Cus D Amato

Joey Fariello, an uncommonly honest boxing trainer who handled Buster Mathis Jr. in his fight with Mike Tyson at the Spectrum on Dec. 16, died Wednesday. Fariello, who suffered a stroke at his New York home on Christmas Eve, was 58. In the days leading to the Tyson fight, which Mathis lost on a third-round knockout, Fariello was stubbornly protective of the young fighter, defending his character and responding vigorously to criticism that Mathis did not belong in the same ring with Tyson.

Heavyweight champion Mike Tyson has made enough money to last a lifetime. He has several homes and fancy cars. But Tyson has one major regret: He doesn't have a high school diploma. "The biggest mistake I ever made was to drop out of school and never go back," Tyson said yesterday, speaking to youths in a depressed area of this city, as part of his community-service sentence for speeding. "You have to listen to your parents and you have to do the right thing and stay in school.

Donald Trump, apparently not satisfied with his collection of luxury yachts, glittering buildings, real-estate tax abatements and celebrity pals, is trying to take ultimate control of the boxing world by moving in on heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Sources told the New York Daily News that the real-estate mogul has enlisted the services of Jose Torres, Tyson's confidante, to expedite matters. While Trump said he would only act as "an adviser" to Tyson in all aspects of the heavyweight champion's business affairs - including his legal battle with Bill Cayton, the champ's estranged manager - sources said Trump is dealing behind the scenes with Torres.

The first unprincipled hustler who proposes another meeting between new heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield and James "Buster" Douglas ought to be arrested. To recycle an old line, the last time those two got together, they almost had a fight. If you're reading this newspaper from back to front, you already know how that encounter ended. Holyfield ushered out Douglas with a definitive gesture of his right hand only a minute into the third round of their title bout in Las Vegas.

Kevin Rooney, who helped make Mike Tyson the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history, once considered his relationship with Tyson to be more like that between brothers than between trainer and fighter. That close bond was forever broken following Tyson's 91-second blowout of Michael Spinks on June 27, 1988, when Tyson fired Rooney and what remained of the old Cus D'Amato support team. Like Tyson, Rooney learned boxing from the curmudgeonly D'Amato, who died in 1985.

A day after Mike Tyson kept reporters waiting for an hour and then declined to speak, the doors were open wide to Lennox Lewis' training camp, and the champion told a little story. "In 1983, when I was boxing for a world junior championship, we were looking for a sparring partner, and we drove to the Catskills," Lewis said yesterday. "There was Mike Tyson, and a man named Cus D'Amato. We were going to help each other. "The first day, Mike rushed across the ring and tried to knock me out. We went at for four days, and I gave him my all. He didn't knock me out, but he bloodied my nose.

For those who couldn't afford tickets to Monday's Tyson-Spinks fight in Atlantic City, HBO Video will release the home videocassette on July 13. And the folks at HBO promise the video will be longer than the 91-second bout in which Tyson knocked out Spinks. The video, which will retail in VHS for $19.99, will contain pre-and post- bout analysis, footage from the weigh-in, glimpses of the Donald Trump party prior to the fight, and whatever tape HBO producers can find. The highest-grossing boxing match of all time just happened to be one of the shortest.

Heavyweight champion Mike Tyson lost a trusted counselor when co-manager Jimmy Jacobs died last week at age 58. And I lost a valued friend. Although the Jimmy Jacobs story is worth a book, unfortunately, I've only got about 15 inches here. But at least I think I've convinced Pete Dexter to give it his patent touch in a national magazine feature - which is something Pete tried to do earlier, before a lamentably unaware editor decided to condense his copy. A year ago, Playboy Magazine asked Dexter to do a piece on Tyson.

How terrific an athlete was Wilt Chamberlain? Terrific enough that, in the early 1970s, he seriously entertained an offer to take on Muhammad Ali in a multimillion-dollar boxing match. "It was as serious as you possibly could get," Chamberlain told the Daily News in 1989. "I had been approached a number of times by Jack Hurley, who managed and promoted Pete Rademacher," a one-time challenger of heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson. Chamberlain said that veteran trainer "Cus D'Amato, who was a dear friend of mine, also had talked to me about trying boxing.

All-star guard John Stockton, the NBA's career leader in assists, yesterday agreed to a three-year, $15 million contract with the Utah Jazz, owner Larry Miller said. Stockton has missed only four games in his 12-year NBA career. He is the league's all-time leader in assists and steals. He is an eight-time all-star and has won gold medals as a U.S. Olympian in 1992 and 1996. BOXING Philadelphian Tony Martin successfully defended his USBA welterweight crown with a unanimous decision over Skipper Kelp, 25, of Las Vegas, in Pikesville, Md. Martin piled up points early, scoring with looping righthand leads, and cut Kelp above both eyes by the fifth round.

