[quote]frankjl wrote:
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
He was accused of using a blast shirt under two t-shirts (most definitely used to conceal said blast shirt) to bench in the raw division at a supertraining meet a while back. It seemed to have been an issue that naturally fizzled out, but to denounce his own squat later in light of all of this would be a smart move by him.
If you read The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, you’ll notice Lily used one of the EXACT ideas in the books; Build a reputation of being righteous and truthful in the eyes of the public, so you can lie and deceive when you get the chance.[/quote]
I don’t know if you’ve ever spoken to Brandon, but I don’t think he would be familiar with that particular book. He’s a pretty clever guy, but having been around him he is pretty (brutally) honest and typically says what he thinks. I can’t imagine him saying things like that to put himself in a position of righteousness. And I certainly don’t think he is political enough to read that book and plan it out like that.
That being said, do you think he had a shirt on at that meet? I’ve seen the video, and while it looks bad I can’t see how that could happen. Nobody saw him put it on in the warmup room? Nobody questioned him at the meet? Those blast shirts aren’t easy to get on either. He’s since gone to hit larger numbers in a tank top – probably to remove all doubt.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
In PL terms, that translates into the following: “In the light of all these atrociously high squats being passed in todays PL meets, I’ll be the bigger man and publicly denounce one of my questionably high squats so I can get away with pulling shit like using gear in a raw division.”
[/quote]
Maybe? But I don’t see it. Like I said, he’s gone to hit bigger benches in recent meets.[/quote]
I haven’t directly spoken to Brandon, but as someone who trains at ST and is present for nearly every meet, I’ve overheard numerous conversations with him. I’d agree with you that he’s pretty brutally honest, I’d agree with you that he’s not exactly ‘political’, and I’d agree with you that he’s never read that book, but some people have innate abilities to figure this shit out. I mean, that ‘law’ that I posted above isn’t exactly rocket scientist. (I doubt all of the powerful people before that book was published hadn’t read it either, and they seemed to have figured it out 
)
As for whether or not I think he had a blast shirt on…
Not only was I at the meet, I was one of the side-spotters for his benches, and I didn’t think he had a blast shirt on - merely because it hadn’t crossed my mind to look out for one and as a side spotter, you’re looking for downward movement of the bar, not some dudes bare triceps.
THAT said, in the few days after, after I saw some of the photos from a high quality camera of the lifters of the meet (that WEREN’T passed around online), I do think he had a blast shirt on. But that’s just me.
It’s bullshit because, like you asked… No one questioned him at the meet because no one suspected it of him. His bar path looked a little weird, but certainly nothing like that of one in a [real] bench shirt, so it didn’t seem suspicious. As for the ‘no one saw him in the warm up room’ thing… It was one of those “oooh yeah, he did seem to disappear for a minute” piecing-things-together-in-hindsight sorta thing, not something you’d notice in the moment.
(Of course, navid said he saw him, so I’m not entirely sure - like I said, it’s fucking powerlifting and I don’t give nearly enough of a shit to pay this much detail to anything even remotely related to it). I even overheard someone (however, a random lifter, not anyone I knew by name or character - so I’d take the comments validity with a grain of salt) comment that it looked like he had faint bite marks on his arms (which, as you know, the blast shirt would have to be loose to leave FAINT bite marks - which would also solve the “they’re hard to put on” aspect.)
It’s just bullshit, in my opinion, because I think if there was suspicion of foul play at that meet, someone would have called him on it. You can’t call someone on something and expect to prove something days after the fact. I’ve known mark for almost 5 years and I consider him to be a legitimately good guy who puts on a legit meet - I truly don’t think he or anyone else at ST would let that sort of shit fly. Well, maybe Cara. She’s a total cunt.
As for Brandon and your opinion of him not putting himself in a position of righteousness, did you happen to read the obnoxious post from him talking about how he hates that people aren’t getting stronger and are just putting on tighter/better gear to put up big numbers? It sure as shit sounded holier than thou/righteous, to me. I have no idea where one would find said rant, though, maybe on his FB? It’s like the whole tattoo thing. The difference between people with tattoos and people without tattoos is that people with tattoos don’t talk shit about without them. Similarly, despite the fact that there’s TONS of hating on geared lifters, geared lifters don’t seem to give much of a shit about raw lifters.
ALL of that said, I didn’t mean to turn this thread into a hate on Brandon thread. He’s strong as fuck and as far as this issue is related, has gone on to bench bigger numbers in a tank top to prove he’s strong enough to have made that bench. Fine. I just think it’s pretty obvious - from this thread alone - that there’s some pretty sheisty shit that goes on in PL.
I’m not gonna say anymore in this thread, though, and keep in mind that this is all just, you know, my opinion, man.
