vince this is the best info on mike and ray every.please tell us more! thank you
I agree - Vince, please share more.
It is inevitable that some bodybuilders will suffer from mental illnesses. If some fool around with various mood drugs then what can we say. Mike was bitterly disappointed with bodybuilding and the last straw was the 1980 Mr Olympia. There was a lot riding on that contest. Intelligence, methods, etc. That Arnold got a gift is probably true mainly because all the judges knew Arnold well and some were mates. Not the best people to judge a contest fairly. History can be cruel and look at what happened. Several of the top competitors from 1980 boycotted the 81 Olympia and a very ordinary Franco won. Mike never enterred again and was the ultimate victim afterwards. I knew Ray Mentzer because he stayed at my place for months in the late 80's. He related many stories to me and it seems Mike was the favoured kid as far as Dad went. Those two were brothers but competitors, too. Both were highly intelligent and underestimated the side effects of using so many drugs. Ray's girlfriend told me she couldn't be around Ray when he was preparing for contests. She said he and his mates would take stuff to prepare them for heavy training and then take stuff to come down from those highs. Plus the anabolic drugs and whatever other gonad stimulators they thought they needed. Ray lamented in 1991, when I stayed at his house, that lots of the big guys were getting sick when their bodyweight approached 300 pounds. Ray always seemed clued in to me so I have no idea what happened. Some say he had a kidney disorder that appeared late in life but others blame all the drugs those guys used. I really can't say.Ray did relate some stories about Mike and it appears he abused alcohol and some mood drugs. I have no specifics about what happened. The guy would have perplexed any officers who had to deal with him. That much is certain. When you see the last video Mike made you realize he aged rapidly in the last 10 years of his life. 50 is young as far as I am concerned. It really is not nice witnessing guys come and go like that. Mike was one of the very few philosophers in bodybuilding and his ideas have contributed to what we all know.