CANASTOTA, N.Y. - Mike Tyson was the quintessential knockout artist, defeating his first 19 opponents as a professional boxer inside the distance, 12 of whom went down and out in the first round. But some of those blowouts lasted longer than Tyson's acceptance speech here yesterday when he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Speaking without prepared notes and clearly nervous - his pink shirt was soaked in sweat by the time he stepped up to the microphone, despite the unseasonably cool temperature - the youngest man ever to win a heavyweight championship stammered on for less than 2 minutes before telling a crowd of 7,000-plus, "Hey, guys, I can't find the words.

Soft-spoken, contemplative, weepy, the subject of James Toback's documentary Tyson - Mike Tyson, former heavyweight champion of the world - is not the ferocious, ear-biting, head-butting convicted rapist ("falsely accused," he insists) that the media have painted him to be. Well, he could be all that, too. A hugely engrossing documentary portrait - albeit one with an unreliable narrator sitting for the portrait - Tyson is an American Dream story with a decidedly bittersweet middle (and final?

The documentary "Tyson" confirms that Iron Mike was a fearsome champion and a seriously messed-up dude. The lone, unimpeachable source of this information is Tyson himself - the movie is a long extended interview with the fighter, conducted by filmmaker and friend James Toback, who simply turned a camera on his subject and let tape roll. The movie includes footage of Tyson destroying a series of champs and contenders, reminding us why he was the dying sport's last great heavyweight icon.

A day after Mike Tyson kept reporters waiting for an hour and then declined to speak, the doors were open wide to Lennox Lewis' training camp, and the champion told a little story. "In 1983, when I was boxing for a world junior championship, we were looking for a sparring partner, and we drove to the Catskills," Lewis said yesterday. "There was Mike Tyson, and a man named Cus D'Amato. We were going to help each other. "The first day, Mike rushed across the ring and tried to knock me out. We went at for four days, and I gave him my all. He didn't knock me out, but he bloodied my nose.

Teddy Atlas could be training world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis today. He turned down Oscar De La Hoya, the Golden Boy, and Michael Grant, the heavyweight contender. He gets calls every few weeks from some fighter, some manager, seeking his help. Some U.S. Olympians want to talk to him Monday. Atlas, 44, the man who taught 12-year-old Mike Tyson how to box and trained him for four years, who at age 21 trained a boxing genius named Wilfred Benitez for a world title fight and sparred with him six rounds a day, is one of the most wanted trainers in boxing today.

It is not Mike Tyson's once-dreaded punch that will be in question when he enters the ring here tomorrow night for the first time in nine months. Not his fire. Not his legs. Not his age. The question about Tyson, who is attempting to regain a place at the top of the heavyweight division at 33, is whether he has lost his calm. "He has always fought his best when he is calm," said Jay Bright, his once and present co-trainer who has known Tyson since the fighter was 13. More than anything, Bright said, the scheduled 10-round bout with Orlin Norris, 34 and a 10-1 underdog, which is to be broadcast by Showtime at about midnight, will be a pressure barometer.

How terrific an athlete was Wilt Chamberlain? Terrific enough that, in the early 1970s, he seriously entertained an offer to take on Muhammad Ali in a multimillion-dollar boxing match. "It was as serious as you possibly could get," Chamberlain told the Daily News in 1989. "I had been approached a number of times by Jack Hurley, who managed and promoted Pete Rademacher," a one-time challenger of heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson. Chamberlain said that veteran trainer "Cus D'Amato, who was a dear friend of mine, also had talked to me about trying boxing.

Kevin Rooney, who helped make Mike Tyson the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history, once considered his relationship with Tyson to be more like that between brothers than between trainer and fighter. That close bond was forever broken following Tyson's 91-second blowout of Michael Spinks on June 27, 1988, when Tyson fired Rooney and what remained of the old Cus D'Amato support team. Like Tyson, Rooney learned boxing from the curmudgeonly D'Amato, who died in 1985.

The sidebar with the New York Times story about Mike Tyson's kayo and record fine by the Nevada Boxing Commission was a grabber: Foe Thinks Penalty Too Stiff Hey, Evander Holyfield never passes up an opportunity to proclaim his Christian faith, but this wasn't about turning the other cheek. It was the ears Tyson went after. After spitting out the mouthpiece - the most prized item of his equipment - Tyson bit down on Holyfield's left ear and then bit off a chunk of the champ's right ear, thereby incurring disqualification.

A federal court judge in Albany, N.Y., has thrown out a $4.4 million award a jury returned against Mike Tyson for unjustly firing his former trainer, Kevin Rooney. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas McAvoy said in a ruling made public yesterday that the judgment against Tyson is improper because Rooney failed to prove Tyson had a contractual agreement with him. "The nature of the proof offered at trial cannot sustain a finding that the employment relationship was anything other than one at-will," McAvoy wrote.