PART III MIKE TYSON: THE MAFIA, CUS D’AMATO & VIDEO BONUS!
February 9th, 2012 By Pedro Fernandez
MORE ON THE SAGA OF MIKE TYSON
San Francisco, CA- Having done a ton of research in my time, Mike Tyson was probably one of the easiest subjects to write an expose on. When I first met Mike Tyson, he was 17-years old, a ghetto urchin who had been rescued when Cus D’Amato, a trainer who became prominent when he signed Floyd Patterson after the future two-time heavyweight champion had won the 1952 Olympics at 165 lbs. D’Amato, a man whose sexual preferences appeared to be Gay, stood up against the Mafia and refused to fight fighters connected to Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo.
Frankie "Mr. Gray" Carbo
MOB & MADISON SQUARE GARDEN RAN BOXING
Palermo and Carbo ran boxing with an iron fist from the 1940s until US Attorney General Robert Kennedy shut their operation down in the early 1960s. Carbo, a member of the Lucchese crime family, was charged with eight murders, which resulted only in only one conviction, that for manslaughter after snuffing out a cab driver who refused to pay “protection money” to Carbo in 1931. For that, Frankie got less than two years in the slammer.
CUS WOULD NOT DEAL WITH MR. GRAY
When fighters or their managers got a call from Carbo, he used the alias “Mr. Gray.” Frankie would tell them how their upcoming fight would end. If they did not comply with Mr. Gray’s directive, they would either end up maimed or in some instances dead. Cus, knowing that Al Weill, the manager of Patterson’s heavyweight champion predecessor Rocky Marciano had kept his fighter out
of the Mob’s control, Cus fed Patterson a number of non-entities, all the while top contenders like Eddie Machen and Zora Foley that were not connected, were flat out ducked. The ever-so feared Sonny Liston, who would eventually beat Patterson twice with one round knockouts, was a Mob controlled fighter that D’Amato avoided until public ridicule compelled Patterson to go against Cus and fight Liston.
CUS HAD ONE LAST SHOT WITH TYSON
D’Amato, realizing he had a potential heavyweight champion when Tyson was just a teenager, kept Tyson’s name out of the police blotters, even though he had committed heinous acts that included an alleged attempted sexual assault on the sister of his then trainer and now ESPN 2 analyst Teddy Atlas. Cus didn’t give a spit as to what Tyson did, he was willing to pay people off as he was just an old man trying to recapture glory one more time. When he died in November 1985 at 77, Cus’ dream of seeing Tyson win the title died with him as Mike wouldn’t win the WBC title from Trevor Berbick until one year later in November 1986.
THIS STORY HAS EVOLVED INTO A FIVE-PARTER
Originally, I expected Part III to take us from the loss to Buster Douglas in 1990 to his wrongful (in my opinion) conviction of raping Desiree Washington in 1992. But after realizing that I needed to go deeper into Tyson mentor Cus D’Amato, the next installment with take us from 1990 to 1992. While some writers have their work all laid out in advance, I thought I had done so until I realized that I had to go deeper into the man who discovered Mike Tyson, Cus D’Amato. I have the next chapter already written, but I felt that I had missed something, thus I put that on hold and went with this piece with D’Amato being the centerpiece.
HERE’S A VIDEO OF A VERY YOUNG TYSON & CUS D’AMATO
Pedro Fernandez
GOOD MAWNING PEDRO ! WOW 1 A VERY INFORMATIVE ARTICLES…DA WHOLE SERIES ! YES…IT IS ALL TRUE…DA TENTICLES..REACHED FAH INTO BOXING…SHIT…. FRANKIE & BLINKY HAD MIKE NORRIS..OUTTA NY…YAH NAME A FIGHTER..ANY MANAGER WHO WAS A “HEADLINER’..A FRINGE GUY…DA UP& COMER..EVEN DA “HAM & EGGER”…A CARD FILLER ..AN “OPPONENT”…WHATEVAH CATEGORY YAH PLACING ..IF IT WAS “BOXING’ THEY HAD DA “RIGHT GUY UNDER DA CUFF”…. HAA..YAH OL DON KING..HE ‘MONOPOLIZED YAH” WITH ‘PAPERWORK..BLACKBALLIN…NOT THESE GENTS….. STRAIGHT UP…OR YAH KNEW WHAT IT WAS..WHAT WAS COMING…. HA..OL CUS DA AMATO…GAY..AND ALL..NO DISRESPECT..HE KNEW DA SCORE….YAH HE DID… THATS WHY HE STAYED ‘EXILED’ UPSTAE IN THEM CATSKILLS…MAKING CURTAIN CALLS IN TOWN OCCASIONALLY….IN DA CITY..I AINT SAYING CUS WAS A BAD MAN..TAH DA CONTRARY…A GOOD MAN…BUT JUST NO MATCH FOR THOSE FELLAS THERE. GREAT WORK…MAN , IM GONNA KEEP UP WITH WHAT YAH GOT GOING ON…ITS GREAT ! WOOOO !…IM MIKE GOMES… PS…IF YAH WANNA USE THIS IN ANY CAPACITY..YOU MAY SIR..GREAT REPORTING TAH SAY DA LEAST,YES. MG.
