 Now you are a skinny kid. You have a you don't have a massive bone structure But you have a very interesting and very advantageous Shape to your muscles and your body when you first started working out Did your body just because you said you were 98 pounds when you when you graduate high school Yeah, when you started lifting weights that your body just respond. Did you build muscle easily? I guess so but not not knowing it and I remember, you know At the local gym that I went to that they allowed me to train there The bigger and older guys would be like, hey, so you come in here and you just breathe the weight and you grow Oh, but I didn't see that. I mean, you know, you don't see yourself growing like that It's that old, you know effect you take a mouse and you put it in hot water a frog You put in hot water drumps up put them in cold water and slowly turns it up and it just sits in both So you don't you don't see that change and over every day And you're looking at these greater people But I remember these always joking like that, you know, you just come in here and just walk around you grow Were they recognizing that the talent right out the gates? Yeah, the talent and even more so The genetics and I in my ignorance, you know as it again is embarrassing It is to say I remember them saying, you know when I was a teenager Why you got great genetics and I look like is that we is that like calling me black? You know extremely embarrassing, but I didn't know what it meant. I'm like, are you are you disrespecting me? I mean, I almost like taking away from your work ethic Yeah, so I just looked at it as a slur because Unfortunately in that same environment, I would always hear like wow flex your great man, you know, too bad you're black or else You'd be great one day and and again because it was my environment that I came from I was like Guess nothing I can do about that because I was so, you know, just not really honest But just ignorant about the whole situation. I didn't get upset. I was just like geez I Can't do nothing about it, you know, like I wish I could, you know, so it was that same environment So I just was taking it there just being you know send something derogatory again Well, and in the 90s you had it was an interesting era because you had on the one hand You had the very aesthetic type of bodybuilders like you I could place Sean rain that category and then you had The mass monsters was really the birth of the massive You know, there was that that when Dorian Yates took second to Lee Yeah, came back like 20 pounds heavier Yeah, and then you had Nasser and all those guys and so it was that I was always that that That that conversation is that the aesthetic is that the symmetry and balance is at the size What was the light competing against Dorian and in particular? I want to ask you How did you feel when Dorian because Dorian, you know, I'm not gonna lie was very dominant early on Yeah, then he tore his bicep and he still and he would win Competitions perfect score still and with the perfect score. There's no symmetry there. Yeah, one arm one arm and no no But you know not knocking the guy during it's one of my days what it is How did you feel at the time when you were competing and you're seeing this did you feel like okay? They're just this is just politics You know I It angered all of this because at the beginning I was just happy to be there. I didn't know anything I mean, I didn't come from a gym with magazines and all this I didn't know crap. I didn't know you can even make money. I didn't turn in pro Okay, so what I didn't know anything so when I won the honor classic, you know, and you know my my second pro show On my second win. I didn't freaking know what was going on You know, I won the Iron Man before competing against the great Lila Brata. Oh, yeah, and I'm Vince Taylor. Oh man Oh, I'm sorry. It was Vince Taylor. That's right. You beat Vince Taylor as a rookie. Yeah, which Vince is one of the greatest Yeah, so I didn't know what was going on I thought okay. This is the iron man. It's a lower caliber show than next weekend, which is the honor classic He's a seasoned veteran veteran. He just you know kind of just f this one off He's gonna come in and just wipe me, you know, so next weekend it was Lila Brata and him So I'm like I'm about to get my ASS tour part. I go plus, you know My analogy because I messed up. I'm like they made a mistake. They're gonna figure it out this time I'm probably get last they're gonna figure out. I'm a wanker. I'm a you know I'm not really who I am or anything like that And I ended up winning against both of those guys and I'm embarrassed on stage that I beat these two you're kidding me So you looked insane on that show too. I mean just absolutely. It's crazy the way you you viewed yourself at that time You know, I bet nobody else would think I bet probably people thought you were cocky if anything Oh, yeah, a hundred percent because again, I guess, you know most Interverts they're extroverts on stage or in public. Yeah, because you're trying to hide that, you know, I get it I know, you know, they said that about Michael Jackson and other great entertainers like that But when you get out there, you can't imagine that they're, you know, uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable in public period I'm uncomfortable in my skin no matter where I am. I'm uncomfortable So being on stage and my Tony's in front of the world As uncomfortable as it gets yeah against other guys that I admired so I just didn't see that I guess you can almost are related to the you know, the beautiful girl in high school Who just thinks she's an ugly duckling and she acts that way, you know, but no I didn't only later that I started kind of getting more aware of who I am and my arrogance started becoming even worse And I was my own worst enemy, but you know competing against during my first time It was my it was my first mr. Olympian my fourth pro show It was different because everybody else had competed against I felt okay on stage within myself I'm uncomfortable anything, but I didn't feel them, right? I didn't I didn't feel them next to me So my first time competing against during I remember thinking Geez I can feel this guy's presence and next to me. I mean that's so much space. He's taken up next to me And that's all I thought about it. I didn't think I was gonna win or anything like that I know after the show was the first and only time I met the great Serge Olivia Oh, yeah, awesome, and it was just like I mean I was like shaking in my boots You know and he we're going into the hotel together and he opens the door for me goes You won that show and I'm like Thank you, you know, but I'm like in my mind. I'm just happy to be there. Did you notice I got second You know, but now I see what he's saying because of the matchup in a way The sport was at his time, which should have happened. I can get that now so as As Dorian started having on entries, which it happens, you know I mean if you run a hard all day long, you know, it's just like in a fight If you got to gauge yourself don't throw everything, you know the first time, you know You got to gauge it sometimes fast sometimes slow But his analogy was go hard all the time heavy as possible most intense as possible. So you run into injury So he was winning with a perfect score and I was a little still younger than this But Kevin LeBron and and Sean Ray were more aware and vocalist like listen, okay If you're winning with a perfect score and you have no injuries and then you have a injury that you can see That's not perfect anymore. And then we have another torn muscle. How is that still perfect? So as me and Kevin and Sean were kind of more I guess pleasing to watch polls, you know, we're better expressionists of ourselves or whatever We knew that he wasn't so how can you beat us in? posing When you're not noted to be a better poser than us and we look at the score at the end of the day It's five five five five. That's perfect. I'm like wow So honest for me, I just didn't say nothing. I'd always just say hey listen man, you know what? I'm going for a second. I'm trying to hold everybody else off. That was my way up saying I know it's gonna happen I just can't do anything about it and me and Dorian got along great other than Sean Ray and Dorian and Kevin Lynn and Dorian didn't get along at all So I didn't really want to be disrespectful for something that this man had no control over if they're allowing things to happen Why am I gonna go and shit on his parade? That's not cool. You know, I that's not respectful You know, so I would just try to take it to him on stage. I'm trying to beat him, but I understood what was gonna happen Yeah