Dorian Yates: The Original Mass Monster (2019) Movie Script

You in the ball belly?
Yes.
Let's go to war.
No mercy.
A good wage for a small woman
show.
Oh yeah.
Oh.
Hi, I am Dorian Yates four times Mr.
Olympia, and this is Blood and Guts.
The video I'm gonna take you in my
gym and show you how I've trained
to be the world's number one.
I hope you're ready.
'cause it's gonna be rough.
Like I said, it's blood and guts.
In 13 years of bodybuilding, Dorian
Yates has gained 70 pounds of muscle
and made the journey from the back
streets of Birmingham, England
to Bodybuilding's Hall of Fame.
Good, let's go.
It's hitting you.
Shirt.
Hello?
1, 2, 3. My name's Dorian.
Okay.
I wanna start off by asking you,
um, do you think the title of Mr.
Olympia is as prestigious today
as it was when you were competing?
No.
You want me to expand on that?
It seems like you are slightly bitter
about the bodybuilding industry today.
Is that true?
And is that, is that whose take is that?
Whose take is that?
It is not the bodybuilding industry
that I was involved in, so maybe
sometimes I'm making a comparison,
but it's not being bitter.
I'm just like, this is how it
was in our day, and I miss that.
I've evolved and I'm no longer
very interested in bodybuilding as
I used to be used to be my life.
I had every single magazine
I wrote every workout down.
That was my life, and
it's not my life now.
So that maybe that's res
reflected in when I talk about it.
It's not no longer my
passion or my interest.
That's, I'm not bitter about it at all.
Mr. Vlad.
This guy, come on.
I really came from the dirt.
I really got it from the, I really put
all guts.
What I don't give.
From to slump, slim to none is the salary.
Well, for some crumbs, someone
to make you a casualty.
It's hard to dream.
When the nightmares, reality,
watching my family and friends
become fatalities, I lost my father.
Then I lost myself, lost my freedom,
and found a purpose than I freed myself.
So it's safe to say I climbed up out
of the grave for most than never,
ever, ever see free light day.
So if you wonder why act this
way, you soft focus Because I'm
right around the corner from hell.
If you haven't noticed,
I really came to win win.
Gotta pretend there can only be one
and we ain't come to make friends.
You got options.
Well, my only options is I
have nothing so for it all.
I give it all until I have something.
I ain't here for your accolades.
I ain't here for your fame, your praise.
I really came from the dirt.
I really came from the dirt.
I really got it from the from
the, I really put, I really put,
man, I don't give a fuck.
Ain't nothing pretty.
Got it gritty over here.
This is Warrior City.
No room for pity over here.
You don't know my struggles.
You don't know my pain.
Just know it's nothing to
lose and everything to gain.
There's no days off.
See, I can sleep when I die.
They can wind and die and
not just hustle and grind.
I'm deep down in the trenches,
gripping, lifting the sign rep, set,
set, rep 'em all in every time I
told you, giving my all the giving.
Nothing at all.
And that means Remmy, king
of remley, nothing at all.
And that means full throttle, right
foot on the gas with my left on they
neck will show respect when I pass.
And no, um, on your ass.
Rain hell sleeve the snow.
No stop signs of red lights.
I just all go the time.
Ashan and rookies, I'm just all pro.
I'm open time every time.
You know, I from the, I really got it
from the, I really got it from the road.
I.
It is almost surreal, like a little
bit unreal that I'm going back because
it's so long ago since where I went
back where I was brought up as a kid.
It does seem like almost like
a separate lifetime, but I feel
immense pride in what I was able to.
Anyway, you're supposed to
be in about 20 minutes ago.
Blew me know later ever.
Don't be doing you old bastard.
Nice to see you.
Alright, show us in there mate.
Never mind Matt.
Look at that guy then that, now
that's a face on his mum of good love.
Come on mate.
My name is Dean Mark Hiles.
I've run Dino's Jim, but
basically I po iron and I've
pumped time for nearly 50 years.
Look at this baby.
Hey, look at that.
Oh, NLU girl classic piece.
So the untrained, oh,
this might look hideous.
This is probably when the lights
go on at an night club and the, and
you look at the girl, you just back
to dances too, think, oh my God.
But when you touch her, she's beautiful.
And that's what this thing is.
Absolutely beautiful.
I dunno which kind of women you've
been talking to, Dino, but get out.
We used to shirt up, whoops.
In the uk the bodybuilder community back
in the eighties was very, very small.
Very, very small.
So you get to hear whispering.
So when you were training in the gym,
you'd hear this and you'd hear that.
But then this one day in particular,
I kept hearing this same story.
Who's this big mother who's training
down at the Weeder gym in Birmingham?
So the stories got bigger
and badder about this guy.
So anyway, so we forgot about him for
a while, and then I worked at a gym
called Muscle Machine, and the owner, Ron
Davis was saying, we gotta get this guy.
It's a muscle machine somehow.
And he got him over.
So we was all looking out the window
and he comes, and I've never seen
nothing like it, even to this day.
You know, my hair's
standing up on my arm now.
It was hard.
It was grainy.
It was humongous in every department.
It was like just a cave caveman.
There was no finesse to his physique.
He was a beast.
And I thought, my God,
this is from our hometown.
He created the, the, the heavy duty
image of a bodybuilder, which all of the
bodybuilders tried to emulate the density,
the size, the thickness, the turned
bodybuilding into an narcissistic bit bit
vein sport into a barbarian, brutal sport.
Let's get nasty eight.
Yeah,
right to that you'd get this so like
the Greek statue looking like Frank Zane
and, and then Doen comes along and he
just turns it into a barbarian sport.
Let's do what wherever you
are, a little boy will see.
I want to be like that.
I want to look, I want to
scare when I walk into a room.
And that's what he created.
The guys in the nineties, all
of 'em, you know, Varonis,
Plex, Sean, they all were sharp.
You know, they all had that condition.
He knew they had better genetics.
That's why he.
Never missed a rep, never missed a meal.
He knew he had to do it.
He couldn't slip.
So he had to get that condition and
that proportion and that hardness,
you know, that was his signature.
Nobody had ever seen anything like it.
Oh, if Dorian competed in this
era, that would be a cakewalk.
That would cakewalk, no one's duplicated.
That type of intensity, that, that
density, that look, that, that uh,
dedication towards going for a title.
He set a standard.
I mean, he pushed the
bodies to the next level.
He was the next level guy.
Blood and guts training focused on one
goal to win and not caring about any glitz
and glamor or anything that went with it.
Just came and collected
his trophy and went home.
He came from an area that was a
bit rough and he didn't really
go for the glamorous life.
He went for the working life.
You know, he did the Olympia, he did
the hard work, he got the trophies.
He's idolized in England
'cause he put us on the map.
But he's like the working
class hero to bodybuilders.
You guys can see what he's achieved,
but nobody really knows the person.
Still nobody knows that person.
I think Dorian's still
trying to find himself.
My mom was a equestrian, she was
a riding teacher and we had a few
horses on the little small holding,
people call it a farm, but it wasn't
really a farm 'cause we didn't have
like cows and things like that.
We had a few fields.
We had um, I think like three horses.
So to go to my sister's, she lives
quite nearby and she is carried on.
My mom's thing, she's working with horses
and competing and teaching with horses.
So little bit of parallel with what I did.
A hug there ages.
I know.
It's been too long, isn't it?
It has.
So Lisa or Garland now?
Um, Darrian sister.
I'm very competitive and what I
do, you compete against yourself as
well as competing against others.
So you have to say, that
was really good for us.
We couldn't do any better.
So I'm happy and to keep looking
at the big picture 'cause it's
always progressing forwards.
This one likes me.
The second one, this one's not sure.
No, she's a bit nervous.
You, you're all right now, eh?
What?
