Shawn Ray's War On Dorian Yates | Bodybuilding Chronicles

if I had to go down memory lane and talk about my life and times living in the shadow better known as Dorian Yates that would take us all the way back to 1989 and that would also take me back to Ireland where I was a guest poser and an unknown bodybuilder to me by the name of Dorian Yates would be a co guest poser or a warm-up act so to speak I was guest posing out there Dorian came in as a guest posing right around like three hundred and something pounds I think he was like the biggest thing that everybody had seen at that time wasn't in shape but he was obviously a work in progress and naturally I wasn't very impressed and I think after that guest posing appearance I never really paid any attention until I wound up in New York City at the New York Night of Champions in 1990 in second place was Dorian Gates and starting off a second place at the New York Night of Champions was no no joke so fast forward into 1991 March came along I'd go back to Columbus Ohio become the Arnold Classic champion for the second year in a row and we would head straight to Orlando Florida as we got closer to the event it was clear that people were talking about Dorian Yates and Lee Haney and not so much about Sean ray I didn't take offense to it yet until we were backstage and as I turned I could see the shadow I saw the back of Dorian Yates which was more impressive than LaHaye knees at the time you couldn't deny Dorian's grainy big dense thick calves and of course during the eighth serve notice and we would move into our very first mr. Olympia championships in 92 in Helsinki Finland and arguably Dorian had the advantage because he was second place in the 91 Olympia so naturally I would be trying to find out a little bit more about who this Dorian Yates guy was but he just was under publicized there wasn't a lot of material on the shadow but he was one of those guys that was pretty much the same height as Lee Haney potentially had the ability to be bigger than Lee Haney someone I was gonna have to contend with and then I would wind up in fourth place a little dejected but nobody argued with Dorian winning the 92 mr. Olympia and we moved on to 1993 and no one argued with Dorian's win in 1993 I'm now thinking holy crap these guys want to mr. Olympia is what's it gonna take and so I went back to the drawing board and in 1994 and I was as best as I could be but four weeks before the show word got out the Dorian Yates had torn his bicep and by the time we wound up in Atlanta Georgia Dorian Yates to me looked kind of like a hot mess and he just didn't look his dominating entity as he had the year before in 93 I wasn't in awe and I knew that if it was gonna be closed that the posing round was gonna carry me to victory and when it was the last two of us standing I was very confident that this was going to be my time to shine these awards will be given to number seven Sean Ray it seemed like all the air out of my sail had just disappeared kind of like the air coming out of a balloon I shrunk Dorian was mr. Olympia for the third consecutive year and I'm just thinking do I want to do this for another six seven years I mean the guy is 5 foot 10 he's 250 pounds he's not 100% and he still wins so naturally I show up in 1995 and I try to do it all over again now I have to take an introspective look at what I'm doing here on this mr. Olympia stage where is my career going what am i doing I'm I had to find a way to beat this guy and the only way I can do it would be presentation if so 96 I jumped in erroneously into the Arnold Classic and I jumped in and boom fifth place maybe it's it's time for the bigger guys they're all bigger than me and I said no I wouldn't go down rolling over for these guys getting fifth place in the Arnold Classic in 96 was the best thing that could have happened to me because I spent the rest of that year eat sleeping training and breathing bodybuilding I didn't care about my guests posing I didn't care about my sponsors I didn't long for a relationship and I didn't I welcomed being alone and isolated because now it was war I had to get back to where I needed to be and I hit headed into Chicago in 96 with one thing on my mind and that was Dorian ace and I didn't see anything on Dorian I mean Dorian wooden the Olympian he disappear and show up on that Olympia stage as a nightmare for some of us I mean because he just kept getting bigger but this time I wasn't gonna buy into the height I showed up backstage at the 96 mr. Olympia with a vengeance and I remember getting into an argument with Steve Weinberger who's one of the judges because they told us that the athletes meeting we couldn't have any seconds backstage no one can help us backstage so we were all back there to fend for ourselves which was fine Mike mater Oz or Mike Quinn I think it was was helping me with my oil and we were kind of helping each other and I looked over and I saw Steve Weinberger and Dorian Yates sequestered in a room Jim Mannion I think was in there but it looked like there was some type of activity going on in the room that had mr. Olympia in there and I complained to Wayne de Mille I said Wayne d'emilia if that's not fixed Joe Weider is gonna be my next person I go find and fix it because I thought there was an unfair advantage we had IFBB judges looking at mr. Olympia helping mr. Olympia it just didn't look right I felt like I'm I'm beat I have to fight with more than just Dorian Yates and of course it pissed Steve Weinberger off he came out got in my face pointed his finger at me and basically said he was here to help everybody and I came back with some sarcastic remark that I don't see how you can help everybody in a room by yourself and it was at that moment that I felt oh maybe maybe I bit off more than I could chew because if he's not judging the Olympia all of his friends are judges so it's got to get back one way or the other but I felt confident on the way I looked I felt Dorian would have to beat me rather than me having to beat Dorian and before it was all said and done it did come back down to me and Dorian they will take these awards to the second-place winner [Music] Shawn rain [Applause] and of course when