T.S. O.K. I have been teasing the readers for a couple of months that I was going to be unveiling a freaky pro, who?s been around for years and from whom nobody has heard from or spoken to in a while.

T.S. So, why don?t you introduce yourself to the readership base.

P.D. Jeez?.well I go by the name of one Paul ?Quadzilla? DeMayo 1994 National Champion and I.F.B.B. Pro

T.S.? Well Paul, you dropped off the face of the earth shortly after your Nationals victory.? I know there were a lot of rumors about some sort of legal trouble and possibly even jail time.? Let?s clear that up once and for all right here.? What the Fuck happened to you?

P.D.? Hmmm.. I guess my biggest mistake was that I married the WRONG girl.? That pretty much was the stupidist thing I ever did.

T.S. Please go into detail

P.D. Well in May of 1995 I was selected as the invite to the Mr. Olympia.? Although I was very honored by that, I did not want to do it.? I was under contract with Met Rx and they were the big sponsor of the show that year, so they were allowed to have one of their athletes compete in the show.? I was selected and although I was honored I did not think it was a good career move to make.? I spoke with Scott Connelly about it, but he felt it was the best move for me to make and since I was under contract with Met-Rx, I read between the lines and did not want to shoot myself in the foot so to speak, so I agreed to do the show.? Now I had no delusions about winning the Mr. Olympia, all I wanted to do was be judged fairly and I was assured by some prominent officials that I would be.? I trained my ass off for that show and got 11th place, and if you look at the tape of the 1995 Mr. Olympia you will see that I was better than a number of other athletes that placed ahead of me.? That took a lot out of me.? I spent a lot of money getting ready for the show and I trained my ass off like I stated before and was really bothered by the fact that I was going to have to go through this whole ?paying the dues? situation like I did on the National level.? After that show, I felt like I was pissing my life away.? I wanted to have nice things and accomplish other things in my life, so I thought it would be best if I took a year off.? I still loved bodybuilding and did guest posings and appearances, but I did not have the time or the energy to compete

T.S.?? Damn, Paul I am so fucking psyched because there is so much to talk about and I don?t want to forget anything.? Let?s stop right now and go back to where it started.? I can remember watching your career as a teenager (and using you as a measuring stick because we were close in age) when you were the next big thing and also when you hit the national level.? Christ I remember you losing the Jr. U.S.A. to Robert Rothrock (there?s a name from the past) when I was in my second year of college.? Then I remembered when you beat an unknown kid the next year at the Jr. U.S.A?s in 1991.? What was his name?..oh yes, Kevin Levrone.? A few weeks later he turned the tides on you and won the Nationals.? Which brings me to my point.? On the national level today, it seems like there is a ?pay your dues? philosophy going on.? Did you think that with Paul DeMayo the ?pay your dues? rule didn?t apply as you spent a few years at the National level losing tough decisions.? Now I am not saying you should have won those years, but I am wondering if you feel that the unspoken rule didn?t apply to you.

P.D.? No, not at all.? You have to understand that the guys I was losing to over those few years went on to become GREAT bodybuilders in the Pro Ranks.? Kevin Levrone, Flex Wheeler, Mike Francois, Chris Cormeir, all these guys were my competition on the National level.? I think you would have to agree that there probably has never been an amateur crop like that before or since.? Now I agree to a certain extent with what you are saying, but the fact of the matter is, you have to come in dialed in and in shape.? I wasn?t dialed in any of the years that I lost to those guys.? Some years too small and flat, some years too big and full.? You definitely have to earn it.

T.S. So this brings us to 1994.? Let?s talk about some of the things you did differently for that show.? You had been coming in too small or too heavy.? All of a sudden at the 1994 Nationals, we see the emergance of a Paul DeMayo that is not only shredded to the bone, but bigger and heavier than he ever was!? What did you do differently?