Yes,
I know.
I grew up in Britain in
the sixties and seventies.
That's a working man's environment
and people took pride in being
working and how hard they can work.
It wasn't even a town where I lived.
There was literally like 50 other
houses and one shop and one pub.
So it was very small.
And then a mile up one way had wood end,
which is where I went to school, first
school, and then a mile the other way.
Had Hurley, which was a mining village.
All the kids I went to school with,
their parents were coal miners, so
pretty tough working environment.
My dad was very working class,
came from working class background.
My mom was more middle class and she had,
um, what's in England called a nanny.
So kind of like a helper
to look after the kids.
So I don't think she had really that
much maternal contact with her parents.
So that was the background
that she came from.
I was 13 when my dad passed away.
I was pretty upset about the whole
thing and I felt like I didn't really,
nobody was really taking care of me.
My mom was not like the maternal
mom that I guess that we all.
Weren really.
Uh, she was not the mom that would
cook and clean and this kind of thing.
She was pretty much doing her own
thing, uh, with a horse riding.
That was her main priority, I think.
So there probably was
some disconnect there.
And then when my father passed
away, I guess it just got worse.
I think mum was a very loving mum, but
not in the sense like mum's are now
where they're more kissy cuddly now.
So I think we didn't really get
kiss and cuddle, but um, I think
mom would've done anything for us.
What stuck in my mind was me and my
mom walking across the fields and my
mom was kind of saying to me, do you
know what happened with your father?
And I simply said, yeah, I know.
And that was kind of the conversation
that we had that was not really
going in much more depth than that.
I am a boy who's just hit puberty.
I'm 13 and my male role model now is gone.
So I didn't realize at the time,
but looking back now, I was upset.
I was angry and nobody was taking care of
me, and that's at least the way I felt.
That's when I learned to really contain
and hide my emotions because I remember
I didn't want to go to my father's
funeral and I had this big thing where
it came from, I don't know, but I
don't want anyone to see me crying.
So I told my mom, I don't
want to come to the funeral.
I don't want to go.
And I didn't go.
And people used to ask when I won
the Mr. Olympia, why are you not
jumping up and down and screaming
and crying and like, wow, so happy.
This lifetime goal, you've achieved it.
I think inside I was doing that, but
outside I was not doing that because
I learned to, to hide this emotions.
If you look very carefully, I
think when I won the first one, I'm
actually biting my lip, which is.
To suppress these emotions which are
coming out, which I, I learned this.
So it was like default mode to go into.
Quite shortly after that, my mom met
somebody else and we moved to Birmingham.
It was definitely less than a year
that we moved and, you know, the whole
upheaval after my father's death.
Now I'm leaving what I'm familiar
with and going to the city to
live with, uh, a new stepfather.
But unfortunately for my
mom, he also passed away.
My dad died from a heart attack
and the new partner of my mom
also died from a heart attack.
Around a year after we moved, when I was
16, my mom decided that she wanted to move
from Birmingham 'cause she didn't have
the partner there that brought her there.
And she wanted to move back to the
countryside and I'd moved to the
city and I'd adapted to it now.
So I couldn't really, I couldn't go back.
Uh, I didn't feel there's anything
there for me in that rural environment
and I said, no, I'm not, no thanks.
I'm staying here.
So yeah, I had to look after
myself, stay with some friends.
But I moved to this new school when I
was 14 and I didn't really feel like
I was fitting in with the kids there.
I wasn't yelling that well.
It was different from my other school, as
we say in England, a bit Pia, a bit more
middle class than what I was used to.
But next to the school was a
counselor state charms of the woods.
So there was kids started
coming from there.
So my friend Gary, he moved from a
different school and my friend Adrian,
he moved from a different school.
So uh, I had some friends now.
We were on the same vibe.
So the last couple of years
at school were a bit better.
I had some friends there.
What's up guys?
Guys?
You all right?
Alright.
Yeah.
Cool.
My a How you doing mate?
So these are my mates.
Yeah.
Is it a, this guys alright.
We went to school together and then, uh.
When my mom left here, Adrian
and his mom were kind enough.
I was living at his house for like,
what, a year or two years, wasn't it?
I'm gonna have crispy okra and uh,
I think have some chicken stew.
Today I'm kind of almost vegetarian, but
occasionally I'll have chicken off fish
like maybe once a week or something.
Yeah, Bermin was
industrial town, wasn't it?
So it's a tough place, but
it's totally different now.
It looks quite nice now.
Nice buildings, nice shops and
train stations, all super refurbed.
You feel quite safe around here now
when you come around on the night time.
I mean, how many fights do
we get into other than years?
It's always fighting, aren't we?
Oh, every, every one of us had a
fight with somebody at that place.
You're not gonna be a skinhead
if you come from a middle class
family or a well todo family.
It's a very British working class
street and we wanted to look smart
with a short hair and a clothes.
And I think the fact that it
was very working class and.
Kind of tough, you know?
And that's why we had to have fights.
It was kind of, it was
kind of part of the thing.
If you're skinny, you're gonna
fight English culture in the,
in the seventies and eighties.
You go out, you, you
drink and you get drunk.
And then if you're young, probably at the
end of the night, you'll have a fight.
That's, that's the way I grew up.
If you wanted to be on the scene as a, you
know, as a teenager then, then you were
a rude boy, a skinhead, punk, or ah, mod.
Otherwise you were not like, you
know, you weren't on the scene.
Right.
Those skinhead was one of those,
it's a working class look very
short hair and boots and jeans
and smart shirts and so on.
Back in a day in the seventies
and eighties, it was hard
living in Birmingham.
It was hard every round.
You never knew when he was going
around the corner, but he was
gonna get beat up, attacked.
So what you did, you, you'd
affiliate yourself not with a
gang, but with a group of people.
You felt safe within that group and you
had to in the seventies and eighties.
And then that's how I was with the
punk Rutger during, with the Skynyrd.
If you're in a gang, it's kind of normal.
And I think in UK there is a culture
or there was a culture of fighting.
That's just how people
used to work things out.
It's not like the states where people, you
know, as I say, they have guns and so on.
It's just usually fist fights and
maybe some bats or something like that.
So we got hurt a few times,
but nothing, nothing serious.
And when you're a kid, whether you're
a punk or a skinhead or whatever it
is, you are a bucking the system.
You're rebelling against the system
that everything that's around you
'cause you, you just know it's wrong.
Hey,
here's the old original one.
See, I love this.
Do you still like it?
Yeah, I've had a lot of Tattooists
offer to like redo it and fill it
in, but I don't wanna wanna keep
it original 'cause it's all faded.
Well you see the difference
in the tattoos those days.
The now it's very
unsophisticated and cartoony.
Like almost when I won the Olympia,
the bulldog was like, it was wider
now it was shrunk down a little bit.
So that's the bulldog,
that's the original one.
And this is, that's the Maori design.
And there's a whole one
on that arm, didn't you?
There was a Dr. Martin boot there.
Yeah.
That's the story we're telling earlier on.
Had that removed by laser and
then many years later we put this
on top, Dr. Martin boot, which
is the boots that's caned wear.
So I had this one here and
that was not understood.
Or when I went to the states, people
thought it was something else.
They thought that I was part of
some white supremacist movement or
something like that because that's
what a skinhead represented in America.
It became a skinhead had the tattoos,
but it was more a a culture thing
for him than a political stance.
You know, there were black guys in the.
Skinhead movement that he hung out with.
You know, it usually represented being
anti-immigrant, uh, you know, racist.
It was more against Pakistanis
and Indians for some reason,
rather than blacks, you know?
But it, it was, it was violent in some
factions, but I'm not sort of gilding
the lily with Dory and it, to him it
was just a, you know, a fashion thing.
But it would be difficult for
a 16-year-old coming to terms
with those really rough streets
of Birmingham where he lived.
