Was Cus D Amato the ultimate trainer in boxing history?Or were there others?

Read Tysons book recently.... Twice . Still trying to figure out if Cus was good for Mike. My impression is that Eddie Futch would have better. My opinion. BY the way ------ forgetting the name. A must read boxing memoir. Spares no punches

 

Patterson was highly skilled using the peek a boo.

 

Patterson was neber trained by Cus himself!Cus was just his mentor and menager while Patterson had two black trainers who worked with him and he became very good with them not because Cus was his mentor!

 

Very overrated trainer!
He trained two weakest champions!
He was guy who just talk and had in his head his stupid belives!You could not talk with him because when he got something in his head he only thing that is true even if you try to tell him something else!
Not to mention his mob connections,protecting fighters and was not good trainer himself!
These days Yank Durham,Charlie Goldman,Archie Moore,Stewart,Arcel,Dundee,Futch,Bimstein,Blackburn...are very underrated evem knowing they were better than Cus!

 

Eddie Futch has no peer,imo.

 

Can you point me to sources to discuss

Can you point me to any sources discussing D’Amato’s connection?

 

That was after the fact. Yancy molded him into what he was. Futch came on board yrs later and did some fine tuning Benton was Futch's apprentice. Almost 4got Yank had Gypsy Joe Harris too.

 

Trainers like George Washington and Mack Lewis are the type you don't hear much about except from their fighters and other trainers. They are trainers who taught a lot of big names their fundamentals. Washington had lots of the Brownsville fighters, Lewis had a hand in most of the good ones from Baltimore. Lots of cities have trainers similar to them. If you asked a lot of fighters and trainers about them they would rank them with or above the big name trainers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/nyregion/17washington.html
https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bs-xpm-2010-11-13-bs-sp-mack-obit-1112-20101113-story.html

 

Cus was probably a better manager than trainer.
Freddie Brown was a cut man. He is also the guy that taught Duran. He did all the every day nuts and bolts building, Arcel came in before fights to strategize and work the corner.
You would be surprised how many "name" trainers only show up to learn the fight plan and work the corner. Some guy you don't even know exists did the work.
And, as PatM said, there are many guys that create top fighters and lose out because they don't have the connections or because the guy putting up the money doesn't know their name.

 

This.

 

Futch is credited with giving Frazier a right hand.

 

Some called him a hero and a crusader bent on cleaning up the sport,while others, particularly the media, saw him as manipulative and power hungryand ,not much better than the scoundrels he was fighting.Whatever the truth, he was mostly successful in his campaign and the IBC was ultimately deposed.
Although prevailing in this fight, he suffered personally by retreating into paranoia. Cus’ involvement in behind-the-scenes maneuvering with an eye towards improving his own fighters’ lot landed him in hot water with the New York State Commission ,which not only accused him of trying to control the heavyweight scene,but also made pointed references to his assocation with Charlie Antonucci, a known associate of the mobster Tony Salerno. From 1959 he never worked a corner for any of his fighters,not even holding a manager’s license,as a result of the botched promotion of the Patterson-Johansson fight, because of his assumed association with Salerno.It was never proved that Salerno was Cus’ money man but many people in boxing were eager for D’amato to be humiliated.
When Cus failed to appear before the commission,claiming his absence a matter of principle,his manager’s license was suspended and ultimately revoked. Cus carried on training.
“I must keep my enemies confused," he said."When they are confused, I can do a job for my fighters.What I do not want in life is a sense of security;the moment a person knows security his senses are dulled-and he begins to die.I Also do not want many pleasures in life;I believe the more pleasure you get out of living,the more fear you have of dying.”

 

I think Cus gets a lot of publicity and mystique because of the Tyson connected and Tyson is also one of those fighters that has grown to mythical heights. He still has an aggressive publicity machine around him and so many fans still. Cus is a part of that story and also, his death is used as an excuse for Tyson not being as good as people wanted.

Of course they’ll get less publicity because they didn’t speak English or train in NYC (or America for that matter), but Nacho Beristain and Cuyo Hernandez are two of the best teachers and mentors ever. They’d manage and train children into great fighters and they also helped mold younger trainers who went on to have success. I think they are definitely more accomplished than D’Amato.