.420 This is why I'm going with this.

01:52:39.420 But eventually, what a Mayweather did, Mayweather said, I want to take cows on how many pay-per-views

01:52:45.420 we sell.

01:52:46.420 So what about if we change a portion of the payout?

01:52:49.420 Because, you know, a lot of the camp, there's two camps.

01:52:52.420 There's one camp that's saying, this last Mr. Olympia.

01:52:55.420 Biggest ticket sale ever.

01:52:57.420 More than, it's the greatest they've ever had.

01:52:59.420 If you look at the pictures, it was so bad you couldn't fit a single person in here.

01:53:04.420 It was unbelievable, right?

01:53:05.420 Now, you weren't there.

01:53:06.420 So if you don't want to critique-

01:53:08.420 But the upper deck was not even opened.

01:53:10.420 Okay.

01:53:11.420 I'm just telling you what this-

01:53:12.420 Hey-

01:53:13.420 So now watch this.

01:53:14.420 That's David Becker.

01:53:15.420 The other side.

01:53:16.420 So what if, you know, you got an opportunity to say, guys, first place is 400 grand.

01:53:23.420 Okay.

01:53:24.420 What else?

01:53:25.420 And here's the thing.

01:53:27.420 If you help us sell XYZ amount of tickets, on top of that, I'm going to put another $300,000

01:53:34.420 into the pool with the same mathematical formula.

01:53:37.420 So maybe top is going to get $60,000.

01:53:39.420 I think that's going to-

01:53:40.420 If you sell this many tickets, another $600,000.

01:53:42.420 If you get this much, another $900,000.

01:53:44.420 Now I'm going to place with this.

01:53:46.420 So the athletes are not going to be saying-

01:53:48.420 There's one thing you're not taking into account.

01:53:51.420 What's that?

01:53:52.420 Two-thirds of the profits went to the Weeders.

01:53:55.420 At that time?

01:53:56.420 Yep.

01:53:57.420 How about today?

01:53:58.420 I don't know what their deal is now.

01:54:01.420 Right.

01:54:02.420 So at that time, wait, out of the $600,000, two-thirds went to the Weeders.

01:54:07.420 So $400,000 went to them, $200,000 was kept by you.

01:54:11.420 Is this public?

01:54:12.420 Everybody knows this?

01:54:13.420 I never hit it.

01:54:14.420 Oh, okay.

01:54:15.420 So, wow, two-thirds went to Weeders.

01:54:17.420 No shit.

01:54:18.420 Okay.

01:54:19.420 See, that's when Sean talks.

01:54:21.420 We don't know that.

01:54:22.420 Now, here's the other thing.

01:54:23.420 You've got to remember.

01:54:24.420 You know, I was the one to keep Miss Olympia alive.

01:54:27.420 That's why we created the Olympia Weekend.

01:54:29.420 Because if Miss Olympia was on its own, it was going to die.

01:54:32.420 First of all, I'm giving you a compliment.

01:54:33.420 I think you're a crazy promoter.

01:54:34.420 What I'm trying to tell you is you're a ridiculous promoter.

01:54:36.420 Yeah.

01:54:37.420 I mean, you can't even hold yourself with all these stories and the way you're telling details.

01:54:41.420 You're telling the details of-

01:54:42.420 I've got crazy minds.

01:54:44.420 I know, but that's a part of being a promoter.

01:54:47.420 You have to know that stuff.

01:54:48.420 You can't teach this.

01:54:49.420 You can't teach somebody how to do this.

01:54:50.420 You've got it or you don't have it.

01:54:51.420 So, you could have gone, been a politician, been a campaign manager for somebody.

01:54:54.420 Yeah.

01:54:55.420 You would have done a great job just to go in that route.

01:54:57.420 So, it's okay.

01:54:58.420 So, what do you think right now with the future of Miss Olympia?

01:55:00.420 Do you think Athleticon is bringing-

01:55:03.420 Because, you know, sometimes the political answer is,

01:55:05.420 Oh, we always knew Athleticon was going to happen.

01:55:07.420 We support The Rock.

01:55:08.420 This is great.

01:55:09.420 This is just going to bring more attention to Miss Olympia.

01:55:11.420 This is a very good thing.

01:55:13.420 Behind closed doors, we've been talking to each other.

01:55:15.420 This is exactly what we want them to do.

01:55:17.420 Then there's another camp that says,

01:55:18.420 Hell no!

01:55:19.420 The Rock and Danny, they want to take the entire attention away.

01:55:22.420 And they want to kind of get the Athleticon to become bigger.

01:55:26.420 What do you know with some of the conversations you're having?

01:55:28.420 Okay.

01:55:29.420 Let's look at this.

01:55:30.420 Before the sale, do you really think that Robin Chang wanted to help the Olympia?

01:55:38.420 David Pecker fired him.

01:55:39.420 I don't think Robin- No, I didn't speak to him.

01:55:43.420 I'm just looking from the outside.

01:55:45.420 Would he really want to help David Pecker?

01:55:48.420 I don't think so.

01:55:50.420 Okay.

01:55:51.420 So now that it's gone to Jake Wood, I don't know what that dynamic is.

01:55:58.420 I mean, Athleticon, if you read what they're trying to do there, this is beyond anything.

01:56:05.420 And you've got to remember, Athleticon is not a bodybuilding show.

01:56:08.420 It's not, yeah.

01:56:09.420 It's a fitness thing.

01:56:10.420 Bodybuilding is one part of it.

01:56:11.420 Sure.

01:56:12.420 And, you know, the fact, I mean, what are they paying?

01:56:15.420 And even though Dwayne Johnson has connections in the Hollywood industry, where he says he's

01:56:19.420 going to have top music acts and top comedians at that party Saturday.

01:56:23.420 I read about Athleticon and I said, wow, I want to buy a ticket and go.

01:56:27.420 How do you fight that?

01:56:28.420 Yeah.

01:56:29.420 How do you compete against that?

01:56:30.420 I said, I want to buy a ticket and go.

01:56:31.420 It sounds great.

01:56:32.420 They're going to have meditation, yoga.

01:56:34.420 They're going to have everything there.

01:56:36.420 Now, his budget, I would estimate, he's using all of the World Congress Senate.

01:56:43.420 It's 850,000 square feet.

01:56:46.420 And he's using the outside area, I've read, to do the party, that Saturday night thing.

01:56:53.420 Got to have a ton of security there because if you're going to have alcohol and everybody

01:56:57.420 partying, it's like a club or whatever.

01:56:59.420 You know how that goes.

01:57:00.420 But his budget's got to be somewhere between $7 and $10 million.

01:57:04.420 Okay.

01:57:05.420 You know, that's heavy duty.

01:57:07.420 We know where the Olympia budget is.

