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“All you have to do is listen to me,” he’d say. “People of royal descent will know your name. Do you hear what I’m saying to you, boy? The whole world will know who you are. Your family name will reign. People will respect your mother, your family, your children. When you enter a room, people will stand up and give you an ovation.”
Cus wouldn’t let me fail. When I felt like quitting and I got discouraged, he just kept on inspiring me. Cus would always say, “My job is to peel off layers and layers of damages that are inhibiting your true ability to grow and fulfill your potential.” He was peeling me and it hurt! I was screaming, “Leave me alone. Aarrgghh!” He tortured my mind. He’d see me sparring with an older guy and it was in my mind that I was tired and I wasn’t punching back at the guy, the guy was just bullying me, and Cus would talk to me about that, make me confront my fears. He was a perfectionist. I’d be hitting the heavy bag with combinations and Cus would be standing there, watching.
“It’s good. It’s good. But it’s not poifect,” he’d say in his thick Bronx accent.
Cus wanted the meanest fighter that God ever created, someone who scared the life out of people before they even entered the ring. He trained me to be totally ferocious, in the ring and out. At the time, I needed that. I was so insecure, so afraid. I was so traumatized from people picking on me when I was younger. I just hated the humiliation of being bullied. That feeling sticks with you for the rest of your life. It’s just such a bad, hopeless feeling. That’s why I always projected to the world that I was a mean, ferocious motherfucker. But Cus gave me confidence so that I didn’t have to worry about being bullied ever again. I knew nobody was ever going to fuck with me physically.
Cus was much more than a boxing trainer. He instilled so many values in me. He was like some guru, always saying things that would make me think.
“No matter what anyone says, no matter the excuse or explanation, whatever a person does in the end is what he intended to do all along.”
Or, “I’m not a creator. What I do is discover and uncover. My job is to take the spark and fan it. Feed the fire until it becomes a roaring blaze.”
He could impart wisdom in the most mundane situations. Camille was very big on the boys doing their chores around the house. I hated doing chores; I was so focused on my boxing. One day Cus came to me. “You know, Camille really wants you to do your chores. I could care less if you did, but you should do them because it will make you a better boxer.”
“How’s taking out the trash going to make me a better boxer?” I scoffed.
“Because doing something you hate to do like you love it is good conditioning for someone aspiring towards greatness.”
After that, Camille never had to remind me to do my chores again.
One day Cus called me into the room where he was sitting.
“Are you scared of white people?” he said out of the blue. “Are you one of those kinds? You scared of mustaches and beards? I’ve been around black fighters who were scared to hit white people. You better not be one of them.”
It was funny. I had Cus in my face telling me not to be intimidated, but I was intimidated by the way he was telling me not to be intimidated.
Cus was always dead serious, never smiling. He didn’t treat me like a teenager. He always made me feel like we had a mission to accomplish. Training day in and day out, thinking about one fucking thing. He gave me a purpose. I had never had that feeling in my life before except when I was thinking about stealing.
Every once in a while, things would happen that made our goal seem much more tangible. One time, Wilfred Benitez came to train at Catskill. I was overwhelmed. I was a groupie. I had seen him fight on television and he was something to watch. It was like he had radar, he’d punch people with his eyes closed. Truly a master. And he brought his championship belt with him. Tom Patti, one of Cus’s other boxers, was there with me. Benitez pulled out this little case, and the belt was inside and he let me touch it. It was like looking at the Holy Grail.
“Man, Tommy, look at this, it’s the belt, man,” I said. “I gotta get one of these now. I’m going to train so hard. If I win this, I’m never going to take the belt off.”
I was so happy to be in Benitez’s presence. He inspired me, made me want to become more committed and dedicated.
Thanks to Cus, I also got to talk to Ali. In October of 1980, we all drove up to Albany to watch the closed-circuit broadcast of Ali trying to win back his title from Larry Holmes. Ali got the shit kicked out of him. Cus was mad as a motherfucker; I’d never seen him that angry before. After the fight, he was poker-faced because he had to give interviews and shake people’s hands, but once we got in the car, we could feel that negative energy. We didn’t say a word for the whole forty-five-minute drive home.
The next morning, Ali’s aide Gene Kilroy put Ali on the phone with Cus.
“How did you let that bum beat you? He’s a bum, Muhammad, he’s a bum. No, he’s a bum. Don’t tell me that, he’s a bum. Why did you let that bum hit you like that?”
I was listening to Cus talk and every time he said the word “bum” it was cutting right through me. I started crying. That was a bad day in my life.
Then Cus did a head trip on me.
“I have a young black kid with me. He’s just a boy, but he’s going to be the heavyweight champion of the world. His name is Mike Tyson. Talk to him for me, please, Muhammad. I want you to tell him to listen to me.”
Cus handed me the phone.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” I said. I was a little dickhead.
“I was sick,” Ali told me. “I took some medicine and it made me weak and that’s how Holmes beat me. I’m going to get well and come back and beat Holmes.”
“Don’t worry, champ,” I said. “When I get big, I’m going to get him for you.”
A lot of people assume that Ali was my favorite boxer. But I have to say it was Roberto Duran. I always looked at Ali as being handsome and articulate. And I was short and ugly and I had a speech impediment. When I saw Duran fight, he was just a street guy. He’d say stuff to his opponents like, “Suck my fucking dick, you motherfucker. Next time you’re going to the fucking morgue.” After he beat Sugar Ray Leonard in that first fight, he went over to where Wilfred Benitez was sitting and he said, “Fuck you. You don’t have the heart or the balls to fight me.”
Man, this guy is me, I thought. That was what I wanted to do. He was not ashamed of being who he was. I related to him as a human being. As my career progressed and people started praising me for being a savage, I knew that being called an animal was the highest praise I could receive from someone. When I’d go back to the city, I would go to Victor’s Café because I heard Duran hung out there. I’d go and sit at a table by myself and look at the pictures of Duran hanging on the wall. I was living out my dreams.
I was sad when Duran quit during the No Más rematch with Leonard. Cus and I watched that fight in Albany and I was so mad that I cried. But Cus had called it. “He’s not going to do it a second time,” he predicted.
By the time I had moved in with Cus, I was already into the flow of his repertoire. He began to train me hard every day. I never had the privilege of enjoying boxing as a sport or as something to do for fun. Cus was an extremist but I was just as extreme. I wanted to be Achilles right then. I’m the kind of guy they make fun of. “Don’t give the nigga a rope, he’ll want to be a cowboy.” I was the kid who had no hope. But if you give me a glimmer of hope, you’re in trouble. I take it to the moon.
Cus normally had to wake the fighters up in the morning, but when he’d get up to do it, I had already come back from running. Cus would usually set the table for breakfast, but I started doing it after