It's actually not a joke because
some of the letters that I used
to read from the fan fans in
prison, that was like, horrible.
They'd be like, oh yeah, you wanna
stand on stage and say, you know,
Hitler rules and all this crap.
And he'd be like, no.
So no.
So we did write a piece in
the magazine and then he said,
I'm, I'll just get it removed.
Lee Lebrato questioned whether
Mr. Olympia should have tattoos.
Of course, I could have replied, how
could you have a MR that's five foot tall?
But I didn't.
I just did.
He always had a certain swag about
him that's not generated from
a, a white racist background.
Bob Marley, me and my friends
were big into Bob Marley.
I still, I still am.
And it's, the music is, is great,
the beat, the rhythm, but the
lyrics, very conscious lyrics in, in
Marley and a lot of reggae music's
very spiritual, very conscious.
If you listen to the lyrics,
is about living the right way.
Uh, I've been listening to reggae since I
was a kid, so still listening to it drives
my wife crazy 'cause she don't like it.
But every day my house is full of reggae.
She has to put up with it.
I never listened to it in the gym 'cause
I don't need to be relaxed in the gym.
That was rock music.
We had Nirvana and Sound Garden
and Guns N Roses, all that stuff.
So training music is different
from being at home, relaxing music.
I don't listen to Guns N Roses
at home, but if I do, I feel like
I wanna train legs or something.
I had this album, this was like a
famous album for the skinheads, like
kind of punk music, angelic upstarts.
So I'm an upstart.
That was our anthem, like,
you know, upstart, rebel,
whatever, fighting the system.
79, they produced this album.
So I was listening to this 80, 81.
We were going watch him.
England was going through
a lot of troubles.
There was labor dispute strikes,
uh, unemployment was high.
Birmingham was suffering.
Dorian was trying to find.
As all young men do, it was trying
to find a clique where you belong.
And so sometimes you try various
things, not because they represent
you, but because you're curious to see,
well, I get any feedback from that.
And sometimes it might not be
representative of you, but by the time you
find out at an older age, it might be a
little bit too late or you just move on.
So at that age, before he found body
building and the skinhead scene,
I think Dorian was just looking to
find, um, a, a belonging somewhere.
A lot of kids that grew
up without a father.
I mean, it happened to me to a degree
that I got in trouble and I was in a gang.
And 'cause a gang is just a surrogate
family, which everybody needs a
family, everyone needs a tribe.
So if you don't have it immediately
with your blood family, you will
try to find it somewhere else.
And of course that can be much worse
and you can take out the anger in a
negative way with drugs, with violence.
And that happens to a lot of kids.
So it's on this street
further along somewhere.
Let's see if it's still there or,
anyway, the location is still.
As Martino Square is in the center of
Birmingham, and the day that we got
arrested was the day of civil unrest.
All around the country there were
riots, all the major cities around the
country and uh, places were on fire.
This was the summer of 1981.
I think it was 19 years old.
There was a lot of, um, riots going on
on this day that me and my friend, we
caught the bus to the other side of the
city where there was a party going on.
And we didn't even really think
about this whole riot thing going on.
We were, you know, we
weren't conscious of it.
And we're walking through here, there's
a passageway here and there's a closed
store with all the windows smashed in.
And my friend that was with me was
nothing in there we would want,
but it was like old man's clothing.
So he said, oh, that would be funny
if I take this old man's stuff
to the party and I'll wear it.
And he grabbed the
mannequin and pulled it and.
The whole window came out
and then within about five seconds, it
was like 20 police here arresting us.
Actually it was the kind of like in
the wrong place at the wrong time,
but with your friends and it happened.
So take the medicine
together, don't say anything.
Feeling a little, uh, you know,
'cause I'm going back and I'm thinking
how I was feeling at the time.
And uh, it's very foreboding in there.
It's Victorian.
They got tons of courts
in there and stuff.
I mean, a young kid to go in here, I mean,
it's a scary place and you're gonna jail.
You dunno what's you, you're
gonna expect when you get there.
So it's a whole unknown as well.
And uh, yeah, I only did three
months in the detention center,
but when you're 19 years old, three
months feels like three years.
Um, so yeah, this is, uh.
This is a place that sentenced me.
It was easier for me than most
people because I was a strong
guy and pretty confident.
But your freedom's taken away.
That's the biggest thing.
You don't realize what your freedom is
until it's taken away and you have no
say on where you go and what you do.
And when you do it and you become a
number for somebody that grew up like
on a farm, is used to like running,
walking, riding, bike and being free.
Uh, that was a big shock and not
something I wanted to experience again.
He got arrested, sent to six
months and started training with
weights and responded very quickly.
And this, uh, guard said,
you've got a gift for this.
And the last day he left, he said to
Dorian, you don't belong in here, son.
Don't ever come back.
And that's when he
discovered bodybuilding.
It was showing me what I didn't
want and that had an opportunity
for something positive.
It was simple as that.
Number 67 bus from Castles Vale.
Spent a lot of time on that fucking thing.
Tell you as soon as I got
out I had nowhere to live.
So you get the city to come and,
and visit you and see if you're
eligible to get some housing.
So yeah, it was a good, at least a year
before I was, got my own apartment and I
got a job with a regular income coming in.
Castle Vale was a city housing
estate in, in Birmingham.
I think they gave me a place there
because there was small apartments
for single people and was not a place
that many people would want to go.
So a lot of people would turn down that
opportunity and wait for something better.
So it was a lot of tower blocks that
lived in a tower block, which was,
I don't know, 15, 16 stories high.
There's a lot of those there.
A lot of unemployment, a lot of
crime, and a lot of violence.
It was quite a notorious area.
It's basically council housing they
call it here, which is like city
housing or probably projects in America.
All along here was not housing.
It was like rows of big tower blocks.
It looks totally different.
But that was when I was here was
early eighties from about 81 to
85, 86 I think I was living here.
Lots of silly rumors about places like
that are always put about, but I think
in the hole you really need to be
on your toes to look after yourself.
And we'd done the door a few places
and when I started training I got some
security work with some of the guys at
the gym that were doing that kind of work.
I met him when he was coming outta
the skinhead phase, but he still
used to wear the skinhead clothes and
he had the tattoos and everything.
I fell in love with do.
The first time I actually spoke
to, I liked his kind of like.
It can be a bit arrogant sometimes,
but I kind of like that challenge.
Uh, Debbie's my ex-wife and, uh,
mother of both my kids, Louis and
Tahnee and, uh, Louis came on the scene
very, very quickly and unplanned, I
think is the best way to say that.
My name's Louis Dorian
Yates, and I'm Dorian son.
I remember going down the gym when
I was like, probably four or five.
For me, that was just like going
to a family home or something.
I didn't really realize until I was a bit
older that that wasn't what everybody did.
You know, the body being holding
fraternity, everybody knew
everybody, not just from Birmingham.
You can go to Manchester,
you can go to London.
It was like your next door neighbor.
Everybody knew everybody else in the,
in the iron industry at the time.
You see there were four weight classes in
the British Championships, so you had to
win your weight class and then there would
be a competition between the four weight
classes to see who was the overall winner.
Uh, so one person per year
would get the pro card.
So highly competitive.
I started to hear about him in late
84, early 85 people saying that there's
a kid down here who look, might be
something a bit different, you know?
But I'd heard all this so many times
before and it never worked out.
And he was, he was doing the West
Coast Championships in Ham, which is
in Lancashire, and I was going to that
qualifier and I went into the hall and
they were getting ready backstage to
pose on the other side of the hall.
I saw Frank Richards, who's
a famous British bodybuilder
who'd been out for 14 years.
He was nearly killed in
an industrial accent.
He's facing the stage
standing at the side.
I face him and congratulate him.
