Tony, I appreciate you weighting in on this, It's nice to have someone's perspective such as yourself (a respected promotor that I only heard good things of).
I guess I'll take your word and believe that Lee really loves and respects his fans and that's a great thing. He did say to that family who travelled all the way from Australia that he was sorry for not competing at the last minute at the O two years ago but that he had to do what he had to do and that was that. I remember because I read it on the boards myself. Aside from that, I believe what you are saying.
This is what I believe, i believe that Lee went to PDI simply to piss off the IFBB and to show them that he could do whatever he pleases. It was an act of defiance and it worked. He keeps calling people such as myself, Bob, Shawn, Isaac company men, bagged on Robin Chang publicly in print even in the mags when Robin never did a thing to him, he's actually one of the nicest guy I know, always willing to help others. This kind of behavior really annoys me and I guess sometimes I make remarks about him.
Like I said before I always thought he was a top athlete and I admired that side of him but that's the other stuff that I have a hard time digesting. I've been an acquaintance of Lee's for close to 10 years now and I've never been close enough to call him a friend but many friends of mine were and everytime I would hear these stories about something funky happenning with the relationship with him, times after times, etc.. with differrent people, always problems after problems, not at first, but after a while. Lee always says or write to me that I don't know him personally, he's right, after hearing all that stuff, i don't want to know him, I'd rather stay away, it's like the kid in school that always get into fights with different people but when you ask him, it's never his fault. You see what I mean?
If you ask me, Lee wants to come back because of financial reasons, the fact that he's moving back to Australia is pretty telling. I think that's why he want back in the IFBB, there's no future and no money in the PDI, he lost a fortune by losing two of his major sponsors and that sucks. I feel bad about that as I hate for people to suffer but when he announce he was gonna go PDI, many people told him it was gonna happen but he did it anyway so it's hard to feel sorry now.
In closing, I want to say that I do not hate Lee, I've always been courteous to him when he came by the store and comp him many things as he's a Pro and I take care of these guys, that's my policy and my way of saying thanks for stopping by the shop. I guess he's one of these people that you meet in life and don't get along too great with. I'm not trying to change anybody's mind about Lee, h has a lot fan and he deserves them as he's a great athlete. I guess the problem is that I know too much about him. Sometimes it's not a good thing, ignorance is bliss as they say.
Max.