The Six Annual All Star Seminar at Gold’s Gym East in Las Vegas last Sunday was one of the best we had! The line-up entailed 5 of the top 6 athletes from the Mr. Olympia Contest, all of which were very cordial and engaging with the standing room only crowd!

The seminar began with introduction of a Charitable Contribution to “Stronghold Ministries” and Pastor Mike with the help of good friend, Andy Steiner who flew in from Indiana to pray for the athletes before the contest. We were able to raise $2,500.00 extra in sponsorship money and with support from the Pro’s, we decided to donate the extra money to a worthy cause and Stronghold Ministries is more than worthy in the eyes of our athletes. These two guys fly around the country with the message of Jesus Christ and share the Good News with any athlete that will receive it. “The Free Gift” of knowing Jesus Christ is all they offer, as they opened the seminar up with a prayer and words of encouragement.

We then moved on to the Best Presentation Award of $10,000.00 to the athlete with the best routine of the night at the Mr. Olympia which was none other than Darrem Charles! Darrem rocked the house Saturday night and won the award unanimously from the judges and fellow Pro’s, who collectively have more than 20 years of Mr. Olympia Stage experience: 6 Time Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates, Flex Wheeler, Kevin Levrone, Milos Sarcev and myself! We along with most everyone in attendance chose Darrem over 18 other athletes due to his Choreography, Showmanship, Music, Fluidity and Transitions, not to mention he was highly overlooked and could have easily switched places with Gunter Schlierkamp!

Once these formalities were over with, the seminar charged ahead…..

Most everyone in the crowd jumped all over the “Challenge Round” some for it others like Dexter Jackson, despised it! Dexter was in 3^rd place before the challenge round but wound up finishing the show in 4^th place and losing approximately $10,000.00 in the process. Dexter was fuming throughout the seminar as he chewed on Kevin Levrone’ ear to no end! After beating up the issue of the judging and the new round, the fans posed some interesting questions to the athletes.

Ronnie was asked, “When are you going to retire?” Ronnie replied, “When God says it is time for me to do something else.”

Kevin was asked what he thought about the new guys and the format of the show to which he replied, “It is a step in the right direction, the idea of trying to bring in big name celebrities and Pay per View is allowing the athletes to be exposed to a wider audience which in turn will allow the athletes more opportunities to make more money for themselves.”

Markus replied to a fan who asked if he won the “Freakazoid Award” from Muscle Development and the $10,000.00 that went with it with one big SMILE!

Gunter answered questions and spoke of the way he became a bodybuilder and pursued his dream of becoming a pro and moving to the states and pursuing acting all of which he is doing while remaining in the top 6 of the Mr. Olympia for the 3^rd straight year!

Ronnie was in classic form as he spoke candidly about the Challenge Round, his competition in the future and the fact that he was denied the opportunity to address the fans after his victory to thank them and praise God.

Flex Wheeler, working on behalf of Muscular Development, was energetic after his first year with a new kidney announced he would be appearing at the Arnold Classic in K1 Fighting and would proudly display his new tattoos!

Jay Cutler was quite, cool and collected as he spoke of the busy year he had on the heels of a 3^rd Arnold Classic win with desires to get back to normal and skip the 2005 ASC in favor of focusing more on the Olympia next year!

Overall, everyone that attended the seminar walked away with something. We gave everyone who was in attendance a Free T-shirt from sponsor Bodybuilding.com as well as Bobblehead Dolls from another sponsor Muscle Bobble.com.

 Later we had a huge Raffle were everyone was allowed to participate in the winning’s-shirts, Posters, Videos, Gift Certificates and the Grand Prize of an “All Expense Paid Trip” to the Pro Ironaman Invitational in Pasadena, Ca. 2005!

I would like to thank once again all of our sponsors who made this seminar possible as well as the Best Presentation Award:

Crisis Event Management Services, Muscle & Fitness / Flex, Muscular Development, Pharmagenex, Muscle Mag. Int, Gerstner Inc., Kristie Ray Title, Love Productions, Body Rock Productions, Max Muscle, Pure Performance Nutrition, Gold’s Gym Las Vegas, Egg Whites International and Larry Pepe.

A special thank you to Mr. Travis Chapman from: www.californiafitnessreview.com for providing all the Bodybuilding & Fitness information anyone needs to know about the industry in California on his web site for the fans! I highly recommend a visit to that site, as it is just getting under way and has great promise!

See you guys next year!