Yates said in an interview that he had a chance to make money by joining the World Bodybuilding Federation (WBF). Tom Platz pursued him heavily and Titan sports offered him $175,000 per year to join. On the one hand, he wanted to still pursue the Olympia. On the other, all he had was $7000 from his runner-up finish at 1990 Night of Champions. He asked his then-wife, Debbie, what he should do. He admitted that if she told him to join the WBF, he would have done so to get his family out the ghetto. She told him it was his call. Yates told Platz he’d consider it if the shows weren’t rigged like wrestling and that he was an athlete, not an entertainer.Plats said the show would judged fairly with former bodybuilding legends on the panel. But the entertainment portion is what made the WBF different. Yates painfully declined to join, knowing it would disappoint one of his heroes. But, in his mind, competing in the IFBB was more pure sport than doing so in the WBF. When he won NOC and placed 2nd to Haney in 1991 Olympia, he knew how close he was to achieving his goal. The rest is history.
