Who else did Cus D’Amato train?

We all know about Tyson (although Cus was already in declining health — Teddy Atlas trained Mike as an amateur and Kevin Rooney through the earlier part of his pro career), Floyd Patterson (technically Cus was Floyd’s manager and Dan Florio was trainer) and Jose Torres.

Yet Cus opened a gym at age 22 in 1930 (and actually lived there for three years) and Tyson didn’t come along until basically five decades later.

Obviously, Cus had to have trained other fighters. So who were they? There seems to be scant mention.

I’ve seen a claim that D’Amato trained Burt Young, the actor who portrayed Paulie in the Rocky movies. It’s been said that Cus ‘discovered’ Rocky Graziano but this Rocky went pro with others. And he trained Teddy Atlas, who had planned to turn pro after his amateur career but was persuaded to instead make his mark as a trainer and handle amateur Tyson among others.

Surely there’s some fighters in the D’Amato stable whom I’m missing. Cus had to have trained others besides his three champions — he was in the game for a long time — but does anyone know who they were?

 

Good read. Thanks.

Just wish the author had asked, ‘So who else have you trained?’

It says in there Cus wants to have three world champions at once, which would surely imply that he’s handling two other fighters besides Floyd. Wish we know who they were. Is Torres one in this timeline? Who could the other be?

 

I do remember some stories of Wilfred living in the Catskills working with Cus (or at his gym). Something about when he left they found a bunch of towels in the closet that he used instead of toilet paper (eww) and just threw them in there.

I don’t recall the contest but in my head at least those were tales of a younger Wilfred but that doesn’t rule out him training for Hamsho there also.

 

Cus is a mythical figure, in that things are often attributed to him because he’s an intriguing Svengali type character who talks in Yoda-like riddles.

I’m sure he had a hand in guiding Rooney but Teddy Atlas trained him. You can see Teddy coming to the ring with him and in his corner vs. Arguello … no sign of Cus, who probably wasn’t physically able to do a lot of things at this time.

Likewise, as mentioned, perhaps Cus was a bit more active in Tyson’s early amateur days but it’s well documented that Teddy was his amateur trainer … the guy there every day teaching and taking Mike through workouts and working his corner. Teddy says at this point, Cus would come to the gym like one or two days a week and you get the idea that he wasn’t doing the hands-on training so much as overseeing and checking on Mike’s progress.

And of course Kevin Rooney was Mike’s trainer through the Spinks fight as a pro.

Florio was Patterson’s trainer and Cus was his manager. Not sure whether Cus was the hands-on guy with Torres or not.

I am not downplaying D’Amato’s influence over developing these guys but I’m not really getting a lot of solid affirmation that he was ever the day-to-day trainer and hands-on guy (including was he ever the head guy in the corner) of even the three fighters with whom we know he was associated.