Seriously, why'd you give up competitive BB?
Many reasons. I simply didn't like the direction is was going in ... the drug issue been the main one. Years later the proof was in the pudding with names like Munzer, Beniziza, Sonny Schimdt, Don Youngblood, Tom Prince, Flex Wheeler, Mike Francois, MIke Matarrazzo, Orville Burke ... man I could keep going and going. And those are just the Pro's....
I didn't like the way the IFBB ran a mafia-type domination of politics on the sport and prevented any chance of mainstream sponsors ever coming in and helping the sport to grow. Giving any mainstream sponsors a chance would have meant sacrificing the tight power hold that they had on the sport. They chose to keep a dictatorship control on the sport instead. Bad choice really .... because the sport is dying a slow death now in my opinion.
What a different place we might be in today if we had seen ad's with marketable young guys, like Bob Paris or Shawn Ray, flashing his smile after a work-out on TV saying... "When I'm dieting for the Mr. Olympia ... it's only the classic taste of Diet Pepsi that keeps me focused and smiling everyday!"