The unique aspect of Cus D'amato as a trainer was his psychological approach to boxing.  He had a good handle on the emotional side of boxing and used to tell his charges many stories of how to overcome the fear factor in the ring. 

 

At the same time Babe Ruth was slugging home runs on the other side of the Bronx in the new Yankee Stadium, the young Cus D’Amato was learning valuable lessons about fear and cowardice, toughness and courage and survival on the streets, lessons he would later incorporate in the unique philosophy of life and boxing which he imparted to his fighters. One lesson that became familiar to his disciples was that the fear of something is usually worse than the reality, a lesson he expounded using an example from his own life. He would describe how a guy from another neighborhood, who had a reputation as one of the best knife fighters on the streets of the Bronx, was swaggering around Cus’s own patch and intimidating his pals. One day the hoodlum challenged each of them to a knife fight. Everyone was afraid and no one would accept the challenge. Once his dominance was established, the challenger began insulting and humiliating them until he’d had his fill, and then left. Word of this reached Cus that evening. He was so angered that he sought out the antagonist and challenged him to a fist fight. The reply was no; instead, D’Amato was offered the opportunity to avenge the honor of his friends in a knife fight. The foolhardy Cus accepted. It was agreed the two would meet at an abandoned building at seven the next morning, alone. There would be no witnesses in case one of them ended up dead. On his way home, Cus couldn’t help but think it was most likely to be him. Fear gripped him as it never had before. He hadn’t the slightest idea how to wield a knife in a fight, yet here he was about to face an expert. When he was finally able to control his fear, he thought up an idea that would at least give him a chance. Maybe he didn’t know about knife fighting, but he did know about boxing, about using his fists. He found an ice pick, carved the handle down so it would fit in his closed palm, with the blade extending out between his middle and ring fingers. He than practiced as if he were boxing, only now, at the end of his fist, was a deadly blade as he jabbed the air.

 

In the few hours that remained until dawn, he tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He then headed for the empty warehouse where the fight was to take place, getting there early in order to check out the surroundings and prepare himself for his adversary. He taped the ice pick inside his fist, made sure the blade protruded far enough and wrapped a jacket around his forearm for protection. Then he waited. When the fear built up too much and threatened to overwhelm him, he danced around, practicing his technique. He learned that motion relieves tension. The minutes passed. Seven o’clock came and went, and the knife fighter had still not appeared. D’Amato felt relieved, but then checked himself. If he began to wind down and his opponent suddenly materialized, he knew his resolve to fight might be weakened. Finally, when more than an hour had passed, Cus realized that fear must have got the better of the knife fighter. He wasn’t going to appear. Cus went home, a hero to his friends. The knife fighter never showed himself again. Cus knew he had won a victory, not only over his adversary, but over himself. He had faced his fear and refused to allow it get the better of him.

Regards Bill Humphrey

I read this in a good book a while back thought it was a good read.  I tried to find out as much as I could about Eddie Futch, because he seemed to understand what boxing was all about.  From what I read and understood boxing is about styles beating styles and to take away your opponents best boxing tools while employing yours.  I can't help thinking that Futch should have wrote a good book.

The jab was a big reason Muhammad Ali never figured out why he always had so much trouble with Ken Norton in their three fights.  I thought Ken won all three.  But he only got the decision in their first fight, the one in San Diego in 1973 when he broke Ali’s jaw.  Most people thought that that was the first time they were in the ring together, but a few years earlier they had sparred in Los Angeles when Ali was in exile.  What ever city Ali was in he always had his boxing gear in the luggage compartment of his car.  Whenever he would step out of his car people would gather.  So the day he showed up at the Hoover Street Gym in Los Angeles, the gym filled up.  Wall-to-wall people.

 

Three other heavyweights were working out, Scrap Iron Johnson, Howard Smith and somebody whose name I’ve forgotten.  Ali boxed with each of those fellows, then somebody told him I had a young heavyweight, Ken Norton.

 

Ali didn’t even know Norton’s name.  Ali looked at me and said, “How about working a round with your guy?”  I said, “Okay.” I took Norton aside and told him, “Don’t” try to be a wise guy.  Just be smart.  Just go out there and work along with him and try to learn something.  If it gets rough in there naturally take care of yourself.  But just try to work along with him.”  The first round went like that but Norton was never a smooth-looking fighter.  He didn’t have a classic style.  Ali had looked him over pretty good.  I guess he decided the kid can’t fight much.  So with this enthusiastic crowd there, Ali decided he’s going to give them a show.

 

Near the end of the round, Ali stepped back and announced to Norton and the crowd, “Okay, boy, I’m through playing with you.  I’m going to put something on you.”  Ali really starts punching, but Norton goes right with him.  What a round that was, a wild round.

 

The thing was, Ali didn’t think Norton could counter because Norton had been working along with him earlier.  But when Ali started punching harder, Norton countered.  Norton embarrassed him, and Ali didn’t expect that.  Ali didn’t like that at all.  The next day Ali walked into the gym screaming, “I want that Norton, where’s that Norton?”  But I had told Norton to stay in his street clothes.

 

Ali looked over and saw Norton standing around in his street clothes, then he looked at me and said.  “Isn’t he going to work today?”  I said, “No.”  He said, “Why Not?”  I said, “Yesterday you came in here looking for a workout.  Today you came in here looking for a fight.  When this kid fights you he’s going to get paid, and paid well.”

 

From that one-round workout I had determined that Norton had the style to lick Ali.  He just didn’t have experience yet.  Norton’s style was perfect.  He was strong.  He was awkward.  And he was tall, as tall as Ali.  Then I started putting their two styles together, thinking how Norton could avoid Ali’s strengths, while exploiting Ali’s weaknesses. 