P.D.? Well I changed a lot of things. With my diet, for the first time I incorporated liquid proteins.? I never did that before, and they made a big difference with allowing me to get in larger amounts of protein and maintain my muscle mass even though I was losing fat.? I also had a complete mind-set change.? I made a decision that the 1994 Nationals was going to be my show and that I wasn?t going to change my physique to please anyone else.? My attitude was ?this is what I am coming in as and tough shit if you don?t like it?.? My focus was through the roof and that was in no small part due to the fact that I was signed by Met-Rx and that relieved a tremendous amount of the financial burden.? Up until that point I was working a 9-5 job like everyone else and was on a tight budget too.? Now I was able to focus strictly on the training.? That had the biggest impact.? Plus I was also older and finally getting the muscle maturity I lacked in my younger years.? Most of the guys I competed against were always older than me?whether they want to admit it or not?and had the advantage of time on their side.? The muscle has a certain look when it has maturity and I was lacking that because I was a young kid.

T.S. Did you do anything different in terms of your pharmacology?? I mean, around that time, we saw the bodyweight explosion of guys like Dorian and Nasser and even you.? All of a sudden you were getting 250-270lb guys on stage when just a year or two before saw Lee Haney end his reign at 245lbs. and Dorian start his at 240lbs.

P.D.? To be quite honest, not really.? I did use the drugs a little differently.? In the past I would come off drugs a few weeks before a show and for that time I used them straight through.? This was due to? what? I mentioned before.? I had some financial freedom that I did not have in previous years because of my Met-Rx contract.? That provided me with steady income and minimal stress.? Digging ditches for 10 bucks and hour isn?t exactly condusive to winning the Nationals.? Another thing that I would like to mention that I feel made a difference was the fact that I trained back home in Boston for the show.? In Southern California, there is always talk 3-4 weeks out from a show? that ??so and so is looking fucking insane, he?s gonna win for sure??? I don?t think I should be punished for how I look a month out from a show.? I am the type of guy that if you tell me that I have to be shredded and ready for the show on October 1st, then that is when I am going to be ready without questions.? But in no fucking way should the way a guy looks standing by himself in the gym with a bunch of his ass-kissing friends around blowing smoke up his ass dictate that he will get the first call-out.? Although sadly, sometimes it does.? I stayed covered up and didn?t listen to anyway because you know why?? Fuck them!? I am the one getting up on stage in my underwear not them.

T.S.? So you show up at the ?94 Nationals.? What did you weigh when you stepped on the scale?

P.D.? I believe it was 253lbs.? I weighed on a Friday night and just because of what the number read on the scale, I heard people behind me saying: ?He?s off?way off..too heavy.?? They couldn?t believe that I could possibly be that big and heavy and still in shape, so it was a great kick in the ass and fuck you to them when they saw what I looked like on stage and won the whole show.

T.S. This brings me to a quick side note.? Why the fuck don?t they weigh the professionals before each show the same way boxers have a weigh in.? They did it in 1988 at the Mr. Olympia and had everyone dressed in boxing robes.? It was really cool and the fans loved it.? Of course, the bodyweights that year were all in a realistic range.? Berry DeMey was 226lbs., Strydom ?although way over-dieted?was 229lbs, Lee Haney was 243lbs.? Now days, they don?t ever dare weigh the pros before a show, yet they love to print erroneous weights.? They?ll say Lee Priest competes at 225lbs when in reality Lee is no more than 210-214lbs. on stage.? Flex will be listed at 245lbs. when he is half the size of what Lee Haney looked like weighing 2 pounds less.? Ronnie is said to be 278 pounds on stage when in reality he is 264.? It is just fucking stupid and at the end of the day all it does is make the fans more disassociated with the sport.? If you have a kid competing at 205lbs. and he is the same height as Flex and he is told that Flex weighs 250lbs, he will think that he can never achieve that level whereas if he is told that Flex weighes 232lbs, he will be better able to associate that with something that is attainable.? Is Ronnie Coleman any less impressive if his actual weight is told rather than giving him an extra 20 pounds.? I don?t think so.

P.D.? I agree and I am all for weigh ins.? If nothing else it would help crush a lot of the insecurties with these guys.

