BOSTON -- For the first time since he was fired from the Boston Fire Department for filing for disability while participating in a bodybuilding competition, Albert Arroyo spoke publicly in his own defense, saying he suffers "extreme" pain from his injury.

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Arroyo, 46, talked during an hour-long interview on Boston's WTKK-AM radio Sunday about losing his job as a fire inspector.

Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser and two other members of a review panel decided not to give Arroyo his job back after reviewing new medical documents submitted by Arroyo's attorney last week.

"I signed up to be a fireman and that's what I always wanted to do. I was born in the city of Boston and what better (way) to serve the city (than) as a firefighter," Arroyo said during the interview with host Jimmy Myers.

Both acknowledged that Myers has been a friend of Arroyo's for 20 years.

Arroyo talked about the controversy that sparked months of negative publicity after a video of him competing in a bodybuilding contest was released even as he applied for disability.

He said he suffered an unwitnessed injury in March after 22 years on the job and applied for permanent disability. In May, six weeks later, he was videotaped in the competition.

The video shows a very muscular and athletic-looking Arroyo flexing his muscles on a stage wearing a small Speedo-style bathing suit. He said he wasn't sorry he performed in the video.

"Well, not in a way. I mean ... like I tell you, I used it for encouragement and motivation. That's all I did it for. It's part of my work exercise that I was doing," Arroyo said.

Arroyo said he injured his back on the job in 2000 and used bodybuilding as a way to avoid surgery. He said he only lifts 30 pound weights at any given time and his case has been misunderstood by the public.

"They don't know my pain since 2000, that's for sure. And uh, they don't know who I am and how I've been dealing with this all my career on the fire department," he said.

Arroyo has claimed he's no longer able to work in his position as an $80,000-a-year fire inspector because he's unable to walk up the four-to-10 flights of stairs per building which that job requires.

On Thursday, the fire commissioner denied his appeal to stay on the Boston Fire Department payroll. Arroyo had been ordered back to work as an inspector last month after the videotape was released, but he failed to show up for the job.

The commissioner then gave him an opportunity to produce additional medical evidence that he could no longer work, but the appeal panel decided last week that the additional documentation did not warrant Arroyo's reinstatement to the job.

"I feel betrayed, in a way, after all these years," Arroyo said.

He said he'll appeal next to the Civil Service Commission and, if that fails, he will make appeals through the firefighters' union.