Never Enough

"You are ninth grade and you have the reading skills of a fourth grader."

"You will probably never graduate from high school."

"You don't have what it takes to get on the board."


The first two statements were from Mark Bell’s teacher/counselor. He replied by telling her, "You will be never be anything more then a bad teacher.” Now he owns his own successful private training center and is living the life of his dreams.

As for the third statement – made by Louie Simmons years ago - Mark stepped up and made a 782 bench this weekend that would have put him on the board had he not moved back to California to start his own business.

In Mark’s own words:

"Anytime anything like that has happened to me, I view it as giving me bullets. I have a lot of bullets in this gun nowadays, and I have a lot of people to gun down. When something shitty happens, I say to myself, “That's a good one. Thank you. Now I have more ammo, motherfucker."


Here is one more example lifted from Mark's interview here at EliteFTS.

I started lifting because of one person. His name was Joe Garlup. Joe was a true eighties dirt-dog, rocking a sick mullet, ass-tight acid washed jeans and a yellowish wife beater that was supposed to be white. Joe smoked cigarettes, had a mustache, got into fights and banged chicks like it was his job.
The funny thing was that he was only fifteen or sixteen years old.

One day, I was playing football by myself at a local park. That’s right - by myself! I was just tossing my cheap Jets football up in the air over and over and over again. Then I heard, “Hey, kid. Let me see that ball.” I turned around, and there was Joe Garlup wearing a wife beater when it was probably twenty or thirty degrees outside.

Joe would do anything to show off his ripped guns. I looked at him and said, “Nah. I’m about to head home.” I knew Joe was a prick, so I thought he would try to steal the ball or something. He said, “Come on. I want to chuck the ball around with ya.” I said, “Really?” He replied, “Yeah, I’m bored.” So I threw him the ball. Joe caught it and said, “This is a nice ball.” He held it up to eye level, took a few steps and kicked it as hard as he possibly could.

The ball went deep into the woods, never to be seen again. Joe laughed and peeled out on his BMX bike. I yelled at him as he sped off. Like I said earlier, Joe was much older and stronger then me. So I decided if I trained for it, I would be able to whoop his ass. Later that night, I started lifting weights and asking my older brothers how to get bigger and stronger.

As the weeks and months went by, I got stronger and stronger. I thought to myself, “I can’t wait to run into that son of a bitch.” Years went by, and still at the heart of every rep, every set, and every workout, I wanted to beat the crap out of Joe Garlup.

One night I decided to hit a football party with some friends, and wouldn’t you know it, there was big, bad Joe Garlup weighing a rugged 175 lbs. I looked at him and thought to myself, “God, he looks small.” Maybe I thought that because at the time I was sixteen years old and weighed 240 lbs.

I ran right at him and tackled his skinny ass to the ground. The fight was broken up before any real damage could be done. I yelled at him, asking, “Remember me?” He looked at me funny and said, “No!” I asked him if he had my football. His eyes lit up, and he said, “Oh shit!” I calmed down for a bit. His friends kept coming up to me and telling me that he wanted to say he was sorry. I decided I’d talk to him. I shook his hand with my left hand and smashed him in the face with my right hand. I knocked him out cold. It was kind of scary because he still wasn’t up when I left ten minutes later.

So that’s my lifting story. Sorry it was so long, but I thought some would get a kick out of that.

Things you may not know

I put Mark "Jackass" Bell on the Q&A back in 2003 strictly to mess with Bob and Jim. I wanted a clown on the Q&A for comedic purposes, so I dubbed him with the sobriquet "Jackass.” I made a few posts about it, then realized there was no way I’d be able to keep it updated with all the other stuff I had going on. Mark had just moved to Columbus and I figured, since he was a pro wrestler, that he was perfect for my purposes.

This ended up working too well. Everyone on the Q&A got pissed at me. Actually, Mark was even beginning to piss me off with some of his posts. I knew I had to change something before it got out of hand. I realized I had a problem because Mark was already there and I didn’t want to pull him down. I also knew Mark's passion for training and his conditioning level were both insane. He wanted to get back into Powerlifting, and I thought it would be cool to watch and see how he progressed.

I made the call and told Mark to post like the rest of the guys – to just track his training and keep people up to date with his progress. One caveat remained, however: the name Jackass would have to stay because he did not have his Elite.

After the change was made, I received countless emails and Q&A posts asking what he was doing on the Q&A....

"What the hell, Dave? I thought you had to be a real lifter to be on the Q and A!”

"Who is this Jackass dude? He can't even bench 500 pounds!"

"EliteFTS has now sold out and is going downhill. Check out this Jackass guy’s workouts!"

"Dave, you are making a huge mistake by putting Jackass's training logs up."

At first, I would get ten of these a day, but in time they stopped. I guess people eventually realized I was standing behind my decision.

I tried to delete these from the database as fast as I could, but I know Mark had to see many of them.

This was just more fuel for the fire....

The Point

So why am I posting this now?

I got this email from Mark before he left for the meet last weekend...

"Louie told me years ago I did not have what it takes to get on the board. Well, the 308 record is 780 and I would love to break it."

That weekend Mark benched 782!

You need to understand that Mark has GREAT respect for Louie. He moved to Columbus to train at Westside, and still speaks to Louie just about every week.

I know it had to kill Mark when Louie said what he did, but instead of tucking it between his legs, he started stroking with all he had just to prove him wrong.

Louie says this stuff all the time, but only he knows whether it’s said to DRIVE someone or to tear them down. Whatever the reason is does NOT matter. What matters is what the person does with it.

Look at Mark’s past and see what he has done. Ask yourself if you’re doing the same. Mark had been told his entire life that he was stupid and not good enough.

Mark wanted to be a professional wrestler. People told him this was a waste of time, so what did he do?

He put his life on hold so he could live that dream, and he DID.

He was told he was not good enough to amount to anything, so what did he do?

Now he own his own training center making a living doing what he loves.

He was torn apart for not being good enough to be a part of the Q&A, so what did he do?

He blew past these people and now they’re asking for his advice

Ever wonder why the name of his DVD is Never Enough?

Now you know.

UPDATE:
Louie was just out and told me the new gym record is 785, so Mark still would not have made it on the board. Louie also wanted me to pass along to Mark that he's a two-time loser and does not have what it takes to get on the board.

I guess more fuel for the fire....

,
Dave Tate