T.S.? O.K. this brings us to 1995.? What were your competitve plans for that year

P.D.? Well I had planned on doing the N.O.C. which as you know most of the new pros will choose as their first show.? As it turns out, Met-Rx was going to be the title sponsor of the Mr. Olympia that year.? Every year Joe Weider allows one special invite to the Mr. Olympia and since Met-Rx was sponsoring the show, Joe was going to allow Met-Rx to submit the special invite.

T.S. Who were the Met-Rx athletes at that time that were being considered for the invite?

P.D.? I think at that time there was myself, Milos and I think even Ronnie Coleman?pretty fucking ironic huh!? Anyway, it was me that was picked.

T.S. How did you feel about that?

P.D.? Look I was flattered and all, but I was looking at my career and I knew that it wouldn?t be a smart move.? I knew that they were not going to give me a fair placing because the attitude is ?This is the Mr. Olympia!? And you must PROVE that you deserved to even be in this show in the first place?? Since I did not legitimately qualify for the show, I knew I would get shafted and I did.? I was conveniently placed 11th because it would mean that I would have to re-qualify for next year.? It was a total waste for me career wise.? I could have bought a ticket and had a better view of the show.? I felt like a fucking jerk up there.? And it really put a sour taste in my mouth.? I had just gone through 6 years on the National level and now I felt I was going to have to ?pay my dues? all over again.? It just took the starch out of me.

T.S.? So what did you do.

P.D. I decided to take some time off to gather my thoughts and focus on all the other things I was letting slide because of the demands of bodybuilding.

T.S. This brings us to 1996

P.D. Yes, I took the year off from comepting, but I was still doing appearances.? Later that year I made the biggest fucking mistake in my life.? Figuring it was time to settle down I got married to someone that was in no way shape or form ready for marriage.? You know I went to jail for 15 months for firing a gun into the air, but that was not my mistake, my mistake was marrying the wrong girl.? She was into everything about Paul DeMayo the ?Pro-Bodybuilder? but could give two shits about me as a person.? So as my bodybuilding career and limelight was dimming and slipping away, so did she.? In the end the only one that came out of it being a loser was me!

T.S. So let?s discuss the events surrounding the incident that eventually led to your arrest and conviction and subsequent jail time.? This was in 1996 right?

P.D.? Actually it was in the beginning on 1997, February 1997 to be exact.

T.S. So you get married at the end of August in 1996 correct?

P.D. Yes

T.S. So at that point, was it honeymoon time for the two of you or was it immediately bad.

P.D. Shit?honeymoon?that?s funny.? It was immediatlly bad and immediately a disaster.? Her family basically pushed for the wedding, they set a date and decided that their little girl was going to get married.? I should have stepped up to the plate and stopped it but I did not.? I knew I was making a mistake, but at the same time I had these thoughts that this is what I was supposed to do.? To settle down.? The night of my wedding I remember actually talking out loud to myself saying: ?this is a total mistake?? I was basically going into my wedding with the idea of buying time before I could get divorced because I didn?t want to look like a total jerk getting divorced 2 days after my marriage.? Looking back on things that was another huge mistake, because if I had went and attempted to get divorced right after the marriage, I would never have wound up in jail.? But in any event, the whole marriage was a fucking joke.? She was still living with her parents after we got married.? I don?t mean ?We? were living with he parents, I mean ?She? was living with her parents.? I had an apartment and she still wanted to live with her parents because she was a fucking psycho, immature 27 year old baby and ?missed? her mom and dad.? It sounds unbelievable, but it is true.

T.S. So basically you are living like a single man.

P.D. A single man living in hell.? Like I said, I was just buying time before I got divorced.? I figured I would wait like 5 months and then end it.? I want to make one thing perfectly clear.? This was my mistake and I did not take it out on her in any way shape or form.? I never screamed at her, fought with her, certainly never raised my hand to her; I treated her like a human being throughout the whole ordeal.? Unfortunetly she did not treat me the same way.? She continually shit on my kindness until one day everything errupted.

T.S.? So this would bring us to February of 1997 and the incident.

P.D. Right.

T.S. Paul, let?s back track a bit.? You said you were talking 1996 off from bodybuilding, so what were you doing during this time of all the bullshit and the marriage etc.

