The Mike Mentzer Story - Documentary

[Big Beat]

This documentary has been re-released as a full 1 hour 10 min movie

It's very good and all the dialogue in the film is by Mike Mentzer taken from different interviews. So it is literally all in his own words which is fantastic because he was such a good talker.

It covers his whole life from childhood through winning titles, the 1980 Olympia and his mental health struggles and recovery through to redemption.

Some of the best of the dialogue comes from the week long interview Mentzer did with Peter McGough in 1994.

Definitely worth an hours viewing on a lazy Sunday morning.


https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk...690_result.jpg

[Beti ona]

[Howard]

Thanks for posting this thread and also the YouTube video link. I'm an old school fan of Mentzer

[leigh]

Awesome!! Will watch for sure. Thanks!!

[leigh]

Found these interviews recently if you are interested…

https://youtu.be/w8yCXwGkQvk

https://youtu.be/too_FDUL5Xo

[nomercy]

mike was one of my idols great genetics he could of won the olympia if he stayed with the sport

[Howard]

mike was one of my idols great genetics he could of won the olympia if he stayed with the sport

Totally agree .

After that 1980 Olympia he should have sat out the 81 Olympia and returned in 82 . I think Mentzer could have won the 82 and 83 Olympias if he was in top condition.

Later in life he got overly obsessed with life philosophy and ignored the practical aspects that make a happy , productive life .

From what I know , his later heavy duty training sessions were very different from the actual workouts he did to build his legendary physique.

Oh well, to me he's one of my favorite bodybuilders and I still have his original Heavy Duty training pamphlet I ordered by mail 44 years ago from his ad in Muscle Builder and Power

[Beti ona]

Found these interviews recently if you are interested…

https://youtu.be/w8yCXwGkQvk

https://youtu.be/too_FDUL5Xo

[Beti ona]

Later in life he got overly obsessed with life philosophy and ignored the practical aspects that make a happy , productive life .

That doesn't make sense, in fact, his amphetamine problems seemed to be related to his high-productivity lifestyle.

Objectivism is about the ideal or heroic man represented mythologically in Atlas, who is condemned to hold the world. In worldly terms, according to Rand, they are the engineers, the inventors, the great industrialists... the human mind at the service of increasing productivity.

When one assumes that role for his daily life, he is condemned to bear an immense workload. I always found it amusing that a philosophy, suposaly based on selfishness ends up destroying individuals for a greater purpose: holding the world.

A true egoist doesn't care about the world or productivity.

But the great philosophical or existential problems have nothing to do with this limited vision of the world and life.

His emotional problems seemed to come from not accepting injustice in a political and subjective sport. His personal integrity made him unable to continue competing.

[Big Beat]

Mentzer seemed incapable of playing the game, he could not stand what he saw as injustice. I thought he came across as almost too black and white in his mindset..

I think he had a mental breakdown because he lost his business, his father died and his relationship broke up all within a few months. That would be hard on anybody but someone hooked on amphetamine is more likely to go over the edge.

I thought the way Mentzer used his iron will to recover once he accepted he had mental health problems was very impressive.

[glenhill68]

Watched this the other day and it is a good watch, I liked the coverage of the 1980 Olympia fix.

[Bestia]

I'm going to give it a watch. Always like his physique but growing up I thought Arnold was God so when I had read that Mentzer had a beef with Arnold I thought he was just being a while whiny pussy. Funny, now I often think Arnie is that so what the hell.

Mike and Ray Mentzer pretty impressive bodybuilding brothers! I'm trying to think of any others at that level. David and Peter Paul but they weren't at that level in bodybuilding. Anyone know of any other brothers that reached such heights?

[1Patrick]

I'm going to give it a watch. Always like his physique but growing up I thought Arnold was God so when I had read that Mentzer had a beef with Arnold I thought he was just being a while whiny pussy. Funny, now I often think Arnie is that so what the hell.

Mike and Ray Mentzer pretty impressive bodybuilding brothers! I'm trying to think of any others at that level. David and Peter Paul but they weren't at that level in bodybuilding. Anyone know of any other brothers that reached such heights?

Off the top of my head Jose and Tito .Roelly and Quincy

[Howard]

That doesn't make sense, in fact, his amphetamine problems seemed to be related to his high-productivity lifestyle.

His emotional problems seemed to come from not accepting injustice in a political and subjective sport. His personal integrity made him unable to continue competing.

To me there is a clear link between the amphetamine abuse with his mental breakdown and eventual physical collapse.
I doubt his steroid use caused him any serious problems.

I suspect that Mentzer had a hard time accepting that his sport was quite subjective and not always ethical.

Ironic how he could accept using juice to win big titles despite being against the IFBB official rules.

Perhaps he wrongly assumed if you played by their rules and had the best physique, you'd always get a fair shot to win ?

No matter , to me , he will always be one of the greatest men in bodybuilding due to his physique and outside the box training ideas .

RIP Mike

[Bestia]

Off the top of my head Jose and Tito .Roelly and Quincy

Jose and Tito good call