He says, oh, I'll they do
another couple of years.
I says, why is that?
And he said that, I heard this
music, the Eurythmics, you know,
sweet dreams are made of this.
And Frank said, 'cause a focus like that.
And I look round the quality
just stirred out at you.
You know, the balance, the hardness,
the granite hardness was still there.
I just knew straight away
that the star was born.
I was still living here when I was,
when I won the British Championship.
I remember winning the
British Championship in 1986.
Then there's 2000 people there
screaming and blowing air horns and
cheering and getting my picture taken.
I'm gonna be in the magazines,
but I came home and there's no
TV crew waiting here for me.
There's no fanfare.
I'm back to my same block
that I was living in.
I had no car, no proper furniture.
Shortly after that, I was fortunate
to get the backer and open the gym.
So then I, I got the gym and started
to make a decent, uh, decent income
when I was able to move out of here.
And I think that's when
I moved in together.
But with the.
With Debbie 87.
I didn't compete 'cause
we're open in German.
It's, you know, taking
a lot of time with that.
Um, 88 I won the British
Championship heavyweight overall.
And that's when people, you
know, recognize well this guy
has a potential to be a good pro.
How can a guy from a
healthy sport bodybuilding?
Well that's questionable anyway.
Why would an athlete smoke weed?
Well, lemme tell you, a lot of
guys don't say it because they have
pressures from sponsors or whatever.
They don't say it.
Most athletes, sports
people I know use cannabis.
All the fighters I know use
cannabis 'cause it helps 'em
to relax, helps 'em to recover.
It reduces information.
Who's saying Bolt uses cannabis?
Michael Phelps uses cannabis more
than half the Olympic lineup.
Regularly use cannabis.
I'm a blunt guy.
Weed, smoke and body.
The building went hand in hand, you
know, because for myself, I wasn't a huge
eater, but it helped me with my appetite.
It helped me sleep at night.
We don't talk often these days,
maybe two or three times a year.
But when I got ill, he
was very supportive.
He wants to fly across and he's the one
that got me onto medicinal cannabis.
I grew up around weed.
You know, the, the, probably one
of my earliest memories is my uncle
calls saw smoking weed together.
Weed, is, it, it, I
dunno if I can say this.
Um, but yeah, the whole family was
always around it, you know, always,
you know, back in the day they always
used to grow it, this, this, that.
It's like a release.
I actually get more spiritual.
I have a little spliff, but
I can't take it anymore.
I'm too old.
So I'll have one drag and
my son will go, go to bed.
And when Dorian was competing, then
no, he wouldn't use it back then.
The knowledge and the information
about, you know, its effects
weren't as obvious as they are now.
I mean, it was, it was bad for you.
That's what, you know, the
official statement back then.
And if he knew what he knew now, back
then, he wouldn't have stopped doing.
It was carried on.
Alright, time to go.
How did I evolve out of being Mr. Olympia
and being at the peak of their sport
and being the representative for this?
And this almost becomes
entwined with your identity.
So I realized like, man,
you've been living like a monk.
There's so many things that you didn't do.
So I had all this freedom that I, I didn't
have before, which, which was great.
If I'm here in Spain, then my time
is for me keeping food, cycling in
the mountains, doing yoga, swimming,
walking the dog, just relaxing.
I think I've earned it.
I would have if I had a
fucking lighter that work.
Birmingham's always been full of loads
of little small councils, estate.
Everyone knows everyone and you know,
'cause of the shitty weather and
the, everyone's always a bit angry.
So it is always been
a bit tense, you know.
But, uh, I personally love it.
The old gym was in the heart of it.
Here is the passageway that leads
to the location of Temple Gym.
It is actually emotional coming
here because this is like huge
part of my life, that place.
You know, it was really
like my heart and soul.
I didn't like to train anywhere else.
And, uh.
The rest of the street has
changed and it's very up market,
but this has not changed.
This is full of fucking
dumpsters and everything.
And this door right here used to be a
red door, uh, with Temple Gym on, and
then the stairs going steeply down.
And if you're at the top here,
you can't really see it what's
at the bottom of the stairs.
You can only hear music and
smell sweat and hear grunting
and fucking plates banging.
And a lot of people would be, I
used to come and see people all
the time standing at the top and
they're just too nervous to go down.
Some experienced bodybuilders
that didn't want to go there.
And a lot of that was because
they wanted to be the big fish.
And it comes to temple.
You're not gonna be the big
fish 'cause I'm the big fish.
His gym was just a dungeon,
from what I understand.
I never been there.
Uh, but I mean, everyone that says it's.
It's a shit hole.
No, it's a shit hole underground.
We, we invested with rats half the time.
That's intense stuff, you know.
Well, let's put it this way.
The walls were white, but
actually no they weren't.
They were more like yellow 'cause bodies,
fat would literally be all over the walls.
It was literally, you walk down
into a dungeon, zero windows.
So there's no natural light.
The only form of incoming, our
outgoing air was a small fan that
was drilled through the wall.
But you can see the air
out here is not great.
There's stale beer, there's garbage,
and usually there's people out
here smoking cigarettes as well.
And that's the fresh air
you've got to breathe.
So it's almost like altitude draining.
And he'd be training in there, and I'm not
kidding you, people's elbows and knocking,
but like, and they'd be staring at you.
You know, it was simmering.
You never knew when it was
gonna kick off in there.
But the moment Dorian
turned up, it lit up.
You know, it was a little dungeon, but
it was the brightest place on the planet.
Leg day, the best day.
Hand wraps, come on.
Okay, tight on two.
If I'm at home, it's fairly quiet.
I'm in the gym every day.
I've got few regular
clients like Dan and Ben.
Ben wants to compete
'cause he hasn't done that.
He hasn't achieved that goal.
So now he is taken time out of
his life to, to pursue that goal.
That's what's important to him now, and
he has the freedom and time to do that.
We got one
again.
Go.
One more, one more for 15, man.
All record.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Okay.
Rack.
Oh, oh my God.
Are, we're doing this for fun?
Yeah.
Oh God.
Drive eight, drive nine, and again, 10.
Let's start now.
Come on.
Whoosh.
And again.
Whoosh.
Three more work.
Come on.
Three more.
One again.
Who?
Ho.
Breathe.
Breathe.
One.
Right.
Push and breathe.
One more.
Last one.
Go.
Come on, dad.
Oh, it's okay.
Come with me, Mr.
Camera man.
Follow me.
Okay.
So he didn't use the 'cause,
he found the bathroom.
I allowed him to leave
after the foot workout.
I'm forget to come back
for our hamstrings, Dan.
Okay.
Dan is vomiting in the bathroom.
Nothing to be, uh, alarmed about.
This is normal.
We had the bucket there on the
leg area for him, but I told him
after finish squads he can actually
leave and use the bathroom.
So that's what he's doing.
He held it to the end, so it's an
improvement on the previous weeks.
Good though man, he went up
on everything, so it's great.
Easy stuff.
Now, Dan.
Squeeze it up pretty much from day one.
My training principles were based
around intensity training, which
originally came from Arthur Jones
who invented the North machines and
then was popularized by Mike Mensa.
I got a lot of useful information
from them and then little bits
from here, little bits from there.
And most importantly, my own
feedback, which is something.
You have to, uh, be able to do in
bodybuilding 'cause we all recover
a little bit differently and
reacted a little bit differently.
So you've gotta learn
to listen to your body.
And I don't, the books, I don't know
whether this is the case today, but
when you visit his house in, in,
in Birmingham, he'd have these big
bookcases in his study and it was
every book on physiology, science that
you nothing to do with bodybuilding.
And he'd voraciously read these
things and work out how that worked.
How, how can you stimulate this?
How can you do that?
