Dave Palumbo: I’ve gotta ask you this question because if I don’t I gonna get crucified. Why is there no women’s bodybuilding at these Europa shows this year? Your wife - everyone knows Betty Pariso - is a female bodybuilder.
Ed Pariso: First thing is, we don’t have the 202 (weight class) in Orlando and we don’t have women’s bodybuilding. When we created the show we never intended it to be...you have to take baby steps...we never planned to have women’s bodybuilding, at least the first year.The Dallas show? We had problems in that that show has always cost us money as far as women’s bodybuilding goes. We try to let all events pay for its own event. Usually one vendor will pick something they want to sponsor, and we always paid for that women’s bodybuilding event, women’s bodybuilding, out of our pockets for 5 years. And you know, this last year we really felt that some of the women were great to us and some of them I didn’t think appreciated it, and one day we woke up and said ‘Why are spending ten to twelve thousand dollars out of our bank account – that was coming out of our pocket and we been doing that for 5 years – to support a sport that I felt like was kind of missing the boat?’ about what Betty has done for women’s bodybuilding.She’s the rep but she doesn’t have to put on a (pro women’s bodybuilding) show. If you’re not doing it for the money, you’re at least doing it for a little bit of a thank you, and that’s what we really didn’t feel like we got. After the Dallas show (in 2008) we had a lot of problems in the show itself.
Dave: What kind of problems Ed?
Ed: Well we wrote a letter to all the women after the fact, you know we wrote a letter, it’s all been stated, it was all over the Internet. We had some miscommunication they say, which is okay, but we also had trophies for the women after the show, nobody showed up. The men showed up. We gave away best poser...we gave away ten trophies for the women bodybuilders and ten trophies for the men, ten trophies for the fitness and figure...and the ten trophies for the women bodybuilders were still standing there when the show was over. There was a lot of things like that that went on. We had a big opening at the show, when the show started. If you remember, we had all the women on stage, all the men on stage – and we had 3 women bodybuilders. So we were frustrated and to be honest we just felt like – hey if you’re not going to support us this one night... A couple of them did, a couple of them apologized. That being said, I just couldn’t do it this year. It’s coming out of my pocket and I felt like it was time for us to say “If you guys don’t get it, we do .” If you can’t support the one (show) that has really, really supported women’s bodybuilding over the 5 years, then let someone else do women’s bodybuilding. You know, we love it – I still love women’s bodybuilding today - but I’m gonna let Jim Gardner or you guys (MD) or the New York Show...you guys try it. We didn’t get any thank you’s.
Dave: So, non-cooperation basically.
Ed: We’ve always said that there’s a few that get it and there’s a lot that don’t. And that’s been frustrating because what I feel like is when you’re on the bottom of the totem pole, which in some ways that is women’s bodybuilding...I can remember with Jan Tana and supporting some of the promoters, when Jan Tana had a women’s bodybuilding show, we went out of our ways to help her and see what we can do and write thank you’s. And Betty was the first to lobby for things for women’s bodybuilding. So this year we’re going to try it with out it (pro FBBing). 50 to 60% was a financial reason and the other part of it was we didn’t feel like people didn’t get it with us. So we’re going to move on and support some of the other shows.And the thing about it is we’ll continually support women’s bodybuilding, because we’re going from one women’s bodybuilding NPC show to three. So Betty and I have decided to continue to support women’s bodybuilding, we’re just going to do it at the amateur level.
Dave: Costs a lot less too.
Ed: People really don’t realize that we cut a check for $10,000 out of our pocket for 5 years, which is $50,000. That’s kinda hard. And it was a lot easier when we were getting lots of e-mails and thank you's and then all of a sudden we didn’t.
Read The Full Interview and Responses Here:
Ed Pariso on the dropping of pro FBBing at the Europa
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