Cus D’Amato’s Boxing Gym: 30 Years after the Founder’s Death Chapter I

By Simon “Simon Says” Traversy

Introduction

It was a rainy Saturday night coming back from Oneonta, located in Upstate, New York. Jamie Potter, the co-author of the autobiographical book “MEET MARVIS FRAZIER”, the life of the son of the legendary Smokin’ Joe Frazier, was hosting a show to inaugurate the audio version of the book. The show was held at the Oneonta Theater. It was a good show and it was great to meet Marvis in person. Unfortunately Larry Holmes, who was a guest star, had to leave abruptly halfway through the show. It’s a shame because his part was my favorite. Other than that, I really like the upstate area of New York.

It’s very green, towns are small, people are nice and friendly, it’s close to home (Montreal), and yet all those cities are within a two-hour drive from The Big Apple, one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s weird how life works and how things play out sometimes. Being the Boxeologist that I am, I had initially contacted Jamie in order to buy a copy of his book. I expected a very cold and impersonal answer such as: “credit card only, no refunds”. I was wrong. I found him actually very available and friendly. We exchanged a few emails, even talked on the phone, and then just like that, he invited me over to watch his live show. Perhaps the fact that I was a big boxing buff, more specifically a huge Joe Frazier fan, and an up-and-coming writer also helped “sweetened the deal”.

Meeting Jamie, Marvis, and Larry reminded me of how I first got involved with this entire book and gym restoration project. Like I said, it’s weird how life works and how things play out sometimes. As so many other Mike Tyson fans, my journey into Cus D’Amato’s world and the style he created, dubbed the peek-a-boo style, started off with a simple video of Mike Tyson’s formative years. At the time, I was writing a book on Keysi (still am actually in fact I even got a little behind), a Spanish martial art and self-defense method created by Justo Dieguez.

If you liked how Christian Bale gave the baddies a serious ass-whupping in the last Batman trilogy, you’re going to love Keysi; it’s not only spectacular, it’s effective. Anyways without trailing off too much, one of the trademarks of Keysi is its very high guard called the pensador (thinking man). The pensador is used to protect the head, considered the most vital part of the human anatomy, with the help of the forearms and elbows. Other self-defense methods employ it but none do so as extensively as Justo’s fighting method. I say “method” rather than “system” because just like Bruce Lee, Justo doesn’t believe in confinement, indoctrination, dogmas, and self-limitations. He believes everybody is different and unique in terms of personality, morphology, capabilities, and intelligence. After hosting a seminar in Montreal in 2013, I noticed during various self-defense drills and scenarios that Justo only reverted to the pensador guard when he absolutely had to. Otherwise he would keep his hands lower, but still very high, and right in front of his cheeks, with his eyes peeking right above his fists. This was obviously a deception and also a means to react more quickly to strikes aimed at lower areas of his body. However, he didn’t keep his hands in the standard boxer’s guard; he had them parallel, facing one another. That got me thinking. I knew I had seen this type of guard before, but I couldn’t remember where.

Fast – forward a year and half later.

I’m on my computer just, browsing some miscellaneous boxing videos on YouTube (like so many of you have done and still do I’m sure) when I suddenly stumble upon some old video footage of a young Mike Tyson during his formative years in Catskill. Bingo.

From that moment on, everything became a rollercoaster ride : I started boxing on my own at first, then I scheduled a trip to Catskill with a toxic and incompetent trainer, then started training under Matthew Hilton who had spent 3 summers in Catskill with his brothers to add Cus D’Amato’s style to the Fighting Hilton boxing style, then I touched base with George Young, whom recommended I put my linguistic skills to good use by writing a book on the style (which had never been done before), then I got in touch with other originals such as Tom Patti, John Colangelo, Qurane “The Mittman” McMullen, and Billy White to gather as much information on the style and its history as I could, traveled again to Catskill as often as possible to have more of a hands-on experience, and finally, I got more and more involved with the gym not only in hopes of preserving it, but to restore it as well. I’ve created a Facebook page for the gym, and various other accounts (Twitter Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, Blogger, Reddit, YouTube channel and what-not). I also ended up meeting Alvin Varmall, JR., the gym’s best hope of keeping Cus D’Amato’s memory alive by bringing both a championship and a sense of pride back to the gym and town of Catskill.

Go  back to about a month ago.

After the show, my acolyte George and I drove back in the pouring rain from Oneonta. Tired, we called it a night. I spent the night at the same motel Mike Tyson’s sparring partners were staying at 30 years ago before getting mauled one after the other on a daily basis. Obviously given that Oneonta is about a 90-min drive west from Catskill, it would have been stupid of me not to seize the opportunity to go train at Cus D’Amato’s Boxing Gym the following day.

