I spoke with Paul years ago- he was not in good health, but we chatted on the phone for about 90 minutes.
I asked him point blank if he had ever tried steroids, and he said no he had not, not even once. Until evidence surfaces otherwise, I will take his statement as true.
Paul was brutally strong in some lifts but not so strong in others. Many strong men are the same way, but somehow when one describes Paul in this way, some people interpret it as a slam, rather than as a fact. One 'historian' became very upset with me when I would not acknowledge that Paul was the strongest man who ever lived in EVERY lift. He was not strong in his hands and many feats depend upon hand strength- deadlifts (for which he often used straps), farmer's carry etc.
There have been some absolutely silly claims about his strength, which I will not mention because someone will convert them from silly to substance.
All of his official records have been surpassed, and were so within a few years of his amateur retirement. Schemansky told me once that Paul outweighed him by 100 lbs and outlifted him by ten pounds. Then he said, 'Big deal'.
Paul's legacy will not be that he was forever the strongest man in the world, but that he did much good for the troubled youth in his Youth Home- a work which his widow continues, and, in my mind, that he had the strongest pair of legs for repetition raw squatting that we have seen. And he need not rest several days to do more sets- he did not have to peak, he simply possessed, day-by-day a readiness at stupendous levels of thigh strength.
