Back in the mid 90's there was this guy at my gym that wore a vertically striped wrestling outfit, like right out of WWE. He was big enough to be one of those guys. He had his "little buddy" wearing the same thing. The little guy reminded me of the midget rich guy that hired the Bandit to do the Coors run in Smokey and the Bandit. One day the little guy jumps on the bigger guy's back and the bigger guy starts doing squats in front of the mirror while grunting so loud you could probably hear it outside. It was crazy. I'm standing there saying to myself out loud "what on earth am I looking at".
Another guy that was maybe 5'2" with a big barrel chest was doing bench and bouncing the bar off his chest so hard I'm pretty sure he broke some ribs. We got it off him pretty quick, but like the guy in the OP's story.....he wasn't doing well.
There was a time back in those days when most of the girls there wore the spandex pants with a really tight thong over them. I haven't been in a public gym in years, so not sure if that's still a thing or not.