Keith talks about Ray Mentzer. Ray stayed at my place for about a year in 1987-88. This is our one degree of separation.
« on: February 15, 2006, 06:16:20 PM » Quote
Onlyme, i was checking out musclemafia and i clicked on your bio. i was surprised to read that you were ray mentzer's training partner. did you know him when he supposedly bulked up to 270? do you have any pics of him after his retirement
Keith: Actually when we trained he weighed almost 300. I know one time we weighed each other I weigh 289 and he was 290. Weird cause he seemed so much bigger to me. He had ENORMOUS legs, and his triceps were unreal. I was wider and thicker though. My arms size wise were as big if not a little bigger his looked so big cause of his tri's. My legs were no where near his size though. And I don't have one pic of Ray. Never took one. I hardly ever took pics of people I was with. Most of the pics I have are from other that took them and sent them to me.
Considering his height I think he carried the weight fine. He had a small waist from side to side but he had a bowling ball gut. It did stick out as far as his chest. To tell you the truth they only parts I really noticed about Ray was his huge legs and triceps. He was wide but not as wide as me. He had big delts too. He basically looked like an off season Pro. Still strong as hell too. I saw him several years later at a restaurant and he asked me to sit and eat with him. I would say he was maybe 260 to 270 in weight. Not near as stocky as before.
I see that now. Back then I didn't really think twice about it. I lifted but didn't follow BB. It just so happen I trained where most of them went. It was my friend Dan Keller and his wife Rosemarie who got me into World Gym back in 79' They used to train and do acrobatics at the old Muscle Beach. Rose was the mom of a girl I used to like. Dan was built very good with great arms. He looked allot like Bill Pearl's body. Rose was very attractive and had huge boobies. She was a looker when I knew them but they showed me pics back in the late 50's and 60's of them at Muscle Beach and I could tell Rose was one of the more popular girls. She was HOT!.
They introduced me to an old friend of theres Ron Depolito who was great friends with Joe Gold and been training at Gold's since the day it opened and then went to Worlds where Joe was. He brought me in and introduced me to Joe and even paid my membership. Ron was very vascular and popular in Venice and the BB circle cause he was basically a white pimp. He had a pink corvette convertible and always had at least one but allot of times 2 girls with him. He was the man to invite to parties cause he made sure everyone had a girl.
I heard he later lost a leg due to steroids they said. But that is how I got to meet and train with most of the big names. Just lucky but didn't think much about it back then. Louie was probably the most impressive guy I met and trained with just because he was on the Hulk. Most of the other guys except Arnold and Sergio I didn't know who they were till they were introduced to me.