01:57:09.420 The Arnold budget's probably three and a half to four, say, in there with everything.

01:57:14.420 This is big time.

01:57:16.420 Is this a threat though?

01:57:18.420 Well, I mean, it depends on if the promoters are working together.

01:57:23.420 I mean, I always had a relationship with Jim Lorimer and I would never push the Olympia

01:57:30.420 until the Arnold was over and vice versa.

01:57:34.420 Respect.

01:57:35.420 Yeah, respect.

01:57:36.420 Right.

01:57:37.420 And we were friends.

01:57:38.420 Respect.

01:57:39.420 Yeah, but you're team Arnold.

01:57:40.420 You guys have a relationship.

01:57:41.420 And I would, you know, they would hire me to coordinate the bodybuilding part of their

01:57:44.420 event.

01:57:45.420 So we were all together.

01:57:47.420 You know, I don't see any big things from Athleticon yet.

01:57:49.420 So maybe they got the same respect there.

01:57:51.420 You know, and we don't see anything big from the Olympia yet.

01:57:54.420 You know, of course the sale was going on.

01:57:56.420 I don't know what Jake Wood's objective is.

01:58:00.420 If he just doesn't care about making money, he could make the most spectacular event ever.

01:58:06.420 Okay?

01:58:07.420 I don't know.

01:58:08.420 You know, if he wants to make money, well, he's got to make a lot of changes.

01:58:12.420 You know?

01:58:13.420 Hey, Jake, you want to make money?

01:58:15.420 Give me a call.

01:58:16.420 I'll give you advice how to make money on that event.

01:58:18.420 You know?

01:58:19.420 But, you know...

01:58:21.420 Was that a plug?

01:58:22.420 Let me ask you.

01:58:23.420 Let me ask you a question.

01:58:24.420 Let me ask you a question.

01:58:27.420 Are you indirectly wanting to go back and promote Mr. Olympia?

01:58:32.420 No.

01:58:33.420 Would you like to?

01:58:34.420 No, if it was...

01:58:36.420 It sounds like it.

01:58:37.420 No, no.

01:58:38.420 I like promoting.

01:58:39.420 If Jake called you and says, listen, I want you to come and consider promoting Mr. Olympia,

01:58:43.420 would you do it?

01:58:44.420 I'd talk to him.

01:58:45.420 Okay.

01:58:46.420 So you would want to do it.

01:58:47.420 If the money was right, I'm doing it for money.

01:58:49.420 It feels like there's an itch there.

01:58:50.420 No, no.

01:58:51.420 I just like...

01:58:52.420 You know, I like to create.

01:58:54.420 I like to...

01:58:55.420 It's like...

01:58:56.420 I'll give you an example.

01:58:57.420 When I was a little boy, you know, I used to like my electric trains.

01:59:02.420 But I'd do all these elaborate setups.

01:59:04.420 But after it was built, and they went around in a circle once I was bored.

01:59:08.420 What I found with contests, I'd come up with a concept.

01:59:11.420 We're going to do this.

01:59:12.420 The ads are going to be this.

01:59:13.420 It's going to be that.

01:59:14.420 And you build to that day.

01:59:15.420 And once you get to that day, it's over.

01:59:17.420 Yeah, you relax, you do this, but then you start all over again.

01:59:21.420 It's like a movie.

01:59:22.420 I know why people like movies.

01:59:24.420 I could have...

01:59:25.420 My brain could have went for that.

01:59:27.420 You do a movie, you put all this effort in, you do this, you do this, and then you move

01:59:30.420 on to another project.

01:59:32.420 I was thinking of leaving bodybuilding.

01:59:35.420 I was getting bored numerous times.

01:59:38.420 It was becoming the same thing over.

01:59:40.420 And I was going to quit after 98.

01:59:44.420 A couple of things.

01:59:46.420 One, I was getting bored.

01:59:47.420 And two, that's when I got the prostate cancer.

01:59:49.420 And who knows what was going on.

01:59:51.420 And then the opportunity came to move it to Vegas.

01:59:55.420 Vegas excited me.

01:59:56.420 Vegas, fun, this and that.

01:59:59.420 And the possibility of staying in the same location and building it out.

02:00:05.420 But by 2003, when I went, after the contest was over, and the banquet goes on, but I never

02:00:12.420 made it to the banquet.

02:00:13.420 We're taking down things.

02:00:14.420 We've got to make sure everything gets backed in the truck and everything the right way.

02:00:17.420 And my second wife, Palvinari, was there with my son.

02:00:22.420 And they held a little bit of food for me.

02:00:25.420 And I remember saying to her that night, I said, I don't think I'm going to do this

02:00:30.420 anymore.

02:00:31.420 What do you mean?

02:00:32.420 You should have made a lot of money.

02:00:33.420 There were so many people.

02:00:34.420 And Arnold shows up for you.

02:00:35.420 Arnold came to that 2003 Olympia because I donated for his campaign and wanted a few

02:00:40.420 people from bodybuilding that did.

02:00:42.420 And when I went to his last fundraiser that was run by Goals in World's Gym, when he walked

02:00:46.420 through the crowd, he saw me there and says, Wayne, you came?

02:00:49.420 I said, Arnold, I support you.

02:00:50.420 He says, I come to Olympia for you.

02:00:53.420 And this was the Friday, a week before, eight days before.

02:00:56.420 I said, Arnold, you're going to win on Tuesday.

02:00:58.420 It's going to be came.

02:00:59.420 You have my word.

02:01:00.420 I come for you.

02:01:01.420 I don't say a word to nobody because, you know, you put that out there and then they

02:01:06.420 don't show up.

02:01:07.420 It's a letdown.

02:01:08.420 Charlie don't even know.

02:01:09.420 Nobody knows.

02:01:10.420 Smart move though.

02:01:11.420 Smart move not to do that.

02:01:12.420 And we finished our judging.

02:01:14.420 We do the judging at 12 noon on a Saturday.

02:01:18.420 And at two o'clock I get a call and they go, Wayne DeMille?

02:01:20.420 I go, yeah, this is chief so-and-so from the California Highway Patrol.

02:01:25.420 We need you to put us in touch with the Nevada State Police, the Las Vegas Police, and the

02:01:31.420 Mandalay Bay Security.

02:01:33.420 I said, any reason?

02:01:36.420 They go, yes, the governor-elect is coming.

02:01:39.420 This is when you know it's legit.

02:01:40.420 Yeah.

02:01:41.420 And he goes, when he lands, we're going to close down Las Vegas Boulevard so he doesn't

02:01:47.420 get caught in traffic.

02:01:49.420 I said, well, when is he landing?

02:01:50.420 They go about seven o'clock.

02:01:52.420 I said, you're going to close down Las Vegas Boulevard seven o'clock on a Saturday night?

