I read stories about him like doing cable rows and the cable broke the handle busted his nose but he kept on training did you ever meet him pellius? One crazy mofo wonder if he still alive?
He use to train in a hole in the wall gym that I use to train at and work on weekends. Those were the days when Max_Rep, Noworries and myself were all in the same area (Torrance/Redondo Beach, CA). Max_Rep has some great stories. Podda was not only extremely smart and educated but had a wit and a sense of humor that would bust your ribs. He always raised the intensity level just with his presence. I once asked him how he got those massive vascular forearms. He told me he got them from his mother (her name was Prudence -- seriously). He told me in her young days she looked just like him except with long hair (if you know what Benny looked liked you know he looked like a beast). He said that when she would take him to the zoo the gorillas would whistle at her.
This guy was the real deal. No pussy. Trained like a mad man. Just didn't have the genetics to be world class. When I started training at Gold's when Flex, Cormier and Dillet were just coming up (early 1990's) and I would compare how they trained compared to Benny it just reminds you how unfair life is. Dillet was the worse. Practically sleep walked through his sets in between BS-ing. Yet he was the most impressive of all of the them. Cormier wasn't as bad. He'd have his moments but nothing, and I mean nothing, like Podda.
He would have been great in movies -- such a dynamic personality. Or he could have been a hit man for the mob. He was Sicilian but said he hated Sicilians. He told me he hated Sicilians so much that when he was in a room alone -- he'd have to leave. LOL! It never ended with him.