 

Ali made a mistake that he was able to get away with most of the time because of his great reflexes.  But it was very dangerous.  The classic style is when you jab you carry your right hand high to parry the other fellow’s jab or straight right hand.  Ali carried his right hand out to the side because he knew he could get away with it.  Ali had that quick left hand that was more of a flick than a good jab.  But it was so fast.  If you tried to slip his jab and counterpunch he was gone.  If you tried to pull away and counterpunch he was gone.  If you tried to bob underneath he was gone.  What ever you did he was just too quick. 

 

As soon as Norton started training to fight Ali in the San Diego arena, I thought about what had happened in their one round workout in the Hoover Street Gym.  I told him, “You’re not going to hit Ali by slipping or pulling back or dropping underneath or parrying.  You have to hit him when he’s punching.  When he starts to jab, you punch with him.  Keep your right hand high.  His jab will pop into the middle of your glove and then your jab will come right down the pipe into the middle of his face.  Every time he starts to punch, don’t pull back go forward toward him.”  That’s what Norton did.  That’s what destroyed Ali’s rhythm.

 

But there was another important factor: where Norton was in the ring when he went forward.  I told him, “If you start from the centre of the ring, it’ll take you only three moves to get Ali on the ropes.  Every time you jab, step in and make him jab again.  Then do the same thing.”  With both of them being big heavyweights, I knew if Norton was in the centre of the ring when he countered Ali’s jab, those three moves would back Ali into the ropes.

 

When he got Ali on the ropes, I told him, “Don’t do like all the other guys do.  Don’t throw your hook to the head.  He’ll pull back against the ropes and when you’re off balance he’ll pepper you with counterpunches.  When he’s on the ropes, instead of going to the head with the left hook, start banging his body with both hands.  I don’t care whether you land or not.  Make him in order to protect his body, bring his elbows down and his head down.  That gives you a shot to the head.”  Simple.  So simple but Ali could never figure it out.  What he should’ve done was kept his right hand up high to parry Norton’s jab and countered with another jab.  Once he parried Norton’s jab, Norton’s jab would have gone over his shoulder.  He could jab right back.  He could do anything he wanted, because he had gotten rid of Norton’s jab.  But he never did.  It was a basic move.  But he’d done it the other way for so long he didn’t know how to change.

 

Boxing and Hypnotherapy

 I was reading my book the other day, Bad Intentions by Peter Heller which is basically a Tyson biography.  He spoke about D’amato's use of Hypnotherapy for pre-fight preparation, namely the Trevor Berbick fight.  I’m wondering how much hypnotherapy is used in professional boxing or if it’s used at all or maybe it was just one of Cus D’amatos quirks that he thought was useful to his fighter?

Tyson when he had been asked at the final press conference whether he was seeing a psychiatrist. Stiffening and clenching his hands he had snapped back: "If you can’t fight, you’re fucked," which was smoothly turned into Japanese by the translator as: "It is very difficult to fight a person if you do not have the skill."

The "psychiatrist" was in fact a New York hypnotherapist named John L. Halpin whom I got to know very well through the years with the young Tyson. Halpin, in his early seventies then, kept such a low profile that he dryly referred to himself as "the secret weapon in the Tyson camp". A former high hurdler in his college days, he said: "Mike must have been no more than 16 when Cus D’Amato first brought him to my Manhattan office with the fighting Hilton brothers from Canada. I remember that when I asked them all to lay down on the floor to relax young Mike was the one who kept fooling around".

Years later, including the classic Spinks wipe-out and the two victories over Frank Bruno, Tyson relied greatly upon Halpin’s professional services. Indeed, no one, including his many women, surely ever talked quite so intimately with Iron Mike, the kid from the urban jungle whose father, Jimmy Kirkpatrick, sire of at least 19 children, left home about a month before Tyson was born.

In the final two weeks or so leading up to a major fight Halpin, this slim, courteous, clearly spoken man who loved to hum lines from Gilbert and Sullivan light opera to me, would be in constant attendance on Tyson in a nearby hotel room. He explained: "I have to be ready to react instantly to a phone call, often in the wee small hours, but certainly at any time of night or day, and then put Mike ‘under’, as the layman says, for sessions of deep relaxation."

Halpin admitted, as I got to know him better, and he appreciated he would not be asked to break any clinical confidences from his sessions with the Baddest Man On The Planet, that "part of my task is to build Mike into a state of controlled, confident violence, ready to ‘fight fear with fear’ as old D’Amato himself used to preach."

In the shocked aftermath of the Douglas defeat in Tokyo, Halpin said: "I just can’t work out if I failed him in some way, if his trainers failed him or he just failed himself. Every time I talked with him before a fight I would ask him if there was something more he wanted to add to the mix of ferociousness, calmness and elusiveness one tried to feed into him. Here in Tokyo he always said ‘no’." Without ever criticising Don King by name, Halpin made it plain that Tyson needed to get back to his roots: "They fed him women, you know, when he now needs to spend more time in the Catskills with his adopted family, the people who love him."

A year later, in Las Vegas again, before the first, uproarious battle with Razor Ruddock, Halpin revealed: "Normally Mike and I spend about an hour together in session on most days. But when he lost to Douglas in Tokyo he was cutting me down to 40 minutes and I sensed somehow that things were not right with him. Now we’ve just been together for nearly two hours so I guess he’s back with bad intentions."

 Ref  http://www.boxing-monthly.co.uk/content/0002/one.htm

Regards Bill Humphrey