02:01:56.420 He goes, yes, we are.

02:01:58.420 And, you know, that's when I called Mandalay Bay to work.

02:02:01.420 Little leak out, not much, but he came.

02:02:04.420 And the fans didn't know.

02:02:05.420 What was the reaction?

02:02:07.420 Pandemonium.

02:02:08.420 That's your last one ever.

02:02:09.420 Yeah, my last Olympia was the best one.

02:02:11.420 And you finished it with that?

02:02:12.420 Yeah.

02:02:13.420 And you didn't come back?

02:02:14.420 Nope.

02:02:15.420 Did you get fired or you didn't come back?

02:02:16.420 Me and Ben were fighting so much every day.

02:02:19.420 Pecker wanted to take over.

02:02:21.420 He said, you know, if I take over the Olympia, you know, you're going to run it and this

02:02:24.420 and that.

02:02:25.420 I said, I can't take it with Ben no more.

02:02:27.420 And then he made a deal with Ben.

02:02:29.420 You know, and Ben said, well, you know, Wayne and Pecker, Wayne and Lorimer were trying

02:02:33.420 to undermine me and this and that.

02:02:36.420 And Arnold told Pecker, don't sign with Ben, you'll regret it.

02:02:41.420 Arnold told Pecker, don't sign with Ben, you'll regret it?

02:02:45.420 Mm-hmm.

02:02:46.420 Ben and Joe...

02:02:47.420 Ben and Arnold didn't get along.

02:02:49.420 But Arnold got along with Joe, but not Ben.

02:02:51.420 Not Ben.

02:02:52.420 What's Ben's personality like?

02:02:54.420 Ben was a businessman.

02:02:55.420 Joe was more the bodybuilder guy.

02:02:56.420 So Ben fired you.

02:02:58.420 Ben said to me, I don't think we can exist anymore.

02:03:02.420 I said, you're right.

02:03:03.420 I said, I can't take this anymore.

02:03:05.420 I'm living in stress every day with my medical condition.

02:03:09.420 I don't need stress.

02:03:10.420 I don't need this no more.

02:03:11.420 You think you can do it better?

02:03:13.420 Go ahead.

02:03:14.420 Watch what happens.

02:03:15.420 And I said, that's it.

02:03:17.420 What's the last Olympia that was the biggest Olympia?

02:03:21.420 Is 03 the last biggest one?

02:03:23.420 I can't tell what other Olympias did since I left.

02:03:26.420 I wasn't there.

02:03:27.420 I don't know what the box office receipts are.

02:03:29.420 I can't comment on something I was not on the inside for.

02:03:32.420 But, you know, you don't have marketable guys either.

02:03:38.420 They're not bringing in marketable guys.

02:03:39.420 How do you know though?

02:03:40.420 You don't know.

02:03:41.420 You're not there to see it.

02:03:42.420 You said, I don't want to judge because I'm not there.

02:03:43.420 So what do you mean?

02:03:44.420 No, I'm saying they're not marketable.

02:03:45.420 They're not selling the tickets.

02:03:46.420 There's no excitement.

02:03:47.420 Is there excitement about Brandon Curry?

02:03:49.420 No knock on the guy.

02:03:50.420 He may be a nice fellow.

02:03:51.420 I don't know him.

02:03:52.420 But I don't see an excitement there.

02:03:55.420 Yeah, marketable is a different story you're talking about.

02:03:57.420 Yeah, marketability is a completely different thing.

02:04:00.420 I get it.

02:04:01.420 I totally get it.

02:04:02.420 You've got to have a personality.

02:04:03.420 Arnold is marketable.

02:04:04.420 Even Matarosa who was 16, you know, wasn't winning.

02:04:07.420 But he was still a marketable personality.

02:04:09.420 You had some of these guys that were marketable personalities.

02:04:11.420 So, okay.

02:04:12.420 And then you had, at the time you had magazines with Joe knowing how to create personalities

02:04:19.420 and create marketable guys.

02:04:21.420 Yeah.

02:04:22.420 Okay.

02:04:23.420 The internet magazine's dead.

02:04:25.420 It's almost self-promotion and it's all over the place.

02:04:29.420 And you may have so many followers on Instagram or whatever, but it doesn't translate into tickets.

02:04:36.420 You've got to do that.

02:04:38.420 Last question for you.

02:04:39.420 One of Joe Weider's dreams was for Mr. Olympia to go into Olympics.

02:04:43.420 I know they did the Pan Am stuff.

02:04:44.420 Is this ever going to happen?

02:04:45.420 That was Ben's dream.

02:04:47.420 Raphael's trying.

02:04:48.420 But you've got the drug testing problem.

02:04:52.420 It's difficult.

02:04:53.420 You know, the IFBB.

02:04:55.420 Raphael's part of the IFBB because both Jimmy and Raphael both use them.

02:04:58.420 Is Raphael your boss or no?

02:04:59.420 Huh?

02:05:00.420 Is Raphael your boss or no?

02:05:01.420 Technically.

02:05:02.420 Technically he's your boss, right?

02:05:03.420 You know, when he called me to ask me to come, you've got to remember, I was his boss.

02:05:05.420 Yeah, I know that.

02:05:06.420 But, I mean, you're almost like doing each other.

02:05:09.420 It's not even a...

02:05:10.420 Yeah.

02:05:11.420 I mean, I call up Raphael.

02:05:12.420 It's different, you know.

02:05:13.420 But there's respect.

02:05:14.420 I told him.

02:05:15.420 I said, Raphael, you know me.

02:05:17.420 I said, every time I would flip out on Ben, Ben would call you up saying I can't take it

02:05:21.420 with him no more.

02:05:22.420 Yeah.

02:05:23.420 I said, but you want me to be aggressive and energetic because if I'm not, then I'm useless.

02:05:31.420 If I don't have this energy, then I'm no good for anything.

02:05:35.420 Okay?

02:05:36.420 So, if I don't have a passion for what I'm doing, then why do it?

02:05:40.420 Get somebody else.

02:05:41.420 If you just want a yes man, I'm not the guy for you.

02:05:44.420 I'm not the guy for you.

02:05:46.420 You know?

02:05:47.420 You've got to be aggressive.

02:05:49.420 Yeah.

02:05:50.420 I'm, you know, I'm not making no money running about it, but I make my money doing other things.

02:05:54.420 But, you know, it's kind of fun trying to teach younger guys or guys that never promoted

02:05:59.420 before to do it.

02:06:00.420 Some catch on and do it and they follow you.

02:06:03.420 Some don't.

02:06:04.420 It's kind of nice on these, yeah, these shows aren't big.

02:06:07.420 35 people in this show, 22 people in this show, whatever.

02:06:11.420 And, but when the athlete comes up to you and says, you know, we like the organization you're

02:06:16.420 putting together.