P.D.? I was in a depression, so bodybuilding was the last thing on my mind.? I was just trying to figure out how to get out of the hell that I was in.? Strictly survival mode if you know what I mean.? I came off drugs after the Olympia in 1995, which probably played a part in my depression, but I was just not happy with my life and didn?t feel like a bodybuilder

T.S.? So you spent the last two months of 1995 and all of 1996 clean?

P.D. Yes.? Well actually as we will soon find out, I also spent all of 97, 98, 99 and most of 2000 off drugs as well

T.S. Did your bodyweight crash dramatically?

P.D. It did in the beginning, but then it evened out.? Even at the lowest point in my life my body weight did not go below 240 pounds

T.S. How did you feel?

P.D. You know the hardest thing to deal with was all the fucking idiots that love to talk shit about you and spread rumors.? In their eyes, somehow I am less of a person because I was 240lbs. as opposed to the 270lbs Paul DeMayo.? I?ve never looked down on anyone or talked shit about anyone because of how they looked and I had a hard time dealing with people getting on my back because I dropped weight and decided to take some time off.? I mean how the fuck does it matter in their lives if Paul DeMayo decides to drop down to 240 pounds because he has things he wants to deal with and focus on?? It shouldn?t but it does.? People are so fucking pathetic and insecure, they love to walk around and be able to say: ?Yeah, I saw Paul DeMayo and I am bigger than him?? As if that means a fucking thing.? It sure as hell don?t mean they are better than me as a bodybuilder let alone as a person.? That stuff really bothered me.

T.S. Sorry to get off track there.? Let?s go back and talk about the incident in February of 1997 that led to your arrest, conviciton and subsequent incarceration.

P.D. Right.? One day in February, my ?wife? told me that we had a birthday party to go to for her niece.? I told her point blank that I didn?t want to go and wasn?t going to go.? I had no desire to be around her fucking family and deal with that shit.? So she was pissed off and went to the party alone.? While she was gone, one of my then ?friends??it is amazing how fast you find out who your friends are when you are in prison?came by with a six pack of beer to sit around and watch some T.V.? We weren?t getting stupid drunk or anything, we each just had a couple of beers and were relaxing and having a good time.? She came home and saw that and went fucking crazy? She called me all kinds of names I did not deserve to be called, pointing her finger at my like I was one of her fucking students (she was a school teacher) and really embarrased me in front of my friend.? She had no respect.? If that was me I would have called her into another room if I had a problem with her, but she decided to shit on me in front of another person to really make me look bad and that bothered me greatly.? Anyway, after she said her say to me, she walked out of the apartment and slammed the door behind her.

T.S.? Sounds like a lovely girl?lots of class too!

P.D. Yeah right.? Anyway,? you have to understand that I had this type of bullshit building up for months since the wedding and embarrassing me the way she did was the final straw.? So I grabbed my pouch and went out the door after her.? The reason I grabbed my pouch was that my keys were in it and I lived in a complex where the door automatically locked behind you.? The thing is, I had just moved into this apartment a couple of days before and so I had my hand-gun in my pouch because I needed to know exactly where that was at all times.? I know you are going to ask why I had a hand-gun in the first place so I will tell you.

I lived in Venice during the time of the L.A. riots.? You would not have believed what it was like. It was literally a fucking War zone.? So they second the riots broke out, I went and LEGALLY bought a handgun.? I? filled out the paper work, waited the required time period (10 days) and then got my gun.? Stupid me figured that since I had a license for the gun in California, that meant I had a license everywhere else too.? So I didn?t even think twice about carrying it back with me to Boston.

Anyway to get back to the story, I chased after my ?wife? and grabbed my pouch because I needed my keys, not because I wanted my gun.? I met up with her by her car and started arguing with her telling her I was tired of her shitting on my kindness etc. and being a fucking spoiled little girl.? I leaned against the car door so she couldn?t drive away and run back to Daddy and said that she was going to have to face her problems like an adult and talk to me.? I told her that I would put a hole in her engine so she couldn?t go anywhere and would have to face me and talk to me and she said I didn?t have the balls?.which I did not.? So I let her in the car and put my foot on the bumper in front of the car like a ?hard ass? daring her to run me over in order for her to leave.? She stepped on the gas and I almost fell back on my ass, so I backed away.? She then looked out of her window to see if any cars were coming, gave me the finger and drove up the street.