Great clip. Sometimes human beings can be the best things on the planet and sometimes they can be the biggest pieces of shit ever. Mike Tyson’s story is a great encapsulation of that (btw, not excusing Tyson if he did everything that they say, but I still question the sincerity of Desiree Washington’s claim and the impartiality of the judge in the case). Again, I’m not excusing rape at all, but I have questions.
Thanks Pedro, your your young readers need to know more about the history of our arm pit sport. That being said, I’m not sure if current situation in boxing is not worse than the mafia days. It certainly is not better.
I mean no disrespect Master P. But what is it with u and the gay ish. I really could care less as to who is gay or not. And what relevance does it have to the story. You don’t say Holyfield former champ who is by the way heterosexual?? Even with DLH wearing panties so what. If I was worth over 150 Millie I’d be gay too (happy) gay!!! But hey to each his own if he isn’t hurting anybody then live and let live. And u being out in CA I’d expected u peeps to be more tolerant??
@pedro,
Do these MOB controlled fights still exist nowadays? Whose fight were controlled?
Great article and series Pedro.
Tom
I take no offense for your comment. I didn’t make a big deal about it, I mentioned it and put a ? afater it. If you don’t like you can do two things Mr. Rios. Don’t read the site or go take a leaping………….you fill in the blanks. If you like wearing women’s panties, as you seem to indicate, you need not tell us!
Look up the history of Blinky, Frankie, Mr. Norris of Madison Square Garden. They don’t need a mob, they have one promoter that continues to put his fighters in with inferior foes. That is today’s version of the MOB.
Well put Jim.
I will get into the Desiree Washington bull s*it on MMonday withj Part IV. Thanks!
No prob. Thanks.
Tyson may have done as much to put his ass in the slammer in the courtroom as anything he did in the hotel room.
Word is that while on the witness stand, he acted the part of the “above you peasants” arrogant “Do you know who I am?” jock-jerk… The people in the jury were disgusted by his behavior which would in turn both make Washington look a lot more sympathetic and Tyson a lot more despicable.
OBVIOUSLY Tyson wasn’t coached on how to behave on the stand by his attorney.
Pedro,
With the Penn State scandle that broke a couple of months ago and you hinting at, in this series, Cus D’Amato’s and Jimmy Jacob’s sexual preferance, I have a question to ask you and I hope you don’t think I’m being off topic. It happened over a decade ago 2000 I believe it was. I remember well because of the “over the top” accusations. It was on the Secondsout.com message board, I think.
There was a poster who went by the name “Everlast”. He claimed to have been a top amatuer back in the day, had some family in the boxing buisness, and was pretty much a boxing insider. I think he said he was from the DC area and a few posters acually met up with him in person and said he was the real deal. I remember alot of the things he said were spot on. One of many things he posted was that before the Lennox Lewis vs Rahman fight was to bet the house on Hasim because lennox was out of shape. He posted alot of stuff like that all the time but later it turned out that he was right!
Then one day he dropped a BOMB! He wrote that Cus D’Amato’s home for troubled youth was just a cover to molest boys(sound familiar to Jerry Sandusky? And remember this was around 2000). And that Jimmy Jacobs was basicly over the top gay. He claimed Jacobs actually died from AIDS and they buried him quickly to cover up the fact. He claimed that boxing insiders talk about it all the time but no one ever says anything publicly because, he guessed, that Cus was not around to defend himself.
Pedro, you have broke alot of big stories over your career. You have what our brothers to the south call a big set of ‘cajones’. Any truth to this?
I can’t speak for the claim but I know it has been said (by this guy and others)… Funny thing that the name ‘Everlast’ was mentioned. I remember the guy well. I was the SecondsOut board administrator! — LOL
I had off board contact with him and if memory serves, I KNOW who the guy is. And if he is who I think he is, YES, the guy was on the inside BIG TIME! — If he is the guy I’m thinking of, he is the one I mailed off Joe Frazier’s signed business card to. A gift for his son.
I won’t mention his name here but if Pedro wants to know who it is, he knows how to get in touch with me… I’m not certain I know who it is, but I’m pretty damn sure.
Hey David, what was your handle there?
Look, all I said was Cus & Jim Jacobs shared a studio apt. in NYC. Jim had gay tendencies, I felt.
Jack Dunne,
I went by Heavy Concrete. I did not post that much because of my slow typing skills. I remember the poster Everlast because he was quite the character and really knew his boxing.
