Phil is nothing more then a hype
How do you figure that?
Heath won the USA on his very first try, at a rather young age. That's impressive in its own right, considering all the guys who are turning pro in their mid-to-late 30s, slogging at the national-level shows for years.
And, Heath won his first pro show, pulling off a HUGE upset against a red-hot Darrem Charles, who was the odds-on favorite to win.
Charles has won at least one pro show the last four years, although the big criticism about him is that, as Shawn Perine of FLEX put it when writing about his win in Orlando, he tends to win the late shows when a lot of other Mr. Olympia competitors are not around to compete.
Nonetheless, beating someone like Charles, especially if you're a rookie, ain't exactly small potatoes. So, Heath has done well for himself thus far.
Both Priest and Heath were young phenoms. Remember that Priest won his country's national title THREE times. I remember seeing footage of Priest on
American Muscle in 1994 (I have it on tape). It was at the San Francisco (or San Jose) Pro show. The commentator said about Priest,
"The most impressive thing about Lee is his age. Until recently, he couldn't even get into a night club. Mass fans are already beginning to worship the young Priest." Priest placed 7th, I think. The top 5 were (from bottom to top): Achim Albrecht, Ronnie Coleman, David Dearth, Porter Cottrell, and winner Kevin Levrone.
Heath has already defeated one well-established pro with mulitpe pro wins. Should he and Priest go toe-to-toe, it wouldn't surprise me, if he walked away victorious. It would certainly be a HUGE feather in his cap.
To put things in perspective, it took Lee Priest 10 years to register his first win. However, part of that may have been due to Priest, at time, being one of those Olympia-to-Olympia competitors (since cracking the top ten, until 2003, meant a qualification for the following year's O).