T.S.? So basically she didn?t hear a word you said and told you to fuck off.

P.D. Exactly.? So she drove away and when she was about 150YARDS up the road, I took my gun, pointed it IN THE AIR, and in a fit of total frustration fired off one shot.?

T.S. Not at her?

P.D. No!? In the air.? She even testified that I did not threaten her with the guy or fire the gun at her.

T.S.? So what happened then.

P.D. Well it was a Sunday afternoon about 4:00 and since I was in a quiet enclosed area, the gun made a huge echoing noise.? I ran back into my apartment because I didn?t want to get into any trouble.? I went back inside my apartment, told my friend what happened and said that we had to stay for a while because the cops would probably be coming by.

T.S. And did they come by your apartment?

P.D. NO!? I stayed in that house for 2 hours and the police never came.? So I figured that everything was cool.? Me and my friend went to get some Chinese food and as I was driving in my corvette, my pager was going off.? It was my brother calling me and telling me that there was an A.P.B. out for me.? I couldn?t figure out why since I had been sitting in my house for 2 fucking hours.? Turns out that the cops found the shell casing from the bullet and that someone reported to them that I tried to shoot and kill my wife.? Funny thing is, it wasn?t my wife who called the cops.

T.S. Well where did they get that report from?? Who called the cops?

P.D. Well this is where it gets real good so put on your seat belt.? The whole time I was outside arguing with my wife, there was a women in the driveway of another house that was watching the whole thing.? It turns out that this woman, her name was Karen Lynch and I will never forget it as long as I live, had 4 warrants out for her arrest.? They were utterting, false checks, heroin and needles. ?She was a heroin junkie that was waiting outside her dealers apartment waiting for him to get home.? So what Karen Lynch did was she saw this whole incident and in her words ?didn?t know what to do?? So she called the police station and struck a deal that she would testify against someone who ?tried to shoot and kill his wife? in exchange for her warrants to be wiped clean.

T.S. I am fucking speechless.

P.D. Yes, and so am I .? And this is all public record.? I cannot tell you what it feels like to be accused of something you did not do.

T.S. Well how on earth did your lawyer not immediately discredit this fucking heroin junkie?

P.D.I wish my trial had been on television because my lawyer did do that.? You have to understand something about my trial.? Yes I shot the gun off in the air and it was fucking stupid, but I did not shoot at anybody.? My lawyer did pick that woman apart, but I had a woman prosecutor and a woman judge and my trial was no longer about me shooting a gun off in the air, it became soley about man versus woman.? They made me out to be an abusive, egomaniacle steroid addicted bodybuilder bully that has no regard for anyone but himself and was a selfish son of a bitch.

T.S. Meanwhile, you aren?t even using steroids at that time and had been clean for over a fucking year!

P.D. Yeah, I was clean at that time for almost two years.? Yet how many trials do you know where the prosecutor shows pictures of? someone from a competition, in a pair of posing trunks, striking aggressive most musculars and says:? ?This is the man who shot the gun off!?? So it was very easy for the jury to view me as a steroid head, a bully and someone who threatens women and that is how I was viewed.

T.S.? So was this heroin addict, Karen Lynch, still saying you shot at your wife?

P.D. Yes, she was still sticking to her completely fabricated story that I shot at my wife.? She had to say that in order to get her deal.? The funny thing is, she was arrested in the court room for her open warrants.

T.S. Well where is your wife in all of this?? Didn?t she testify that you did not fire the gun at her?

P.D. She did, she did.? But the prosecutor played the card that I had my wife under a spell that I would kill her if she told the truth.? The painted me out to be a wife beater.? Christ I never raised my hand to a woman ever!