02:06:17.420 You know, nothing's going on here.

02:06:18.420 You know, heard the alleged things.

02:06:19.420 You're talking about Physique America is what you're talking about.

02:06:21.420 Yeah.

02:06:22.420 PhysiqueAmerica.com.

02:06:23.420 That's what you're doing.

02:06:24.420 Yeah.

02:06:25.420 And, you know, so when an athlete comes to you and says, you know, thank you.

02:06:27.420 It was a nice show.

02:06:28.420 We're taking all the membership money.

02:06:31.420 Okay.

02:06:32.420 And we're sending athletes every show to different international events.

02:06:35.420 Nobody does that.

02:06:36.420 You're not doing it for money.

02:06:37.420 This is a passion play.

02:06:38.420 Yeah.

02:06:39.420 You still have the passion for this game.

02:06:40.420 Yeah.

02:06:41.420 To a point.

02:06:42.420 Yeah.

02:06:43.420 To, yes or no?

02:06:44.420 Yes.

02:06:45.420 So not to, what's the, to a point?

02:06:46.420 Well, to a point is.

02:06:47.420 Money, you've got to make some money if these guys call you.

02:06:48.420 Yeah.

02:06:49.420 If the other guys want me to, you know, I'm not going to, you know, for years or

02:06:52.420 running the Olympia and teaching myself, learning on my own how to run big events.

02:06:57.420 I'm not going to give it away to Jake Wood or Dan Solomon.

02:07:00.420 This is a crazy question for you.

02:07:01.420 Crazy.

02:07:02.420 I mean, not a crazy question.

02:07:03.420 Yeah, any question.

02:07:04.420 What, what is a quality of a great promoter?

02:07:07.420 What makes a great promoter?

02:07:09.420 From your eyes, you're a great promoter.

02:07:11.420 What makes somebody a great promoter?

02:07:13.420 You have to have the passion for it.

02:07:15.420 One.

02:07:16.420 Okay.

02:07:17.420 You have to be creative.

02:07:18.420 You've got to think like a fan.

02:07:20.420 What entertains you?

02:07:22.420 I'm still a fan.

02:07:23.420 I would always say to people, you know, when the show started and I'm sitting there with

02:07:27.420 the judges, I got the best seat in the house and the show goes and I'm creating this, whatever,

02:07:33.420 this entertainment that I put in my head.

02:07:36.420 You've got to entertain people.

02:07:38.420 Anything pro is entertaining.

02:07:39.420 This show is no good if you don't entertain people.

02:07:41.420 Yeah.

02:07:42.420 Why do people watch it?

02:07:43.420 You've got to be entertaining.

02:07:44.420 If everybody comes out and does the same thing, it's boring.

02:07:47.420 Nobody ever knew what I was going to do at Night of Champions.

02:07:50.420 So, so a sense of surprise, a sense of unknown.

02:07:53.420 Yep.

02:07:54.420 You think that's quality of a promoter?

02:07:56.420 Part of it.

02:07:57.420 What else?

02:07:58.420 So, so far I have passion, creative, entertain, a sense of the unknown.

02:08:01.420 What else?

02:08:02.420 And you've got to work all the time.

02:08:04.420 You've got to work all the time.

02:08:05.420 I would, I say to promoters, you're promoting a show, every day you've got to get something accomplished.

02:08:11.420 I would, when I would run the Olympia, I would give myself goals.

02:08:14.420 I would play games with myself.

02:08:15.420 I would say, okay, this week I'm going to raise $20,000 in vendors and sponsors.

02:08:21.420 And let's say I sign a company for $25,000 on Tuesday.

02:08:24.420 I don't take the rest of the week off.

02:08:26.420 Hey, maybe I could get to $50,000 this week.

02:08:28.420 I'm going to push even harder the last three days.

02:08:30.420 I was always competing against myself to make it better.

02:08:33.420 That's why in 2003, you know, let's face it, in 2003 you had, well let's go back a couple of years.

02:08:40.420 Jay was winning in 2001 after the judging and Ronnie came back and beat him.

02:08:45.420 And Jay got mad.

02:08:46.420 He thought, I fixed the show against him.

02:08:48.420 I said to him one time, I'm a promoter.

02:08:51.420 I do this to make money.

02:08:53.420 Who's going to sell me more tickets?

02:08:55.420 A big white blonde guy or the big black guy?

02:08:58.420 Come on.

02:08:59.420 Don King told me one time.

02:09:01.420 Don King came to, when we did women's bodybuilding, the women's pumping iron.

02:09:05.420 And he saw I was promoting that thing.

02:09:07.420 He goes, remember one thing, boy?

02:09:08.420 White means green.

02:09:09.420 I knew what he meant.

02:09:10.420 He goes, you know how much money I made off Jerry Cooney fighting Holmes?

02:09:14.420 We all knew Holmes was going to kill him.

02:09:16.420 His boxing skills were so, but they built up Cooney.

02:09:20.420 You get the thing.

02:09:21.420 The audience is 95% white, right?

02:09:23.420 You don't have white guys in the show.

02:09:25.420 This and that.

02:09:26.420 Jay Cutler didn't win in 2001.

02:09:28.420 He was upset.

02:09:29.420 So he didn't compete in 2002.

02:09:30.420 Let's go back, stay focused.

02:09:32.420 Hang on, because I want to get this out of you.

02:09:34.420 Because I'm trying to get this out of you because I think it's brilliant what you're

02:09:37.420 saying.

02:09:38.420 Number one is passion.

02:09:39.420 You've got to be passionate about what you're promoting.

02:09:41.420 Number two is being creative.

02:09:42.420 You can't think like everybody else and be logical or conventional.

02:09:45.420 Number three is entertain.

02:09:47.420 You've got to entertain folks.

02:09:48.420 Number four is the sense of the unknown, some kind of a surprise.

02:09:52.420 Number five, you're working all the time.

02:09:54.420 Number six, you said competitiveness.

02:09:56.420 You've got to compete against yourself to push yourself to succeed.

02:10:00.420 Okay.

02:10:01.420 How about the next one?

02:10:02.420 Do you think there's a part of it of you choosing the right person to be face of the

02:10:06.420 sport, all of that?

02:10:08.420 Or no?

02:10:09.420 You don't think that plays?

02:10:10.420 I didn't pick the face of the sport.

02:10:11.420 Meaning Conor is great.

02:10:12.420 I get that.

02:10:13.420 But Conor is great for MMA, right?

02:10:14.420 Right.

02:10:15.420 Mayweather was good for boxing.

02:10:16.420 Yeah.

02:10:17.420 Well, the thing is, I would pick the guys who I put on the poster who would sell me tickets.

02:10:21.420 I'd go to sign up a guy.