You know, see in, in the seventies
and coming into the eighties, you
know, Arnold had sort of championed
the training twice a day, two hours in
the morning, an hour in the evening.
He did that 45 minutes, four times
a week, rotated the body parts.
So very intense, very focused.
Mentally I would be.
I prepared before I got there.
Every workout I've got logged down.
So I would read before I left the house.
I would, this is what I did last week.
This is what I got a beat this week.
And I have all the numbers,
all the weights in my mind,
feeling, visualizing everything.
The most important thing
I'm doing is that workout.
Everything revolves around that.
The eating, the rest, the everything.
It was almost like a, a special forces
soldier is focused everything, every
ounce of himself into a mission.
It was all building up to one all out set.
He would do a warmup set, very
light just to get the groove.
Maybe a second set, but nowhere
near failure or anything like that.
And then the last and third set.
Everything would be given all out.
Bang, this guy's kick four, stretch,
drop, you know, complete exhaustion.
You know the muscle had been fried.
Yeah.
I got every workout from 1983 until 1997.
Every single workout, every rep,
every set, preparation notes for
Mr. Olympia and all these things.
This work, this didn't work.
So very analytical, writing, everything,
analyzing, studying his training.
Diary was his life and that was him.
And he knew if he followed X
it would equal Y and it, and
that's what's been proven.
He totally believed what
he was doing was right.
He had no doubts.
That's half the battle.
If you believe in something
you, you can make it happen.
Blood guts is just to the level
where no one's willing to go.
I mean that's, that's what it's about.
Turn the body inside out
no matter what it takes.
He wasn't gonna stop.
He was a train
fight.
Yeah.
It's like this is the thing when people
train, everyone thinks they train hard.
You doing a top-notch, they're intense.
They have no idea what intensity's about
diesel.
Let's get
president
when he went for the 1990.
Knight of the Champions is pro debut.
The Arnold had just been drug tested.
He was under the impression quite a
way into his preparation that neither
champions would been drug tested, and
even though it was drug tested, it
didn't hold any threats for parents.
PED, performance, enhancing drugs,
just call it juice or gear.
Where I'm from.
My thing was I always want to
get the maximum benefit out of
this with the least negatives.
When I first started, it was like
very, very small and then a little
bit more as an amateur and then
a professional a little bit more.
Obviously everything he did I knew
about, I was just concerned about
him harming himself and I don't
remember how the conversation went,
but I'm like people taking 'em all
the time for bodybuilding contests.
They're not dying.
They're still cool.
Schwarzenegger and all those
guys are still good, and I
think she said something.
Yeah, but how about when you get older
and you're 45 or 50, maybe you get
heart attack, but was like, I'm not
concerned about when I'm 45 or 50.
I'm concerned about now and changing
my life, so I'd rather be somebody
and you know, pass away earlier than
live the life of the people around
me, which is like just a dead end.
They're not going anywhere.
But it was always controlled.
I always wrote everything down and
planned it out and there was breaks
in between and I didn't have anyone.
Helping me or advising me.
With that, I did it myself, but I had a
doctor who was just doing my blood test.
The main thing with DO Ys was
separating him from everybody else.
A lot of guys in his gyms would just
listen to a doorman or listen to a gym
owner and would take their advice do.
Ys didn't do that.
He read through books and he
read through books and books
and books and books and books.
And he tried and speculated different
things for his, for his physique
and he tried different things and he
made notes about it and they would
never believe what Dorian took.
I know I've seen his books, you know, I
was stopping at his house and me being me,
I looked, I was sitting in his bedroom.
I was like, ah, I
thought he's gone to bed.
So started looking through
the drawers and he knows now.
So I was looking through the drawers.
So anyway, so I found his
books, his training manuals.
So I started looking through and
he had some steroid cycles, had his
training cycles in it, and you wouldn't
believe how little he took to win a
Mr. Olympio to win the Mr. Britain.
Very, very little.
But what he did do, he studied
the half life so he knew exactly
the least amount he could take
to, to get the maximum resource.
I'm 57.
Next month.
So I'm happy to report and I'm
very healthy and, uh, cool.
A Night of Champions was recognized as at
one point the leading pro contest Beacon
Theater, right here in New York City.
I mean, I had a bucket list when I turned
professional, and that was top of my
list during the night of the Champions.
Dorian got second at his
first night of the Champions.
He lost to Muhammad Aziza
controversial decision.
I mean, Dorian looked amazing.
Be Aziza was amazing too.
But Dorian lost to him and he came
back the next year and he won.
Why was his nickname The Shadow?
I I called him the Shadow.
So you gave him the nickname?
Yeah, I, I called, I gave him the name.
I gave him the name, the Shadow, because
I immediately saw it connected, the shadow
hanging over British heavyweights, you
know, but the other thing, you never,
you never saw him unless he was competing
and he never hung out with anybody.
So that's why I said he's in the shadows,
you know, just, just waiting to pounce.
I got second on my first try in 1990,
so I went back the following year to the
same contest night of champions in New
York and this time won this outright.
Then people started to say to me, you
could be the guy that could beat Haney.
Lee Haney was the man.
I mean, Lee Haney was, uh, was the guy.
He was the best in the world at the
time, and that was the ultimate goal.
Lee Haney, when I first met Doreen,
he was about 12 and a half stone.
Really pale, no body fat, well shaped
muscles, but not massively big.
From then to 10 years later,
the transformation is amazing.
It was just literally like
something outta Marvel comics.
It's, it's like the Hulk, when I first
saw him compete against Lee Haney.
Dorian got second to him,
but he just stood out.
There was just his aura.
Something about him that
surpassed everybody else.
He brought a much bigger.
Thicker physique.
Much more heavily dense muscle.
He was very close though, A very
close decision you saw right then.
And then he had all the potential to
be literally the best in the world.
He just was so massive and so
big, he blew everybody away.
His back.
And that's where he got
the name the shadow from.
'cause he, he put shadows on everybody.
I was walking behind him.
We were both getting on stage, you
know, I just remember going up the
stairs and all of a sudden all the
lights went out, covered the whole
frame of the damn lights in front of me.
I was like, okay, not that guy.
Okay, lemme see who else I could be here.
He was like a, a,
like a caged animal.
He stayed in his cage.
He trained, he ate, he slept.
It was time to come out
and do his business.
He came out, did his business,
and went back to his cage.
He was an animal like, uh.
Demon from the depths of
the earth, the shadow.
Why did Lee Haney retire
after his win in 1991?
Well, it, it, it, it won eight.
It, it opened a gym in Atlanta.
You know, after a while it
becomes a bit like a job, and of
course, it, it, it's remarkable.
He was.
31 when he retired.
Guys aren't winning pro cards now 31
now the title's open.
So I guess I was going in the favorite,
which was just very strange because my
whole life I'd been an underdog and I used
that, that aggression of the underdog to
like, you know, to push myself through it.
So we went to compete in Helsinki, so
they built a seating on a, on top of
an ice rink, which was freezing cold.
So it was hard to pump up backstage
and I could go backstage with him
and just make sure the oil was put
on properly and then I'd run back the
stage and then sit down in the audience.
I've been to a few Olympia recently
and didn't seem to have the
same ambiance that it used to.
I mean, there was a lot of noise,
there was a lot more fans in the crowd.
I'm worried about this little light
here, but when Dorian got on stage, the
lights are like that of a football pitch.
They're so intense.
When everybody stepped on stage, the one
that first came out that looked amazing
and I thought, oh my God, he might win.
This was Kevin Lone.
Kevin looked amazing.
He really did.
Kevin was good, but his back and his
upper body were not as as good as mine.
Uh, balance wasn't as good and
Sean and Lee were just too small.
I actually was purposely
sacrificed the muscle size to
come in, like super shredded.
So I wanted to be the biggest guy and the
most shredded as well at the same time.
