I’m back on the Fantom Podcast, live from Ultimate Fitness, and this one’s a proper bucket-list chat for me — I sat down with one of my all-time favourites, “Mr Sugar” Shawn Ray. We get into his Arnold Classic history (and yeah, he corrected it), how he’s still moving around expos getting stopped by fans, and why he’s embraced the whole influencer/YouTube era instead of moaning about it. Shawn’s big on telling the truth — constructive criticism, not personal attacks — and he explains why being honest is polarising in a world where everything’s plastic. We also go deep on the business side: Shawn’s involvement with Mutant, how they stepped up as Arnold Classic sponsor during the chaos, and why having real fans running companies (like Jim McMahon, Jake Wood) changes the sport. Then we get into the hardcore stuff I love — training mentality, why Shawn lived for the prep more than the show, and how he used to try to drown training partners like Flex Wheeler in the “deep end” just to make himself better. Finally, Shawn breaks down why he only cared about winning the Olympia, how he managed his body post-career, and what the WBF got wrong with guaranteed money and taking ownership away from athletes.