02:10:23.420 So maybe that's pick the marketable guy.

02:10:25.420 Yeah.

02:10:26.420 Okay.

02:10:27.420 Yeah, I'm with that.

02:10:28.420 Night of Champions.

02:10:29.420 At Night of Champions, we would try to get the year before's overall USA and Nationals

02:10:34.420 winner.

02:10:35.420 That would be their pro debut.

02:10:36.420 I would always say, whoever wins the USA and the Nationals, you turn pro, I'd fly you

02:10:41.420 into Night of Champions, you're in that show.

02:10:43.420 So the fans knew they were going to see the young, upcoming guys here.

02:10:47.420 I would always bring back three, four, five favorites.

02:10:52.420 People that they knew.

02:10:54.420 You know, that they liked.

02:10:55.420 That the New York audience liked.

02:10:56.420 Who are stars?

02:10:57.420 And they liked.

02:10:58.420 I would always bring in an unknown from Europe.

02:11:02.420 Okay?

02:11:03.420 So I would fly in, because I would have sometimes 45, 50 guys in Night of Champions.

02:11:08.420 I would pay full expenses for like 16 to 18.

02:11:11.420 And then guys from, that lived in the area that could drive, I would pay their hotel.

02:11:16.420 Yeah, I said, you're driving on Friday, I don't want you going back and forth.

02:11:18.420 You stay in a hotel, I'll pay partial expenses.

02:11:20.420 And then guys that I didn't know that wanted to come and pay their way and make their mark,

02:11:24.420 do this.

02:11:25.420 During the judging, the judges would judge one to 15, everyone else to 16.

02:11:29.420 At the beginning of the show at night, the ones that didn't make the top 15, they'd

02:11:33.420 come out, depending on how many, one or two at a time, and do, you know, 15, 20 seconds

02:11:40.420 of posing, and this and that, and then they were done.

02:11:42.420 The top 15 did their full posing routine for the audience.

02:11:45.420 We would start that show at 8.05, we'd end at 10.15 on the button, all timed out.

02:11:51.420 You want the people leaving wanting more, not being bored.

02:11:54.420 Okay, that's another one.

02:11:55.420 Okay, so what else?

02:11:56.420 So here's, again, passion, creative, entertain, sense of unknown, work your ass off, compete

02:12:02.420 against your prior best, pick the right person to be the face, like a marketable guy, think

02:12:06.420 like a fan.

02:12:07.420 What you just said right now is people leaving wanting more.

02:12:10.420 Give me one more.

02:12:11.420 I'm going to get one more out of you.

02:12:12.420 Just having energy to do it.

02:12:13.420 The miles I would walk in Mandalay Bay going from my room down the elevators to where the

02:12:19.420 convention was, where the theater was, where this was, where that was.

02:12:22.420 You got to do what you got to do.

02:12:24.420 Give me one of these, man.

02:12:25.420 We're not even done, and I was freaking sick.

02:12:26.420 I got to tell you that.

02:12:27.420 That was sick.

02:12:28.420 Anybody, no matter what business you're in, you just heard from one of the best promoters

02:12:32.420 in the sport of bodybuilding, which was never a marketable product years ago, to go from

02:12:38.420 doing the most shows.

02:12:39.420 We can learn something from here.

02:12:41.420 The deep promoter.

02:12:42.420 Speed round.

02:12:43.420 I'm going to give you a name.

02:12:44.420 You give me one word.

02:12:45.420 Okay?

02:12:46.420 Let's see what you can do here.

02:12:47.420 I give you a name.

02:12:48.420 You give me one word.

02:12:49.420 Jim Mannion.

02:12:50.420 Friend?

02:12:51.420 Former friend?

02:12:52.420 Friend or former friend?

02:12:54.420 Well, you don't want to talk to me.

02:12:55.420 I have to say former friend.

02:12:56.420 Maybe because you...

02:12:57.420 But that's two words.

02:12:58.420 Okay.

02:12:59.420 It's okay.

02:13:00.420 You're okay with that?

02:13:01.420 I'm not an enemy.

02:13:02.420 I don't hate no one.

02:13:03.420 I'm with you.

02:13:04.420 I don't know why.

02:13:05.420 Arnold.

02:13:06.420 Greatest bodybuilder.

02:13:07.420 Greatest.

02:13:08.420 Greatest ever.

02:13:09.420 Lee Priest.

02:13:10.420 Underappreciated.

02:13:11.420 Wow.

02:13:12.420 Sean Ray.

02:13:13.420 Um.

02:13:14.420 One word for Sean Ray.

02:13:18.420 Mmm.

02:13:19.420 Unhappy.

02:13:20.420 He never...

02:13:21.420 He...

02:13:22.420 He...

02:13:23.420 You know.

02:13:24.420 Not one word, but...

02:13:26.420 You know.

02:13:27.420 There were years.

02:13:28.420 You know.

02:13:29.420 I like Dorian.

02:13:30.420 Dorian's a great guy.

02:13:31.420 91, he pushed Haney.

02:13:32.420 92, he won.

02:13:33.420 He was like 220-something pounds.

02:13:35.420 93, he was tremendous.

02:13:37.420 That picture.

02:13:38.420 But when he started tearing things,

02:13:40.420 I didn't agree with the judges that he should have won.

02:13:42.420 You know.

02:13:43.420 Just my opinion.

02:13:45.420 I thought those years.

02:13:47.420 Could Flex have won?

02:13:48.420 Could Sean have won?

02:13:50.420 Could Kevin have won?

02:13:51.420 Yeah.

02:13:52.420 I...

02:13:53.420 I...

02:13:54.420 I could have seen that.

02:13:55.420 You know.

02:13:56.420 But I wasn't a judge.

02:13:57.420 And I don't tell the judges who to vote for.

02:13:59.420 I tell them how to judge, meaning apply the rules,

02:14:04.420 but I don't tell them who to judge, who to vote for.

02:14:07.420 Yeah.

02:14:08.420 Sean...

02:14:09.420 I mean, when you look at Sean's physique,

02:14:11.420 there's no weaknesses.

02:14:12.420 You know, what's Sean's weakness?

02:14:14.420 He wasn't quite as tall as the other fellows.

02:14:16.420 He probably could have wore his trunks a little bit higher

02:14:18.420 so he didn't see them as long-waisted.

02:14:20.420 You know, you create an optical illusion.

02:14:22.420 You look at the guys back in Arnold's time,

02:14:24.420 how much bigger the trunks were.

02:14:26.420 Now they're basically wearing bikinis.

02:14:28.420 If your trunks are higher, you don't see them as long-waisted.

02:14:31.420 Where they say, oh, this guy has high lats.

02:14:33.420 Well, if his trunks were, you know, an inch below his belly button

02:14:36.420 instead of six inches, it's all an optical illusion.