David,
Don’t remember you. Everlast WAS a unique character (and I’m sure still is). He was not your typical poster, he was a professional in the business. I’m not going to disclose who the guy was because if he wanted it posted, my guess is that he would do what I do and just use his real name.
I do know for a fact that he showed up at some of these message board gatherings and that people were shocked to find out who he was. If I am not mistaken, he sparred with Chi-Town Slugger (see if you can remember that name…lol) someone else in the business, Chi is a trainer at one of these gatherings.
Jack,
Didn’t think that you would remember me, like I said, I didn’t post much and it was a LONG time ago.
The main point of my first post was not who Everlast was, it was, do the Cus Di Amato child molestation accusations have any truth. I know you used to write for secondsout.com and this site. I’m guessing that you know a lot of boxing insiders as well. The other people you heard this claim from, were they credible?
I always tried to just tell the truth. Just because you hear something, doesn’t make it true. I have no knowledge of this to be true, I have no reason to believe this is true. I was never there and have no first hand knowledge and have no idea where the people who have made the claim got their info.
I just know I heard the claim from someone who wasn’t reckless and someone who was an elite professional in the business (which is who Everlast was). He may be dead wrong, may have gotten his info from a liar, someone with an axe to grind. Who knows?
I do know this, I would never make a charge like that unless I had PROOF. And if I had proof, I wouldn’t post it on a message board. If I had honest to God proof or knew people who were victims of something like this. You are out of your mind if you think I would be covering it from a journalistic angle… I would have turned every damn thing I knew about the situation over to law enforcement. People’s passing be damned!!!
Beyond every other reason you can think of regarding this rumor… The famed house D’Amato ran that gym / boxers YMCA out of. The place is next door to the Police Station! — You wouldn’t think a child perv would pick THAT location!
The acts themselves, I KNOW that ANYTHING is possible when you are dealing with a child predator. Nothing is too far over the top and no child alive is equipped to deal with these creatures.
We studied these things like lab-rats when I was perusing a degree in law enforcement. I worked next door to freaking Scott Martin Williams for two years! – Williams is just as sick as Richard Allen Davis (of Polly Klass infamy). In fact, he did the exact same thing Davis did and one upped the SOB by going on local news, leading the charge “Local Church Decon leads effort to find missing girl”.
Scott Martin Williams would be just as infamous as Davis is today except for one thing… He was arrested on the exact same day as Ramon Salcido!
Why do I bring Williams up? The morning of the day he was arrested, the girl’s body was found (she was raped) and he asked me if I heard about the find. I looked him dead in the eye from two feet away while pointing my finger at him and said “Yeah, I heard and I hope they F–King catch the Mother F–Ker and F–King KILL HIM!” — Said that right to his face and he didn’t even flinch, didn’t even blink. It was like I a asked him if he could make change for a dollar.
Point of that story… I KNOW what child predators are capable of. I’ve stared that demon right in the eyes and looked right into their soul… They don’t have one… They will say, do or manipulate a defenseless child to do anything. Any child, even a rugged one. If they can get to Sugar Ray Leonard, they can get to anyone if the circumstance is right. Look at what Ken Parnell did to Steven Stayner. Anything is possible when you are talking about these animals, even the claim Everlast made.
… But just because something is possible, doesn’t make it fact and until facts are presented and people come forward… I can’t buy in to the claim Everlast made. A claim like that; you have to do better than post it on a message board.
WOW! Thanks for the reply! Wasn’t expecting a sequel to “War and Peace”, but thanks.
Look, I think, as you do, that child molesters are low life scum. But you didn’t answer my question “were the other people you heard this claim, credible?”
I do not know who “Everlast” is and have never met him in person, but from what the posters who met him, at Secondsout.com, said he WAS legit! YOU VERIFIED that in your posts. It’s not like I’m asking you to name names, I’m just wondering if those people you heard the D’Amato molester rumours were legit!
As far as D’Amato running his place next to a police station? You would think Jerry Sandusky, after being caught in the shower with a little boy in 1998, would do the same thing in 2002!
If you are going to make a claim like that, you better be bringing more to the table than some rumors posted under a false name on a message board.
I told you what I would do with any real info I had… Do you think I’m legit?
If you do think I’m legit, you should know what I think about the legitimacy of people who did nothing more than echo rumors on message boards.
David,
And FYI. My resume goes a lot deeper than S.O. In fact, they are such a small blip on my radar, I don’t even include them in my resume-lol… I got around the block a bit.
Are there things I know of that I didn’t put into article but have noted on message boards? You Bet! Are there stories above and beyond that? You Bet! Is there a lot of crazy stuff out there that gets talked about and never hits print for a lot of reasons (think lawsuits)? YOU BET!
Are they all true? — YEAH! – Pretty Much! At least it seemed that way … lol
But not this sort of thing… This is just a different area with a completely different set of rules.