I heard and still the champion basically Dorian Yates it was a bitter pill for me to swallow I was in the shack I was in the shadow of the shadow the Dorian aides for me was the only thing that mattered he was the guy he was the reason I was lifting weights he was getting me out of bed everyday trying to deter own the champion fast forward to 97 because this contest was gonna be held in my backyard Long Beach and this was gonna be where I'm gonna take the title once and for all from Dorian Yates I knew at this show that I was going to bring the best I could bring and before the show was over we had found out that Dorian had torn his tricep and that he was heavy and I'm thinking oh well he made a mistake coming to California and I was very confident that this would be a show between me and Dorian and before it was all done NASA relson body and Dorian Yates would be the last two standing I was regulated 2/3 and I had to watch those two being called out and compared knowing it was a foregone conclusion that this was going to be nasty awesome body challenging for the title and not Shawn ray in watching that I could see that Dorian was heavy in the midsection that his arm was literally non-existent because it was no bicep and no tricep Dorian Yates would be winning his final mr. Olympia right there in Long Beach and that's where being second another controversial win for the shadow but I felt this would be the last win it was going to be something that I wasn't gonna stand by and watch happen again and again and again and as fate would have it Dorian will retire somewhere in mid-1998 but in looking back from 92 to 1997 I didn't like Dorian I wasn't a fan of his physique I didn't like the way he marketed the title of mr. Olympia I knew nothing about Dorian we never had a conversation we ever talked on the phone we never trained together I don't even think I ran into him it wasn't until we were done that I would even allow myself to entertain the idea to talk to Dorian and his fate would have it I'd fly to Ireland where we first met in 2001 and I was guest posing at the Irish national championships and I'd see the Dorian eights was the master of ceremonies and I want up staying the night at Dorian's house that night and we talked about everything but bodybuilding and I found that the Dorian Yates wasn't the enemy the Dorian Yates was a guy that put his pants on one day at a time and bodybuilding was something that he just happened to be good at I realized that he didn't ask to be mr. Olympia he believed that he could be much like myself and I found that we had more things in common in terms of how we approach the business of bodybuilding than we had is differences you know I thought of him as the enemy over in England and I'm over here representing America he's the big white guy and I'm holding the flag for the little black guy over here and I had to find these differences in order to get myself out of bed that it was war and when I realized that the war was over that Dorian Yates was more of an ambassador to bodybuilding than I knew Dorian had the weight of a country on his shoulder over in England Dorian had legions of fans that he represented and he knew I was coming after something that he coveted it was his that was what he that's what got him out of bed and from that time on we became good friends we traveled the world Brit we both became ambassadors of the sport promoters of the sport and it seemed like the further and further away I got from the mr. Olympia Dorian and I can realize that what we did at in the time that we did it it was war and that we are domesticated and so the civilized now to the degree that I can respect what he did because I saw where he came from he came from less the genetics weren't as beneficial to him as they were for me his desire to be mr. Olympia was stronger than his desire to have a Mercedes and to have a big house and to be in Hollywood he changed the game without Dorian Yates there's no Shawn ray Dorian was a shadow to all of us he stopped all of us every time we saw him in September we could change the name from the shadow to the nightmare because that's what he was for all of us he was a nightmare we had to train for this guy that we would see only at the Olympia and he would not surprise us but piss us off he would he would make us reevaluate what it is we're actually doing with our bodies he made me become more of an artist instead of someone trying to be strong and big did he change the game for me I didn't play the sighs game but thank God for Dorian because there'll never be another Dorian Yates but without drawing eights I don't believe we have Ronnie Coleman so what do I have to say about Dorian I'd say this as a six-time mr. Lampe he was a great flawed maybe there's a couple titles he didn't deserve he was a winner by default he had the advantage of being judged by the same judges every year but he's much more than a bodybuilder he's paying it forward he's not just sitting on his butt and letting all that knowledge go to waste Dorian is much more meaningful to our sport in retirement Dean he was winning the Sandow trophy and I think as a person I've given myself time to kind of understand him to engage with him and to respect him so for that reason I don't think Dorian Gates is a shadow anymore I mean Dorian Yates is a beacon he's a light his light has illuminated a lot of possibilities for bodybuilders that come from nothing because Dorian I'll tell you if they weren't for bodybuilding he'd probably be dead and I got to tell you if it wasn't for Dorian I don't think I would have had the career that I had so for that reason I salute the shadow but we all have to have a reason to get out of bed and do what we do and as a bodybuilder Dorian Yates gave me reason and it gave me purpose so to the shadow I salute you generation iron I'm Shawn Ray [Music] you

Channel: Generation Iron Fitness & Bodybuilding Network

Views: 1,105,247

Keywords: Shawn Ray, Dorian Yates, Bodybuilding Chronicles, Bodybuilding, The Shadow, bodybuilders, Mr. Olympia, Competition, sport, Fitness, Weight Training, Generation Iron

Id: T2DYGB3GiA8

Length: 12min 21sec (741 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2018