02:14:38.420 Interesting.

02:14:39.420 And that's why I think Sean was unhappy.

02:14:41.420 You know, people would say to me, why do you let him speak?

02:14:44.420 Why do you let him knock you?

02:14:46.420 Why do you let him say things at the press conference?

02:14:48.420 And I would always say, Sean may say a hundred things.

02:14:51.420 Ninety-nine may be idiotic or annoy me, but he may say one thing that's good.

02:14:57.420 And that's what you have to do when you're in charge.

02:15:00.420 And that's something that nobody sees.

02:15:03.420 And let's look at another thing.

02:15:05.420 No matter who the president is, half the people hate him.

02:15:08.420 Okay?

02:15:09.420 If you're in charge and you let people have freedom to speak

02:15:13.420 and speak their minds and write anything they want

02:15:16.420 and say anything they want publicly, privately, you're going to get knocked.

02:15:20.420 Once you come out from the crowd and you're up here, you're a target.

02:15:25.420 If you don't want to be a target, then don't do it.

02:15:30.420 You know, I understood that from the beginning.

02:15:33.420 And it was like, I understood that other phrase, publicity good or bad,

02:15:37.420 as long as they spell my name right, as long as you put about the thing.

02:15:40.420 You mention the contest, you mention this, you mention that.

02:15:42.420 What is my job?

02:15:43.420 Not to pat myself on the back.

02:15:45.420 My job is to promote good contests.

02:15:48.420 If I continue to promote good contests and make money,

02:15:51.420 I continue to promote contests and build a sport.

02:15:54.420 If I had lost money and gone away, what would have happened to pro bodybuilding?

02:15:58.420 If I didn't take that risk and use my own money?

02:16:00.420 Yeah.

02:16:01.420 People criticize you, I'm sure.

02:16:02.420 All the time.

02:16:03.420 Yeah.

02:16:04.420 Do you care?

02:16:05.420 No.

02:16:06.420 You enjoy what you're doing.

02:16:07.420 Actually, I learn a lot.

02:16:08.420 I've got to tell you, I learn a lot.

02:16:09.420 Because the way I look at it is my heavy-duty critics who are competitors,

02:16:14.420 they're the best consultants I'll have because they identify my weakness more than my peers ever will.

02:16:19.420 And that's how you get better.

02:16:20.420 It's the best consultants.

02:16:22.420 Yeah.

02:16:23.420 Cheapest consultants because you don't pay for it.

02:16:24.420 They just criticize you.

02:16:25.420 Yeah.

02:16:26.420 It's like, you know, I would get criticized at those things, guys that were into women's

02:16:29.420 bodybuilding.

02:16:30.420 Yeah.

02:16:31.420 Why don't the women get paid as much as the men?

02:16:32.420 They don't bring in the money.

02:16:34.420 I would say to people during those press conferences, you want to run Miss Olympia?

02:16:39.420 You think it's so profitable?

02:16:41.420 I'll talk to Ben.

02:16:42.420 We'll give it to you with no sanction fee.

02:16:44.420 You could run it.

02:16:45.420 See what happens.

02:16:46.420 I put it together to keep it.

02:16:48.420 The men are supporting the women.

02:16:51.420 That's why we did it.

02:16:53.420 That's the longest two words I've seen in my life, by the way.

02:16:56.420 Yeah.

02:16:57.420 It's okay.

02:16:58.420 It's okay.

02:16:59.420 David Pecker.

02:17:00.420 David Pecker.

02:17:01.420 So much goes on with David Pecker, bodybuilding and non-bodybuilding, you know?

02:17:11.420 Trump.

02:17:12.420 Trump is the first word.

02:17:13.420 That's my answer.

02:17:14.420 Trump.

02:17:15.420 Okay.

02:17:16.420 Fair enough.

02:17:17.420 Joe Weider.

02:17:18.420 Innovator.

02:17:19.420 Ben Weider.

02:17:20.420 Administrator.

02:17:21.420 Ronnie Coleman.

02:17:23.420 Great champion.

02:17:24.420 Again, champion.

02:17:25.420 Flex Wheeler.

02:17:26.420 Aesthetics.

02:17:27.420 El Sombati.

02:17:29.420 Mass.

02:17:30.420 Phil Heath.

02:17:31.420 I don't know him that well.

02:17:34.420 Oh, okay.

02:17:35.420 So proposed 2003.

02:17:37.420 Fair enough.

02:17:40.420 Mike Matarasso.

02:17:41.420 Great guy.

02:17:43.420 Great guy.

02:17:44.420 It hurt me when he left us.

02:17:47.420 It hurt me.

02:17:49.420 Some of these guys, when they've gone, the night NASA died, Kevin, Paul and myself were

02:17:54.420 on the phone till three in the morning.

02:17:57.420 I mean, you know, you gotta remember, on those tours we'd live together like a rock band.

02:18:04.420 You know?

02:18:05.420 And, you know, NASA, Paul, Flex, Chris, Milos, you know, there was a group of guys that we'd

02:18:17.420 go every year.

02:18:19.420 Vince, Ronnie a lot of the times.

02:18:22.420 Dorian do half of it.

02:18:23.420 Sean never went.

02:18:24.420 I don't think, the guys could be rough on each other at times, okay?

02:18:28.420 I don't think he had the temperament to handle that.

02:18:30.420 Um, but we were close.

02:18:34.420 We'd get in fights where we wanted to beat each other up and other times we'd defend

02:18:41.420 each other and we'd talk about it and we'd laugh about it.

02:18:45.420 I mean, um, and, you know, NASA was only, what, 47, 48?

02:18:51.420 It hurt.

02:18:52.420 Matarazzo.

02:18:53.420 You know, Matarazzo found happiness, he had a young daughter.

02:18:58.420 You know?

02:18:59.420 And, you know, some people get bad side effects from the supplements and some don't.

02:19:08.420 And, you know, Mikey, Mikey's heart couldn't handle it, you know?

02:19:18.420 And, um, he was on the list for a transplant and it didn't come in time, you know?

02:19:25.420 And that hurts, you know, because, um, it was more than just with some of these guys, um,

02:19:34.420 athlete and official.

02:19:36.420 You became friends in a certain way.

02:19:37.420 I knew Mikey's mom and dad, that his dad was in a wheelchair when every competing night

02:19:41.420 of champions, I said, your dad never has to get a ticket.

02:19:43.420 He gets a badge.

02:19:44.420 Wow.

02:19:45.420 And he comes right down in front and this and that.

02:19:47.420 You know, Mikey appreciated that.

02:19:48.420 But, hey, I was happy that dad was there, poor guy was in, you know.

02:19:52.420 I, I look at myself.

02:19:54.420 I'm 70 years old.

