That is one angry juicehead.
THE REAL REASON HE FIRED US
Now that I’ve cleared the air of the biased, fabricated, egomaniacal, Napoleonic, control freak, crap that Blechman posted as the reason he fired Dave and me, let me tell you the real reason. As some of you may know, Blechman and his four brothers owned TwinLab, the ultra successful supplement company their father started in the 60s and grew to a $300 Mill a year behemoth. As head of product development for Twin, Blechman brought to market many innovative products; but it’s been more than 12 years since Blechman has been in the supplement biz and the industry has grown past him.
For the last 12 years Blechman has been telling me he’s getting back into the supplement business, and promising me that I would be a big part of it and become wealthy beyond my dreams. Every year he makes the claim, reiterates how well I’m going to do, and then every year he chickens out. Not wanting to upset advertisers and lose ad dollars is the source of his fear. His quest became how to capitalize on the lucrative supplement biz yet still keep all his MD advertisers. Then along came Palumbo with his newly hatched Species. Part of the arrangement for Dave to come on board as Editor-In-Chief of MD.com was the proviso that Blechman and Palumbo would go into the supplement business together using Species as the shell to contain Blechman’s creations. Blechman felt that if they could keep his involvement on the down low he could have his cake and eat it too. He could partner up with Dave and be in the supplement biz and not piss off advertisers because, with Dave as the front man, it wouldn’t look like the owner of the magazine was selling supplements at a perceived favored position.
Unfortunately, after several month of seeing how Blechman does business; not returning phone calls, not paying people on time, stringing people along while he took his sweet time making up his mind, going back on his word, and relying solely on published research even if it bucked empirical data, Dave felt partnering up with Blechman would be an unhappy disaster for him. Dave doesn’t do business that way. So, he told Steve he changed his mind and wanted to keep Species for himself. Then Dave hired me to help market his company, thus throwing down the gauntlet. I’m sure Blechman perceived this move on my part as being disloyal. Blechman obviously thinks I should just wait around another 12 years to see if he gets into the supplement biz. What the hell? I guess I’m not allowed to achieve anything greater than what Blechman provides! Pffff…..
Be that as it may, Blechman still has plans to get back into the supplement business this year. But, he wants to do it in a way that doesn’t jeopardize his ad dollars. However, before he fills one bottle with pills, he’s going to have to reestablish who he is. 12 years is a long time to be out of the supplement business. Most people out there today have no idea who Blechman is with regard to supplements. So, Blechman decided to get on the message boards and make a name for himself. Since he knows nothing about the internet or the community, his first foray into the web should have been to align himself with us until he got comfortable. Instead, he charged headlong into a smear campaign against Dave and his low-carb, moderate fat, high protein, ketogenic diet. He posted various esoteric studies warning of the deleterious nature of Dave’s diet for bodybuilders supported by inapplicable research.
Almost immediately, a posse of ass kissers jumped on Blechman’s leg and humped it into oblivion with their anti-keto shtick-- all to no avail because Dave put up a very astute fight relying on both science as well as his success in getting athletes ready for competition. I saw Dave, out in the cold, taking unwarranted pot shots from Blechman and sided with Dave because I know firsthand that his methods work and I knew that what Blechman was saying was contrived, biased, alarmist, and simply wasn’t happening in my case.
At the end of the week-long debate, I posted the inevitable truth that was probably the biggest component in me getting fired. I said, ”Who are you going to listen to, a shredded 270lb bodybuilder who prepped 200 competitors last year-- 98% of whom proclaimed they were in the best shape of their lives-- or a 130 pound science junkie waving a study who’s never competed nor coached anyone to the stage?” Practical application of knowledge to affect a favorable outcome is what people are after, not proof based on what a study says. Perhaps that was too powerful a statement. The truth is like that you know. In any event, Dave won the debate hands down and, in so doing, polarized Blechman and us.
Well, this really pissed off Blechman. All of a sudden, after losing the “Carb Wars”, there began a systematic scouring of the MD website of anything having to do with Species supplements. At the same time, Blechman thought he was going to throw a wrench in my gears by forcing me to fully disclose the fact that I was being paid by Species to endorse Dave’s product line and that I was paid a commission on sales of those supplements. Interestingly, I did as I was told and the scheme backfired on Blechman. He figured the boards would rally against me, when in fact the members rallied for me. No one thought that selling Species supplements to gyms was a bad idea on my part; nor did they take issue with the fact that I believed in the Species brand and was being paid to say so. In the end, I even got four new wholesale accounts out of Blechman’s backfired plan!
The fact that Species is rapidly becoming a popular premium brand of specialized bodybuilding nutritional supplements, combined with the online community’s support of Dave and me, threatened Blechman and his desire to re-enter the supplement business. We had proved that he was too out of touch, too heavily reliant on published research and that he consistently ignored functional empirical data. On top of this, Dave’s company was growing by leaps and bounds with the entire community praising Dave’s diet, his products, or both. Blechman obviously felt this would threaten his chances of bringing his brand of products to market because too many people were siding with Dave. Let’s face it, Blechman simply lacked street credibility. That’s why last Monday, February 2nd Dave and I woke up to find ourselves locked out of the MD website and unceremoniously fired with not so much as a thank you, a decent explanation, nor severance pay. We were fired because Blechman didn’t have the balls or the decency-- especially with my 18 year track record with MD– to sit down and try to work things out in an amicable way. Instead, he cowardly and hastily fired us then released this pathetic batch of lies to try to make us look bad and support his stupid decision.
Dave and I believe you – the community – will do what’s right. And by the looks of how widespread the support is for us and our new website, we’re grateful to you that the truth has prevailed. Blechman had a good thing going and he ruined it. He was right about one thing though, “When one door closes, another one opens and usually for the better.” Looking around and seeing so much support for us, on that count, I’m not going to argue with him. He doesn’t even have to post the study or reference that supports his claim. In this case, hands down, we believe him!