And he came down inside some, but you
could tell he was just in a relentless
attack to try to win that title.
There'd be a group of us from England
and I'd be blowing the blow horns, his
training partner center in the stage
every time he competed, arms crossed.
Sitting there screaming, educate them.
Dorian educate them.
He brought out a new
word in this industry.
It was grainy, which looks like
little grains of sand under your skin.
It's very hard to get that look.
You have to have death face, that's what
they call it when your face is so sucked
in and you have absolutely no more fat
left, even on the bottom of your feet.
He had a hard time walking.
There's no pads left under your feet gone.
That's that grainy look.
His condition is what was key because
he came so hard and so crisp, no
one could topple that condition.
And then as the show went on,
Dorian got even better and
Kevin just sort of faded away.
And Dorian beat him.
And Dorian became Mr. Olympia.
Dorian Yate.
That was my first win,
which was, uh, incredible.
But still, I didn't show any emotion.
You'll never see Dory Ys cry.
He won't cry.
You know, I, I know the Dory
y aids, we talk on the phone.
I know the real do ye it
meant everything to him.
I remember when he won.
Oh, he was just fantastic.
That's when your mom, with
the troph mom, your face, did
you hold that mom saying Yeah.
Told you
t's definitely a chip off the old
block, but she's got a mom's mouth.
She is very much me, but softer
and probably smarter already.
And there's me and your mom.
Oh gosh.
Louis was about in one.
It was weird for me because for
me, I, you know, at the time
we lived in a little bubble.
I weren't the perfect family.
Definitely not because, you know, got
this oddball 20 stone dad and this
very aggressive pit bull of her mother.
She, she was there like
on point with everything.
So Debbie knew the sports,
she knew what was involved.
She knew all the people and we
also worked together as a team.
Debbie was very supportive doing
the food and understanding what I
was doing and why I was doing it.
He was the robot.
I was the second in command.
He went to the gym.
Yeah, he trained, I did the rest.
She used to help me with the posing.
Being as I'm not a natural mover is
like my least favorite thing to do.
So David was in control of that.
When I get ready for a contest to like
time me, it hold poses for certain
times, like front relax to hold it for
a few minutes and control the breathing.
So we did a lot of work on, on the,
the presentation, which I think
also people don't do these days.
And there's me and Lewis in the pool.
Um, impressively round
Pectorals and deltoids.
If we're on holiday somewhere
having fun, it's shortly after the
Olympic, which, that's the only
time I would allow that to happen.
I'd never laugh now and then, but like to
go somewhere on holiday and just, but even
on holiday, I'll be looking for the gym.
A holiday, I'll be looking for the gym.
Where's the gym?
There's a lot of sacrifice.
I was not leading a normal life.
I had no social life.
No, I was putting everything into this.
And also the people around you,
they, they're making sacrifices.
Family is losing time.
And probably more important
than time is focus.
So you could be somewhere
with your family, but.
It's like your mind is somewhere else.
If you're competing and you're
constantly and you're thinking,
it's like constantly with you.
Louis had to fit in with
Dorian's life to be fair.
People over here, they
were very particular.
So like if there was anything out of
the ordinary, it was always a freak
and my dad was out of the ordinary,
so it was, it was tough over here.
When I was younger, I almost
got terror terrorized for it.
Almost got bullied by it.
Like yeah.
Dad's a, the classic one was you
do know when he subs training,
it's all gonna turn to fat, right?
I'm the more mothering type of person.
Dorian's.
Like, okay, we have a son now.
But Dorian still did what he had
to do, to be honest with you.
He was there, but he was
focused on what he was doing.
So he was there, but he
kind of wasn't there.
You know, he was there in form and
person, but I could always tell
he was somewhere else in his mind.
So, I mean, you know, he
was better than most dads.
A lot of dads could be coming
home drunk every night doing
that with that intensity.
It's totally consuming, and I think he at
that time, probably didn't have time to
think about anybody but himself, because
you're not gonna be successful, are you?
Unless you do that.
He had a controlled obsession, an
intensity about what he wanted to do.
I've seen many bodybuilders with
similar intensities, and it's
destroyed them because they've gone
over the top and they've, it's become
aro in furnace inside the drive it.
Yeah, drive.
Let's go.
Nice.
Go drive.
Yeah.
One,
are you familiar with the change
Dorian made between 91 and 93?
Yeah, the black and white pictures
that changed bodybuilding.
He went from eight to 10
in the mass department.
He was the first of the mass
monsters and many came after him.
That was the phrase that came out with
four big guys, but it was other people
that used the phrase mass monster.
So maybe I am to them, but it
wasn't just about the mass.
Mass was one of the factors that
I was concerned with, but also
conditioning and also keeping balance.
He took his body to where his body could
have went, where some people just take
their body and throw on all kinds of
muscle just to have big muscle during,
put that muscle on to fit his frame.
Here's a guy that out masked
everyone, and mass monsters are
always great for the crowds.
You know, mass monsters
just rule those shows.
When he walked out in 93, it was
like, my God, you know, nobody
ever seen anything like it.
I mean, Sammy Bedu said Dorian
was first, second, and third.
I mean, he grew so much In a year, coming
from 92 to 93, he improved so much.
He was hard, dry, full, everything.
He looked on unbeatable.
I remember I was sitting in the
audience and it was like, you
might as well quit the sport.
Now, the only one he ever had
to worry about was Flex Wheeler.
Flex Genetically is see the
most gifted of all bodybuilders.
Dorian was not the most gifted.
He didn't have the best shape,
but he was the hardest working.
No messing around, all worked, no play.
He was a, he really was a robot.
He was an animal.
Dorian said Flex was the only
one who really worried about
Flex, 'cause a different story.
He said he used to walk out
and I was just intimidated.
Flex had the, the, the
determination of Dorian, I don't
know if Dorian would have six Mr.
Olympia, to tell you the truth,
he knew they had better genetics.
That's why he never missed
a rep, never missed a meal.
He knew he had to do it.
He couldn't slip.
He knew that their genetics
outpaced his, come on.
Yes.
Hold there.
I think Sean's best shot was 94.
You know, when he was second
he looked really good,
but he shouldn't have won.
The right guy won.
Sean Wright was the Californian
boy with the Ferrara and the girls
and the sunshine and, and he prided
himself on being the opposite.
Sean wanted the title too.
Sean was a extraordinary bodybuilder,
his own right, but he also had
a long tussle in short legs.
He wasn't as symmetrical as
he'd like to think he was.
Sean was always questioning something,
why I should be Mr. Olympian.
He shouldn't.
I think one of Sean's things one time
was Dorian's physique is too extreme.
It's too far out for the
average person to reach.
It just sounded like
fucking nonsense to me.
Mr. Bolt, can you slow down a bit please?
Or we've put somebody else in
first place 'cause you're running
too fast with the average guy.
You can't relate to that.
I'll be honest with you, lake, I
wasn't super impressed with his whole
aesthetics or his physique until I went
to that 95 Olympian Atlanta, and when
he came out, the show was over 95 is
when he made the big turnaround where
he turned into a complete monster.
I would say personally,
my best year in the Mr.
Olympia was in between 93 and 95.
Both.
I was very happy with both ears.
His back was his strong point.
Anyone would agree with that?
It was just layers and layers of muscle.
He'd do like a fast last, very like boom.
He'd bring it up like that.
I don't know if there's ever been a
Mr. Olympia like that, that size back.
I mean, doen H had it all.
He had the condition, the
size, the balance he had.
He had everything that was
in the winner's circle.
That's right.
Okay.
There keep on doing.
My full name is Emmanuel Pojo, and I
knew Dorian through his wife because he
was having pain on the left shoulder.
Basically, I got a torn uh,
supraspinatus, a damaged AC joint
on this shoulder, a torn bicep and a
torn tries that all on the same side.