T.S.? I am fucking mystified that this type of shit can actually go on in a court of law?.especially when that guilty fuck O.J. is walking free.? So what happened then

P.D.? Well after the arguments were presented the jury deliberated for 45 minutes?this is in June of 1997?and came back GUILTY!? However, the jury was under the delussion that they could hand down the verdict and pick my sentence.??? They were very naﶥ to that.? The way they read the verdict was: ?we find him guilty and think he should seek domestic violence counseling and drug testing?.? They did not realize that they couldn?t pick the sentence.? They thought they were giving me probation with counseling and drug testing because they didn?t necessarily believe that I tried to shoot my wife.? However, the prosecutor was able to convince them that I was a steroid addicted wife beater which was a fucking joke.? Anyway, since the judge decides what the sentence is going to be, I got 2 years of jail time AND the domestic violence counseling AND the drug testing.? I know the jury didn?t realize that because my mom told me that there were two ladies on the jury panel that were crying after the judge sentenced me to the 2 years.

T.S. This sounds almost unbelievable.

P.D. Well it happened, and like I said it is all public record.

T.S. What did you feel when you heard the sentence?

P.D. Total shock.? You have to understand, here I was 30 years old and I never had so much is one mark on my record.? Never arrested, for anthing before in my life, not even as a juvenille.? Yet here I was being sentenced without lieniency for something I did not do.? I was prosecuted for being the stereotypical bodybuilder, which I am not.

T.S. And where did they take you?

P.D. I was taken to the Billricker House of Correction, which is in Billricker Massachusetts.

T.S. Maximum or minimum security?

P.D. You start out in Maximum.? 23 hour lock down in a 5x8 cell.? Living with people you are taught to stay away from.? Prison life is very serious and if you are not street smart you are fucked!? If you are weak you will have a rough time and even die.? It is not nice.? I had to get used to shitting in an open bowl in front of other people.? Freedom to me would be privacy in the bathroom.? I had nothing, no freedom.? I couldn?t call anyone or vent to anyone.? It was total hell

T.S. How long were you in 23 hour lock-down

P.D. Well it goes by the length of your sentence, so I was in there for 4 months.

T.S. And for 23 hours what are you doing?

P.D. It is really weird, you just do whatever you have to do to get by.? You have to understand that this was a hole new experience and quite shocking for someone that had never been in any type of trouble his whole life.? My mind was just spinning.? You worry about everything on the outside while you have to deal with the? inside.? I was in a big depression and in total shock.? I didn?t eat and was in my worst health during those 4 months.? It took me a long time to accept the situation I was in.

T.S. Did you ever find yourself having suicidal thoughts?

P.D.? I had the thoughts, although I would never act on them.? I just kept asking why?? What did I do to deserve this?? I?ll tell you what happens, you start talking to God a lot, that is what you do!

T.S.? For those 23 hours are you sleeping for most of the time since you are depressed?

P.D. No, because it is rather loud in there.? You do all types of things to try and keep your mind occupied, that is the biggest thing you have to do because if you don?t you will go crazy.? Later on in my time when I was taken out of the 23 hour lock down I got a lot of letters from my fans which I am very grateful for.? They helped me get through the hell and I answered every single one of them. ?But even so, the day is very long in prison and even though I was reading letters and eventually books, my mind was not there.? It was very hard for me to focus.

T.S. So when you got out of the 23 hour lock-down what was it like

P.D. Well I had a mandatory sentence, so I had to stay in the prison the whole time.? I couldn?t leave to go on work groups or anything.? I had to serve every second of my time behind those walls.? After the Maximum lockdown I was moved into a Minimum where I shared a room with 4 guys, but there really is nothing minimum about it.? In prison they take away everything in the beginning and then as time goes on they will give a little back to you if they feel you deserve it.? My first 4 days in prison I didn?t even have a pillow.? A fucking pillow was a luxury.? This was a state facility.

T.S.? What was the hardest part for you?

P.D. Understanding that I once had a life outside of prison and that everything that I had on the outside was fucking done!

Well?.that?s all for now?pretty heavy stuff to digest, so read and re-read and look for the second part and complete interview in the second issue of GEAR U.Z.R. 2 which will be released at the 2001 Arnold Classic.? Which is also where you can meet Paul ?Quadzilla? DeMayo at the Nuclear Nutrition booth.