DAmato Cus - Iron Ambition: My Life With Cus Damato

I m staring out the window of my suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park City in New York. In the other room my wife, Kiki, is looking after our two babies. Milan is doing an arts and crafts project, and Rocco, as usual, is rampaging around the room. Im in town to make a special appearance at the Barclays Center, where Deontay Wilder is defending his WBC heavyweight title against Artur Szpilka. Wilder? Szpilka? They used to say that the heavyweight division was all that mattered in boxing. Those days are long gone.

I look out on the Wall Street area and my mind goes back to the days when I was growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Every time I talk to my wife about my childhood, she thinks Im just stroking my ego. I say, Baby, I just cant believe the shit that happened in my life. My wife doesnt understand the degree of how fucking poor I was. Then I point out the streets where, as a nine-year-old, I slammed people against the walls of buildings and snatched their chains.

If I crane my neck a little, I can look uptown toward 42nd Street. That was our playground. Id hang out in the arcades or sneak into Bonds International Casino to pick the pockets of the people who went to listen to music. Every night was like a weekend on 42nd Street. But things have changed in Times Square. Now you got Disney characters walking around hawking pictures with tourists and the Naked Cowboy strumming a guitar. Everybodys got their cameras out taking selfies with strangers. Imagine trying to do that with the people I was hanging out with in Times Square. Hey, man, lets take a selfie! A fucking selfie, nigga? Back in the seventies, taking any kind of picture around strangers was a no-no. You didnt even say hi to people you didnt know. Motherfucker would start beating on you and leave you in a coma on the street.

I was part of a vicious cycle back then. I would rob and then go buy nice things and then the bigger kids would steal my sneakers and my jacket and my jewelry. How do you beat those big monsters? Everyone was scared. But somehow I never died in those situations. Thats Mike, man, one of my older hip friends would say, and the bad guys would let me go. I began to think that I had a special destiny. I always knew that I wasnt going to die in the gutterthat something was going to happen to me that was going to be respectable. I was an insecure street rat but I wanted glory, I wanted to be famous, I wanted the world to look at me and tell me that I was beautiful. I was a fat fucking stinking kid.

Its funny that one of the things that made me feel special was that there was a white baseball player named Mike Tyson. He was a journeyman infielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, but because I had this guys name I just knew that I was different and that I would go places.

Then I met another white guy, an old Italian gentleman who also thought I was special. His name was Cus DAmato and he filled my head with visions of glory. Without this man I wouldnt be sitting here, looking out the window of a fancy hotel. I might be living in some crummy apartment building back in Brownsville or eating chicken wings in a greasy spoon uptown instead of ordering penne pasta from room service. Or I might be dead.

Back when I was a kid, Id be scared to go back to 42nd Street because a motherfucker might recognize me from the day before and start chasing and beating the shit out of me. Now I cant walk down 42nd Street because someone might love me to death. Isnt that crazy? Im on 42nd walking around and so many people will slap me five, I got to get in the car.

And not just on my old stomping grounds. I cant walk the streets most anywhere in the world. Aint that some bullshit? Im in Dubai and we cant go shopping for jewelry. I cant leave the hotel or Ill get mobbed.

This is all because of Cus. Dont think Im whiningIm very grateful for my situation. But I dont understand how it all happened. How did this boxing manager and trainer who was in exile in upstate New York watch me spar for less than ten minutes when I was thirteen years old and predict that I would be the youngest heavyweight champ ever?

This book is about our relationship. Cus DAmato was one of the most unique men ever to walk the planet. He touched the lives of so many people and helped them become a better version of themselves. He took the weak and made them strong. And he took a fat, frightened thirteen-year-old and made him into a guy who cant walk the streets because Im the most recognizable face on the planet.