Curt James found an interesting video of former Gold’s Gym co-owner and CFO Ed Connors. Ed Connors is interviewed by IFBB pro bodybuilder David Dearth during the 2006 Olympia Weekend. Connors is disillusioned by the current state of professional bodybuilding, referring to it as a “freak show.”
Well, I really feel that somehow I had this dream for bodybuilding and the gym business and I kind of see what’s on stage as sort of perversion of that. I’m not crazy about where bodybuilding is. I wouldn’t want to look like most of the guys on stage these days. I’d rather look like the guys that I consider, like you; that were part of the golden era of body building. I think that’s what a lot of people in America aspire to. And you motivate them. I think unfortunately it’s become kind of a freak show.
Connors feels that participants are more interested in anabolic steroid information and anabolic pharmacology than training and nutrition knowledge.
Yeah, I think Matarazzo said it best. I said what’s the difference between bodybuilding now and when you were involved when your era. And he said, well you know back in those days kids would come up to him and say, God what do I need to do to look like you and how do I need to eat and how do I need to train. And nowadays it’s like, well, if I were taking all the stuff you’re taking I’d probably look like you.
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And that’s sad that they think its all chemicals or it’s popping. We all know it takes an incredible amount of perseverance and dedication to build a physique. And I really feel that unfortunately that people now in the audience, or in magazines, that read the magazines look at the guys on stage and think well that’s unattainable. And, so it becomes, this, a freak show, really.