This is rather old...
"The Mr. Olympia doesn't excite me to compete, and that's one of the reasons why I'm not doing it - I'd rather do the Arnold Classic. It's more professionally run, it's on mainstream TV, it has Arnold's name, and it's more accepted as a show. Half of people don't know about the Mr. Olympia - its never advertised in Vegas, and it's not in the paper the next day. I see people on the street and they ask me "Are you the one in Mr. Universe?" they don't even know about the Mr. Olympia. They say that the Mr. O is the #1 show in bodybuilding, but I think the Arnold classic is right up there.
The way you are treated at the Olympia is ridiculous. They are pushing us here and there, and they come back stage, telling us to go out early without oil, telling us that we don't have time to prepare. I'm not going out there without oil on, looking half-assed - so go ahead and start the show - without us!
I guess the guys just don't want to make waves. Imagine if the Mr. Olympia is sold out, people have come from all over the world to watch it, and the athletes say, "Unless we get what we want, we aren't walking on stage tomorrow" - I bet they would come up with something pretty quickly.
Just trying to get the guys to stand together as a whole is the hard part. Someone will run back to someone and say, "Lee or this person is saying this or that, and here is what they plan on doing", and so they blackball you before you get anywhere!
Some of the things that Shawn is saying now I've been saying for years. It's like, what have you done Shawn, gone back and read some of my interviews?
There was a lot of the things that I did that people complained about, like at the Olympia when I wanted everyone to get money, and people were complaining, "Why is Lee causing trouble?" I think that if you go to the Olympia to compete, you should get money - and they eventually gave everyone who placed out of the top twelve $2000. It's not much, but at least it's something.
Craig Titus was saying, "I can't see why Lee is doing this or that, he's just causing trouble." I said that I was willing to give some of my money away, which I had no problem doing. Now Craig is saying, "We're going to get the athletes money" - it's like, where were you guys before when I wanted to do it and you were bagging me for doing it, and now all of a sudden it's the "in thing" to do?
I wanted to do things for years and no one stood behind me and supported me, they just kept their mouths shut. I've paid over $17,000 in fines and had a twelve month suspension, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and stand up to something if I don't agree to it."
-Lee Priest | 