02:19:55.420 I've been fighting prostate cancer for 22 years.

02:19:58.420 They told me in 1998 I had one to three months to live and here I am.

02:20:02.420 I'm bouncing around, look at me.

02:20:04.420 And, you know, I think Mikey's dad, when he would come to the shows, was in his late 50s.

02:20:10.420 The poor guy was in a wheelchair.

02:20:11.420 It's like, you know, you look at other people, you know, and then you realize how lucky you

02:20:17.420 are and you don't complain about your life.

02:20:19.420 You just go on in life and just be thankful every day.

02:20:21.420 I wake up every day and I say, how nothing hurts.

02:20:24.420 I could go to the gym.

02:20:25.420 Hey, I can't live what I used to.

02:20:27.420 But I could still do okay.

02:20:29.420 And cancer, you're not going to get me today.

02:20:31.420 Because I'm going to drink my green drink and have my almond milk and drink liters of

02:20:36.420 water and do whatever I got to do to live a good life and to be the way I am.

02:20:42.420 You know, a lot of people don't believe my age because of my energy.

02:20:45.420 And, you know, when I take the drugs that kill my testosterone, I mean, basically they

02:20:50.420 chemically castrate me.

02:20:51.420 Half the year I'm chemically castrated.

02:20:53.420 And you suffer depression.

02:20:55.420 I've learned how to deal with it without drugs.

02:20:57.420 I've found that what works for me is espresso, being Italian.

02:21:01.420 You know, the caffeine kicks in a little bit of serotonin and I'm fine.

02:21:06.420 But, you know, when I'm on the drugs, especially after four months, you wake up with suicidal thoughts.

02:21:12.420 But I'm lucky I know how to deal with it and then I just get myself down and this and that.

02:21:17.420 Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night, the suicidal thoughts are so bad you've

02:21:20.420 got to get up at 3.30 in the morning because you can't sleep.

02:21:22.420 You know, so you appreciate other things in life and then you deal with it.

02:21:26.420 You know, and like I said, when we lose some of our guys, Munzer.

02:21:31.420 Munzer competed in San Francisco Grand Prix.

02:21:35.420 I guess that was 94, I believe, off the top of my head.

02:21:39.420 And I saw him when he checked out of the hotel on a Sunday morning.

02:21:43.420 And I get a call Tuesday early in the morning my time from one of my guys in Germany saying

02:21:49.420 he passed away last night.

02:21:50.420 I said I saw him Sunday.

02:21:52.420 He flew home.

02:21:53.420 He got home Monday.

02:21:54.420 He went out to eat.

02:21:55.420 He was drinking beer.

02:21:57.420 But everything fell apart in his system, you know.

02:22:01.420 And he died, you know.

02:22:04.420 And, you know, he wanted to be a champion so much that he would take drugs to mask things

02:22:12.420 even though he was told by many doctors, stop doing this, you know.

02:22:16.420 And sometimes guys can't.

02:22:17.420 They want it so bad, you know.

02:22:20.420 And the steroids, come on, we all know what we felt like when we were 17, 18, 19 years old.

02:22:25.420 Like, you know, we could run through the wall.

02:22:27.420 We're indestructible.

02:22:28.420 Well, you know, they're taking steroids, artificial testosterone is ten times that amount.

02:22:33.420 So they feel indestructible and they can't go.

02:22:37.420 You know, it's crazy.

02:22:38.420 You open up with that, you're finishing with that.

02:22:40.420 It tells you, you know, what consumes your mind the most with the sport.

02:22:44.420 You know, I got to tell you, Wayne.

02:22:46.420 I almost didn't do this interview.

02:22:48.420 When they reached out to me, I'm like, why am I going to sit down with me?

02:22:51.420 I don't want to do any more bodybuilding interviews.

02:22:52.420 This is not a bodybuilding channel.

02:22:54.420 I'm like, enough of this bodybuilding.

02:22:56.420 It's my passion.

02:22:57.420 I love the sport.

02:22:59.420 I see, I grew up with this thing.

02:23:02.420 I've made my money because of bodybuilding.

02:23:04.420 Because every single time, a guy named Fred Gambari, I'm saying his last name probably

02:23:10.420 wrong, at YMCA told me to increase the weights by two and a half pounds.

02:23:14.420 And I went from barely benching the bar to doing three plates and a quarter on each side.

02:23:19.420 I was in the army competing.

02:23:20.420 And I wanted to be a Mr. Olympia God.

02:23:22.420 And I said, I don't want to do it.

02:23:23.420 But that discipline of being a bodybuilder for that period, it bled into work.

02:23:30.420 It bled into business.

02:23:31.420 It bled into entrepreneurship.

02:23:33.420 So I feel like, in a way, I want to give back as much as I can.

02:23:36.420 But this is a channel that's for business.

02:23:38.420 And we do a lot of different interviews.

02:23:40.420 But I've got to tell you, I had a blast sitting with you.

02:23:43.420 And this is the longest interview we've ever done.

02:23:45.420 Would you say yes?

02:23:46.420 Mario, how long have we been sitting here?

02:23:48.420 First of all, you're long-winded.

02:23:49.420 Very obvious.

02:23:50.420 You can talk for nights, for days.

02:23:52.420 But I've had a blast.

02:23:53.420 Put me on that stage there in a debate.

02:23:55.420 I'll talk Bernie.

02:23:56.420 I'm just telling you.

02:23:58.420 I really enjoyed talking to you.

02:24:01.420 Thank you.

02:24:02.420 I really sincerely enjoyed talking to you.

02:24:04.420 Just having a conversation with you.

02:24:06.420 And I know we cover a lot of different things, a lot of different topics.

02:24:09.420 I know the bodybuilding community is going to look at this and they're going to do what they're going to do.

02:24:13.420 And they're going to say whatever they're going to say.

02:24:14.420 And we didn't even get into the pumping iron films that are developed.

02:24:17.420 We didn't even get into that it was hired by Major League Baseball to help them with drugs.

02:24:20.420 If I do that, I'm not going to get a chance to kiss my daughter goodnight tonight.

02:24:23.420 You better.

02:24:24.420 Children are more important.

02:24:25.420 But I wanted to have this conversation with you and I'm glad it went in the direction it went.

02:24:31.420 Because I feel smarter every time I'm sitting down and I got it from a different perspective on what you said.

02:24:37.420 And I hope the viewers that are watching this as well got a different perspective about Mr. Olympia.

02:24:42.420 There's one thing for sure.

02:24:43.420 Like you, not like you, disagree with you.

02:24:46.420 The passion is there and there's no way in the world somebody can teach somebody how to have that passion.

02:24:51.420 That passion is in your bones and it's very, very obvious.

02:24:54.420 And again, I appreciate you for coming out.