So it's very, very weak on this
side and through the joint.
So anything I was doing is just was
referring to the other side, and I
started getting pain on the other side.
So that's when I started
working with Mano.
Okay, stop.
Great.
Four hold extension all the time while
we're doing basically work to make
him more functional, to try to make
him work in nauseous in one plane
of movement, make him work in three
dimensions or rotate and stuff like that.
We can't fix the fact that
I've got a torn rot cuff and a
torn bicep and tricep muscles.
They're gonna be permanently, uh, weak and
a little bit atrophied to the other side.
We can't do anything about that,
but we're just trying to get things
working together better than they were.
And I'm not able to do very
heavy training for upper body.
So I enjoy this.
It's a different, uh, different
kind of a challenge and more
practical for what I need now.
I think, you know, everyone's got an
ego and, uh, he couldn't hold back.
So that's, that's why he got the injuries.
He could have avoided him and
still won the Olympia, but for him
it was, he was war in the gym and
he weren't gonna lose that walk.
Try again.
Strong.
Steve Weinberger from the States, he
said, maybe start with this crazy fucking
heavy training all the time and just
ease back and maintain this thing and.
Earn your money.
That's what you should do.
But I want to push it a bit more.
Who knows?
I mean, uncharted territory.
Nobody had been there at that point.
You couldn't talk to Dorian.
I think he was a very successful
bodybuilder that that knew.
It brought him to the dance
and he wasn't gonna change.
I don't think anyone
could have stopped him.
But you know what, it's, it's also
a Monday morning quarterback, you
know, should have you passed to.
Your tight end of your wide
receiver, you know, it's, it's
so much easier after the fact.
Just think about that.
I mean, this is how, this is what
brought you to six Mr. Olympia.
Why would you change it?
You've gotta work with,
takes you to the ball.
Little injuries he'd have, which he
knew he could cope with, and we had
a good team of friends who was like
physios and a good team around us.
I remember standing behind
the bar at the old Temple gym.
I heard this massive tear and
it was his tricep coming off
and it was two weeks out from the
Olympia and he said, I'll give up.
It was so bad.
He said, there's no way I can get
through this one next morning.
He changed his mind.
He was gonna do everything
to get in that Olympia.
The contest that year
97 was in Long Beach.
The swelling had all gone down, but his
tricep was the color of the rainbow.
Every color you could think was in there.
He says, but we can fix that
with Tan, the 97 Mr. Olympia.
All these circumstances going in there
were less than ideal, and I presented
a physique that could have been better
if I hadn't had all these problems.
Of course, the great conjecture there
was everybody saw NASA as the winner.
A lot of people saw NAS as the winner.
You know, he gave, he gave him a strong
run for the money, but NASA didn't have
anything and when he turned around to the
back, he was just all front thickness.
So NASA wins the first two poses,
but then Dorian turns to the side
in the back and it's all over.
I still think before that he still
was a clear cut winner and he
was still a clear cut winner with
nasa, but they were getting closer.
Sixth time, Mr. Olympia.
Dorian, yay,
and the minute he got
off stage, he collapsed.
We came back home.
And then we booked a surgeon in
New York, went over there, had the
operation, but there was also a
small tear in the muscle, which was
changing the shape and the mechanics.
So after about five or six months, I was
getting back into some serious training
and there was a huge difference in the,
in the strength from left to right.
There was just so much imbalance that I,
I knew that I couldn't train properly and
I couldn't, it wouldn't be possible for me
to compete and even to achieve what I had
before, let alone trying to improve on it.
So it was the logical decision
at that point to retire at
the top and be the champion.
He knew that he wanted to leave
a legacy and leaving a LE legacy
sometimes is knowing when to
withdraw from the field of battle.
He was searching different
views then in longleaf and.
And I thought, oh great, we can get
to do the things we couldn't do.
'cause she was always competing or
traveling and just didn't quite pan out.
But it was hard on both of us.
Why does anyone get a divorce?
That's a huge, complex question
that's not really easy to answer.
The the best way I can answer it is
that we got together when we were very
young and we grew up and we, we grew
apart quite a lot because he wanted
to do things but not with his wife.
And then when Little Lee died, that
just totally shook our world apart.
We was in London at the time, it was
the day before Dorian's birthday.
Um, my mom phone me and said,
Lee's dead majorly affected him,
the family, me and everything.
And that's, that's when
the divorce started.
And you know, I think it just shut things.
A retirement can lead to depression.
'cause you've lost your,
your focus, your vocation.
A divorce can lead to depression.
A death of somebody close to
you can lead to depression.
And also it's the fact that
if you stop taking steroids,
it can lead to depression.
So like a perfect storm of depression,
all the things that can cause depression,
let's just have them all at the same time.
He doesn't like to admit any
kind of weakness ever, you know,
but he had a hard time 'cause
he'd spent his whole life Yeah.
Doing this one thing and suddenly
there was no reason for it.
And he, he told me afterwards, he, a
few years later, you know, he says, I
just stopped the drug straight away.
And that was a mistake.
Steroids are a tool that I'm using for my
professional sport, and it's necessary.
So when I'm not competing anymore,
I won't take the steroids anymore.
And I just stopped.
I just stopped.
Couple of years later, I realized
I needed, my testosterone was
low and that was affecting me,
plus all the circumstances.
Um, so then I went on to testosterone
replacement, and that's probably what
I should have done from day one if
I'd been on steroids for that long.
But I thought, you know, not that old.
I'm 34, 35 probably.
Maybe it can bounce
back, but, uh, it didn't.
So that wasn't a good, a good idea.
It was just horrible.
But then I found out I was
pregnant with our daughter.
We're Sarah in the same house and
planning our separation and our divorce,
but things go happen in the night.
But now I feel so blessed that
both of those kids, uh, came in
the partying.
Wow.
I don't think I wanna get
into too much of that.
Take that discipline and that insanity
for bodybuilding and put it into.
Partying.
He went from being a monk to
Playboy of the Western world.
You know, that's the
best way to describe it.
A lot of fun, A lot of parties,
dates, a lot of different women.
Was a lot of parties around
the bodybuilding scene,
which I didn't even know.
Also was good friends with Chris Cormier
and he was the party king of bodybuilding.
He didn't do anything but
get ready for that title.
When he was competing in, you know,
myself, I was like, I'm young, I'm
going to do this stuff right now.
There were some crazy parties in New York
and bas, I saw it once at an Olympia and
they, they're coming through the Mandalay
Bay, him, Chris, and a few others,
and they're all in this down center.
I thought, oh, there he goes, hiding high.
He went off the deep edge.
In my opinion, ecstasy was a
thing and everyone took ecstasy.
So actually it's not a bad drug.
You have a great time.
You don't really get hangover.
And then later on there
was alcohol and cocaine.
I mean, I remember me and my dad
going and, and we're partying together
and at some points at three in the
morning we're looking at each other
thinking, oh, if this is right,
that's a laugh.
That is.
We've had an interesting one.
Cheers.
Kinda retired from the drinking game.
I'm going soft, you know,
please don't cope that.
Yeah, it's a Wednesday.
Eight years ago, I beat anybody at
drinking, including my son, although he
has a great capacity, respect to that.
But I will beat him just
because I'm a local like that.
But yeah, that was strange because
then dad had to go and find himself.
Obviously there was other women and
whatnot and uh, know you have to chop
through the weeds to find a flower.
So he went, he went gardening.
I was the one who brought him
wake up, calling off for some
things, was doing parties sometimes
and women and all this stuff.
And the more, I mean, kind of like
quiet, I like parties, I say and all
these things sometimes, but sometimes
you have to have some priorities in
life, you know, him and girls seem to
be a really good match for each other.
And funny thing is he, he went
back to Brazil for Christmas
or something and he sends a
photograph, you know, of the family.
