LEE PRIEST believes current Mr Olympia Samson Dauda would struggle to beat Paul Dillett or Flex Wheeler in their prime.
And he says the current crop of top-level open bodybuilders could even be lazy, believing this is why the standard is not as good as his era of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Priest is currently in the UK as part of his Unholy Tour and, on Wednesday, was speaking at Crayford Weights and Fitness in Kent.
Asked the age-old question about which era he thought was best, Priest said: "I'm always going to say the 90s, that era, into the early 2000s, was the best. Like, Samson [Dauda] is good, but if you had to put him up against Flex [Wheeler] at his best, Flex would like... and I know these website's put up photos side by side but having two photos from different stages at different times is different than having him in the flesh."
The point was then made that Dauda was about 300lbs on stage at October's Olympia and carried it very well. But Priest countered that, believing that another of the 90s greats would also have beaten the Briton.
"Yeah, but Paul Dillett was only like 265, 270lbs and if you stood Dillett beside Samson, he [Dillett] would look a lot better," said Priest. "It's all an illusion. Stage weight doesn't mean nothing. When I won my first pro show, Chris Cormier was second at 260. I weighed 199 pounds but people thought I weighed 230. So it's just an illusion up there. I don't care what people say. If that [size in pounds] was the case, Marcus Ruhl and those guys, the guy from Canada who passed away, Greg Kovacs, should have won every show."
Priest also took aim at the number of different classes available to competitors now, arguing that it is akin to the Olympics adding a sprint class for those who cannot run as fast as others.
He said: "At some point I'm sure, when I was training, I looked like a men's physique. Then I looked like a men's classic and then I grew up and became a real bodybuilder. I'd like to go to the Olympics and run in the sprint team. But what does Usain Bolt run? [9.58seconds]. It's like them saying, 'OK Lee, we're going to do a 25-second class'. If I want to play in the NBA, they're not going to bring the hoop down four foot for me. That's why you always had the best of the best."
Priest argued that many of today's competitors have it easy. He believes many can make more money outside of competing and that this has reduced their desire and, in some cases, their work ethic.
He said: "I hated competing. I got into bodybuilding just because I liked the training and then when I did a few shows and got contracts, generally the contract said you had to compete two or three times a year. The most I did one year was 11 shows. But now, someone like Nick Walker, he's 25, he's young, he did one show, then tears his hamstring, he misses another year, then last year he misses another year.
"So to me, if you're a professional, guys should have to do at least two or three shows a year. Maybe Mr Olympia doesn't, but it's exciting if he does. It's exciting that Samson Dauda is going to do the Arnold because he's Mr Olympia and he's putting that on the line. He could lose it but, if he does lose it, it makes Mr Olympia exciting again.
"So back in the day, whether it be Dorian Yates or Ronnie Coleman, most shows were like Olympia line-ups, the only one missing was Mr Olympia. But now a lot of these guys sit them out. So to me, if you're going to be an IFBB Pro, that's what you do, you get paid to eat, sleep and train, so do at least two or three shows. It's good for the fans, it's good for the promoters and stuff like that. So if you only do one show a year and you mess it up, that's the whole year wasted again. A lot of guys now take it easy. They want to be big but they don't want to put in the hard work any more.
"And back then too, the only way we made money was generally from the contract and being in shape and getting in the magazines and going on the covers. If you came in looking really good, you'd get hired to do more guest appearances. But now, they've got money on YouTube and all this other stuff, so I don't think that fire and hunger's there as much as it was before. They've got it a bit easier now where you don't have to push yourself as hard to make money. Some guys out there who never compete are making more money than the guys who are competing."
Asked whether this could be part of the reason why he regards his era as a better standard of competitor than the current crop of athletes, Priest said: "Probably. The only way you're going to get better is by competing and learning from your mistakes and doing more. And then people go, 'well, but if they compete too much, it's unhealthy'. Why?
"The first off-season I had I wasn't taking any gear but I ate so much food that it wasn't healthy. I was 285lbs at 5'5' – I don't think that was the healthiest way to be. And I wouldn't do any cardio. So let's just take guys today, a lot of them bridge and cruise and never really come off. Back then, if I did the Ironman out in San Francisco, that's February, March and I'd qualify for Olympia, I'd be off for four or five months before I went back on another cycle. People now think they've got to be on it all the time. Some of my best lifts were when I wasn't on anything, I just ate a lot of food.
"So I compare it now where people say, 'oh, being on the gear and competing too much is bad'. I'm like, 'why? You're going to take gear regardless off-season or on. At least when you're doing a show you're eating clean, you're doing cardio'. Yes the day of the show, when you really depleted of fluid, that's when you're probably at your worst health-wise. But just eating clean and being on a bit of gear and stuff, doing the cardio, you're probably a lot healthier than being 50 pounds overweight, doing no cardio, still taking the same gear."
Priest is well known for not being a big believer in coaches. And he reiterated that point on Wednesday. Asked whether someone helped him with his nutrition while he was a competitive bodybuilder, Priest shook his head. "No, no, no," he said. "I just tried to narrow it down [to what worked for me]. That's why I don't believe in coaches, gurus and all that bullshit. No one knows your body better than you.
"Some of these pros now are going, 'I'm going to go to Patrick Tuor', or 'I'm going to go to Hany [Rambod]'. Hany had these fellas who were already champions. My grandmother could've got them in shape. We always give these coaches too much credit. If you came to me and said, 'Lee, get me ready for a show', I don't know your body, so all I'm going to do is say 'here's a diet, here's some steroids, here's a programme, go train'. In a week or two, I'll say, 'how are you feeling? OK, we'll cut that out, put this in'. All that stuff you can do yourself if you've been doing it long enough.
"They're talking about Derek [Lunsford] going over to somebody else [he has teamed up with Chris Aceto]. Derek won the Olympia with Hany and I'm sure he's got notes on what he did with Hany, so just follow those notes. Yes, you've always got to make little tweaks here and there, but what you really need is a good training partner, someone to keep your head on straight because, in those last few weeks, you always think you should do something different. So as long as you've got a good support team around you, that's the main thing. These trainers and gurus get way too much credit because, like I said, you're the one that's got to deal with it, how your body feels and that sort of thing.
"The last two weeks is where people fuck it up. I didn't even do carb loading once, I just ate the same food all the way up until the show. Then the last week, I dropped by the water slowly. Say Monday I was having seven litres, Tuesday I'd have six litres, Wednesday five litres, the day before the show, I was still having a litre of water. But if the show was Saturday, I'd still train on the Friday. When your body's that finely tuned, any little thing you do is going to be hit or miss.
"Even diuretics, you know, other guys will start taking diuretics on a Tuesday, Wednesday. If my show was Saturday, Wednesday I might just take half of one and see how I look. If I look good, I might just take a quarter of one because, if you go too hard and you pour the water out, you're not going to get it back in time."
Priest also discussed the time he took tren, describing the reaction being so bad he never took it again. He said: "You go online now and every young kid is like 'tren this, tren that'. I used tren four times my whole life. But the last time I used it was probably in 2002 and I thought, 'here comes the cough' and I just got this massive pain all through my chest where I couldn't breathe. I was like, 'fuck'. I've never taken it again.
"That's what amazes me now, because I read online about the young kids saying, 'I take tren and it makes me irritable, I can't sleep'. And I'm thinking, 'why would you take something that makes you feel like I'm fucking shit? It's just stupid'. The internet can be a good thing, but there's just so much shit on there it's just crazy."
Pictures by Anthony Chia Bradley. Visit his website here.
More dates for Lee Priest, The Unholy Tour can be found here.
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