02:24:56.420 Thank you.

02:24:57.420 For people to get a hold of you, what do you want to do?

02:24:59.420 What do you want to direct them to?

02:25:00.420 Is there anywhere?

02:25:01.420 They just go to ifbbphysicamerica.com.

02:25:04.420 Okay.

02:25:05.420 And we're going to put that link below for them to get to see that.

02:25:08.420 Are you an Instagram guy or Twitter?

02:25:10.420 Any of that stuff for now?

02:25:11.420 I'm on there but I don't post anything.

02:25:13.420 You don't really post anything.

02:25:14.420 Nah, I'm not into it.

02:25:15.420 Well, I mean for anything.

02:25:16.420 We'll send the link over there.

02:25:17.420 Yeah, put it to that.

02:25:18.420 So if they want to compete in our shows and like I say, you know, like our first show is March 22nd in Florida.

02:25:25.420 Two athletes are going to win a trip, a male and a female.

02:25:28.420 This is going to stay for a while.

02:25:30.420 So instead of giving a date, just keep in mind that these guys are going to see.

02:25:33.420 They're going to be going to Seville.

02:25:35.420 Some people are going to go to Arnold Classic South Africa.

02:25:38.420 Some people win trips to our pro qualifier in Miami in July.

02:25:42.420 You know, I'm not taking a dime.

02:25:44.420 I'm putting all the money back if people think I'm crazy.

02:25:46.420 But you know what?

02:25:47.420 You can't take it with you.

02:25:48.420 I would always get on Ben Weider.

02:25:49.420 I said, what are you going to do with all this money?

02:25:51.420 You can't take it with you.

02:25:52.420 And he would always go to me, I'm going to try.

02:25:54.420 But you can't, you know.

02:25:56.420 And, you know, I think my disease, my illness.

02:26:02.420 I was always positive, but it brought me to a different level.

02:26:06.420 You know?

02:26:07.420 And whenever I get caught up in the business rat race, say, I always bring myself back to

02:26:15.420 the night before my surgery where the doctors came in saying, wait, we're going to open you

02:26:21.420 up and this and that, but we think it's in the lymph nodes.

02:26:23.420 We think you got, you don't have much time, blah, blah, blah.

02:26:26.420 And I thought in my head when they left, I said, when I get past this, because I was always

02:26:31.420 positive, I'm not going to let relationship problems, business problems, financial problems,

02:26:39.420 affect me because those can all be dealt with another individual.

02:26:44.420 And this, I had to be blessed to get to here.

02:26:49.420 Whatever reason why I'm still here, I don't know.

02:26:53.420 You know, the cancer's still in me.

02:26:55.420 I go for tests every three months.

02:26:57.420 I go for scans and this and that once a year.

02:26:59.420 I got to do what I got to do.

02:27:00.420 But, you know, it makes you look at life different.

02:27:05.420 So, when things go bad and you're upset about something, I always pull myself back and say,

02:27:11.420 ah, it's okay.

02:27:12.420 It's no big deal.

02:27:13.420 It's very obvious.

02:27:14.420 It's very obvious you got that and I applaud you for it.

02:27:17.420 And look at all the bodybuilders, I like them all.

02:27:20.420 You know, I like Sean.

02:27:21.420 I don't hate Sean.

02:27:22.420 You know, like I said, he's a great bodybuilder.

02:27:24.420 You know?

02:27:25.420 He's got, you know, his perspective.

02:27:28.420 You're going to hear from them.

02:27:30.420 You're going to hear from what they're saying from this one anyway.

02:27:32.420 Oh, yeah.

02:27:33.420 You know, hey, they can say what they want.

02:27:35.420 You know, I basically, some people say, Wayne, you created pro bodybuilding.

02:27:41.420 Because it really didn't exist before you came along and you did all these shows and la la la la.

02:27:45.420 You know what I think we need to do.

02:27:46.420 You know, and it's like, yeah, I did it.

02:27:49.420 I enjoyed doing it.

02:27:51.420 I mean, my favorite day of the year was Night of Champions Day.

02:27:54.420 That was, you know, that was my baby.

02:27:56.420 Mine and Charlie's baby.

02:27:57.420 Very obvious.

02:27:58.420 And, you know, that show, the Olympiator was big.

02:28:02.420 You had to deal with so much and this and that.

02:28:05.420 And it was big.

02:28:06.420 It was satisfying, but it was big.

02:28:08.420 But Night of Champions was, that morning, I could never sleep the night before.

02:28:13.420 I wouldn't stay at the hotel.

02:28:14.420 I'd sleep home because it was so close.

02:28:16.420 And I'd get up like at 4 in the morning and this and that.

02:28:18.420 I couldn't wait to get there.

02:28:19.420 And the truck would come at 7.30 and the union guys would open the door at 8 and they'd let us unload the truck because I'd buy them breakfast.

02:28:26.420 Because they'd get paid for it.

02:28:27.420 They didn't have to work.

02:28:28.420 And they were eating and they were letting us do the work so we could have better staging.

02:28:32.420 Because I had, you know, 20 guys would show up that would work.

02:28:35.420 It was always so much fun.

02:28:37.420 And then...

02:28:39.420 Just to tell you this.

02:28:40.420 If we go two minutes longer, my guy's not going to be able to see his girl tonight.

02:28:44.420 Okay?

02:28:45.420 He's got to go see his girl tonight.

02:28:46.420 How old is your girl?

02:28:47.420 He's got a lot of them because he's a Tinder expert.

02:28:50.420 He's a complete...

02:28:51.420 He's a...

02:28:52.420 I don't know if you're familiar with Tinder.

02:28:53.420 He ain't my league.

02:28:54.420 I can tell you that.

02:28:55.420 He ain't my league if I show you what I got.

02:28:56.420 If you're a Tinder expert like he is, he's always set up.

02:28:59.420 What will I do with that?

02:29:00.420 But Wayne...

02:29:01.420 I'll come back anytime you want.

02:29:02.420 I mean, I'm telling you.

02:29:03.420 I'm telling you.

02:29:04.420 I really enjoyed this conversation.

02:29:05.420 There was a lot of depth in this.

02:29:06.420 Appreciate you for coming out, man.

02:29:07.420 Thank you.

02:29:08.420 Thanks, everybody, for listening.

02:29:09.420 And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.

02:29:14.420 Give us a five-star.

02:29:15.420 Write a review if you haven't already.

02:29:17.420 And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,

02:29:21.420 Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

02:29:23.420 Just search my name, Patrick David.

02:29:25.420 And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.

02:29:29.420 With that being said, have a great day today.

02:29:31.420 Take care, everybody.

02:29:32.420 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - May 29, 2020

Episode 471： Greatest Promoter of Bodybuilding Opens Up - Wayne DeMilia

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