And of course they're all typical
Brazilians with dark hair and everything.
Uh, and I says, look at that.
You are the whitest guy in the room.
And he says, I'm always the whitest
guy in the room, unless Dennis Wolf
is there 'cause he's really white.
It.
When gal came into my life, I
was in a wild phase of kind of
running away from everything.
'cause I didn't know who I was,
so I became this guy that just
wanted to have a good time, right?
And, uh, you know, drug use and multiple
girlfriends and all this ego shit.
And Gal is the one that was there
when I accidentally overdosed on GHB.
And, uh, I was passed out,
choking on my own vomit.
And, you know, I was dying, man.
And she, she woke me up and
she'd just been in England.
She barely spoke English.
There's no one else there to help.
Fortunately she managed to call
one friend of mine that she knew.
And, uh, if she wasn't there, I
wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now.
So I'm really grateful
that she came along.
He never spoke to me about his
father for a long, long time.
He didn't discuss much about the
first years living in the country.
It's something obviously
where you think about it.
You, you're right.
He is trying to get away from that.
It wasn't something he wanted to
spend too much time reflecting on.
In fact, I don't think his
mother and him ever made it up.
I think they did meet a couple
of times, but it was never warm.
I started really training for contests
when I was 21 and uh, I wasn't
living with my mom and actually we
didn't see each other that much,
so we didn't talk about it really.
I even think Louis was about six months
old before I told my mom, Hey, by
the way, mom, you got a grandchild?
This is where my mom's grave is.
If you want to take a little walk here.
So she was 57, like my age.
So my dad passed away
at 42 and my mom was 57.
Pretty young.
Really?
My mom passed away from complications
from multiple sclerosis.
Um, but it, it's degenerative, you
know, slowly get worse and worse,
and she was losing more function.
An active woman who'd ride horses
all her life and walk all day.
And so, must have been tough to
lose your physical capabilities.
I don't know.
I kind of feel that she
would be happy to, to leave.
At that point, 'cause her body was
not functioning very well, so maybe
it was time for her to, to pass over.
You know,
my dad died from a heart attack, so it
was very sudden, you know, he went to
work and he died at work and that was it.
There's no good time to lose a parent,
but to lose your father at 13 is a
pivotal you need just becoming into
puberty, just becoming a man and
you need your father for, you know,
to be there for all that stuff.
And if my father had been there, maybe
my whole life trajectory would've been
different than it is now and maybe I
would never would've been a bodybuilder
and being a Olympian and so on.
And I think a lot of that drive
came from not having that comfort,
you know, the family security and
that, that a lot of people have.
You have to have an unusual drive to
wanna become the best in the world at
a sport, or probably anything, I guess.
Yeah,
I think, you know what I, when Dorian
competed, his mind frame was so different.
I could relate to him.
I understood where he was going and what
he was doing and what his goals were.
This was a guy that would, you know,
would go into a gym and tear it apart.
He'd be eating dumbbells for breakfast.
And Dorian today, I mean, I
talked to him on the phone.
I mean, he wants me to try some
of his Costa Rica stuff, which I
just maybe, maybe it would help me.
Like he tries to get me to go there and
I'm just like, nah, I think I'll pass.
Or I have a show that day.
I just, I don't know if that's me.
I mean, I think he's evolved and I think,
I still think maybe I didn't evolve.
Maybe he's, you know, once again,
he sees something that I don't see
like he saw back then, but I think
it just shows you he has balls.
He doesn't care what, you know,
most people would be like,
Dorian, what are you doing?
He doesn't care.
Dorian does what Dorian wants to do, and
that's a great way to lead your life.
It's just is a spiritual journey I'm on.
And you know the big questions that we all
ask or we should all ask, why are we here?
What are we doing?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
What's it all about?
And psychedelics are a tool that
you can use to open the door to this
world and to be able to learn more.
Uh, I've done D-M-T-L-S-D
mushrooms tried them all at at
some point, and then ayahuasca.
It's two plants mixed together, and
it's been used in South American
cultures for hundreds, maybe
thousands of years as it all.
To communicate with the spiritual
world, if you like, and as
a tool for healing as well.
Let's say that we are in a
room and that's all we know.
That's all of reality.
We know that all that exists is this room,
but now we've got a trampoline.
And you go on the trampoline and you
jump and you manage to see over the wall.
And over the wall is a whole world out
there that you didn't even know about.
In fact, it didn't even
exist in your mind.
'cause all you know is this.
That's psychedelics.
It will take you out of this
reality and show you much more.
And then you know, without
a doubt, there is much more.
Yeah, this is the corner here.
Hello.
How are you?
How are you?
How are you?
I'm here, Mr. Yates.
I am, yeah.
How do you know that we brought it up?
Your mum.
Ah, yeah.
I'm Dorian Yates.
I used to live here.
Yes.
What all this?
Yeah, they're making a
documentary about my life.
So we're going to all, you know, this is
where I grew up and everything like that.
You famous little bit.
Yeah.
It was, um, world champion bodybuilder.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
So.
When you first met him, you thought
his mind is somewhere else and now he's
here present and joking and laughing
and witty and he's quite a funny guy.
I think he's been away long off.
Now that his legacy has established, he's
still revered by people who never saw him
compete, who see him, like I said before,
as this in the trenches working class.
Hero did it his way.
Never came to America.
He was never driven by the money.
He never mentioned money
winnings or anything.
I don't think he even knew what
the prize money was for the
Olympic the first time he won it.
It's remarkable to think that it is 22
years this year, since he has competed,
he set the standard of what Mr.
Olympia should do in the gym during
Yates is the true training champion.
There's guys out there with better
genetics, definitely a hundred percent.
You know, but not with the mental
power, not with the, the application,
not with the, the religious monk
style behavior, but you mix that all
in a pipe, not something serious do
is everything to do with intensity
and passion, hard work and focus.
All these things, you know, that we need
to have in life to be, to be a winner.
And then he was able to walk
away from it with no regrets.
He did it his way in that, that aspect.
No Vinny's Beach in Birmingham.
So she saw, but he went over
there and kicked their ass.
That takes some, do you?
And still remain the man he is.
Do Yates?
King of Kings.
Fantastic.
In regards to bodybuilding, well,
I'm six times Mr. Olympia, and I'll
always be part of bodybuilding.
It'll always be part of me.
But the differences between me and
a lot of people is it isn't my life,
but I feel immense, immense pride.
In what I was able to achieve,
it was like almost unbelievable.
Even still now, if I go back and say
I came from here in an apartment,
I had no car, I had no furniture.
And just through my will and through
my effort, I was able to change
that and to the life that I have now
and, you know, travel all around the
world and being known by millions
of people all around the world.
It's, uh, it's a great
story and I lived it.
That's it.
Good?
Yeah.
We're all good.
Nice.
There you go.
Cheers.
I'm The definition
of nothing is simple
blood and gut.
I really came from the,
I really got it from the
put.
I don't give a, I'm from the slum.
Slim to none is the salary.
Well fuss, some promise someone
to make you with casualty.
It's all the dream.
When the night mes reality, watching
my family and friends become
fatalities, I lost my father.
Then I lost myself, lost my
freedom, and found a purpose.
Then I freed myself.
So it's safe to say I climbed up out
of the grave with most than never,
ever, ever see free light today.
So if you wonder why act
this way, you're soft focus.
Because I'm right around
the corner from hell.
If you got, I really can't.
We ain't gotta pretend pick and only be
one and we ain't come to make friends.
You got options.
Well, my only options is I have
nothing so for it all, I give
it all until I have something.
I ain't here for your accolades.
I ain't here for your
fame and your praise.
I really came from the,
I really got it from the,
it's getting cold now.
Turn that thing into something.
Yeah, turn the air back on.