George picked me up at 11 am and I checked out of my motel. We went straight to the gym which wasn’t very far. The air was still heavy and humid from all the hard rains of the previous night. We walked inside the gym and both headed towards the back. I was leading the way when about 5 meters away from the bathroom, I abruptly halted and flinched in surprise. There was a huge puddle of water and bits and pieces of the ceiling lying on the floor between the gym’s only two old, worn, and duct-taped heavy bags (there’s also a hook/uppercut bag). One that is so crunched and crooked on one side that it looks like the one George Foreman trained on in 1974 for his fight against Muhammad Ali in Zaire, Africa. The other one is smaller and red, and looks a lot like the one an up-and-coming Mike Tyson, known back then as ‘’Kid Dynamite’’, honed his skills on in the early 80’s.

The gym’s flag is also duct-taped on the wall instead of being frame or hanging from a post. George, who was walking right behind me, didn’t halt or flinch. In fact he didn’t seem fazed at all. He just continued his march and walked right by me, paused for a few moments to assess the extent of the damage, and doubled back to pick up a broom, a dust pan, and a mop as if he had anticipated the whole thing. Meanwhile I decided to pick up my friend’s camera which I had borrowed to film the entire scene (I’ll explain another time why I was filming). As I was catching the whole thing on ‘’tape’’, George explained, while he was cleaning up, that it often happened [leaky and decaying ceiling] when it rained hard. Since I was already filming, I decided that I might as well give the entire gym the once-over.

The area where the leak occurred was still wet. Looking at the ceiling, you could clearly see the wet boards through the gyproc and the swollen pieces of plaster flaking away. The first few times that I went to Catskill to train, just getting to the door was comparable to a hike in the Catskill Mountains: the concrete steps were all eroded flat and you sometimes had to skip a step to get to the door. Ah yes: the door. Well, the door sticks but that’s not the real issue: the key is. The key is always an issue worse than a bad game of musical chair that went south; you never know who has it and if you don’t you have got to go down to the police station and pray that your name is on a list, and if it isn’t you have got to call this person to vouch for you and then….you get it.

The window frame in the bathroom looks like it survived a World War II bombing, the garbage chute is caved in, one of the sinks has been condemned, there are openings in other areas of the ceiling with cracked concrete protruding, the pictures and articles are slowly fading, and the walls have accumulated so much sweat over the years that there’s this omnipresent smell of fried chicken in the air. There are no windows either, so claustrophobics beware. And if you were considering trying out Bikram yoga; don’t bother: when it’s 90 degrees of humidity outside, it’s about 120 degrees inside with boiling heat comparable to the Amazonian rain forest.

I don’t personally have a problem with the last few points. I don’t mind training in a dark, steamy, dungeon. You don’t cultivate a warrior spirit and harness a killer instinct singing the YMCA in a fitness center, which looks more like a country club, filled with yuppies and hipsters who also play polo on their free time. Mental toughest is developed when the situation is least enjoyable, when comfort is nonexistent, and when pain and hardships are a daily occurrence. I know this much because when I made the stern decision at age 17 that I would forever get rid of my baby fat (which consequently ridded me of my virginity as well) , the very first summer following my life-changing decision was the closest thing to hell I’ve ever known.

At first whenever I went jogging, I had to stop every 30 seconds to catch my breath because I wheezed so much and so loudly (I’m an asthmatic), that I could’ve sworn I was the son of Darth Vader, not Luke. However there is a fine line between old-school, rustic, and Spartan-inspired, and neglected, worn, and obsolete. The gym is spacious, but the space isn’t properly utilized. There is no office to conduct business as you’d normally expect from a standard boxing gym, there is no cash register to sign up members, no Kevin Rooney either, the equipment is in very limited quantity and old; and most of all, the clientele is as scarce as the gym’s equipment (about 10 people George says). This is a complete, utter travesty.

This is where Cus D’Amato, arguably one of the greatest, if not to say boxing’s greatest mind, spent his last years at the twilight of his life. If boxeology was taught at university level, Cus D’Amato would probably be the most studied figure alongside Eddie Futch, Emanuel Steward, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ray Arcel, Mike Tyson and so on.

This is a gym which should be jam-packed with boxing hopefuls and casuals who just want to train for the sake of being fully immersed in this empowering environment. Speaking from personal experience, there is indeed something special about training there and following in the footsteps of past champions. This is a gym which should fall under the protection of some New York State law to ensure its preservation. This is a gym which should be considered a landmark in boxing history.

And yet, like waves crashing relentlessly on a rock over and over again after a long enough period of time, it’s slowly eroding and withering away, bit by bit, piece by piece. And without immediate help and proper care, Cus D’Amato’s Boxing Gym will eventually share the same fate as Joe Frazier’s Gym in Philadelphia. Smokin’ Joe’s gym now serves as a furniture store instead of serving as a monument in Philadelphian, American, and boxing history. That too, is plain, outright heresy.

But how did things come to this? Why is it [D’Amato’s Gym] not everything (or at least half) I’ve just mentioned above? This is what we will be investigating in our next article. Until then, Simon says take care and enjoy your vacation.

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