"Those were the good old days," Baranski said. "From August 1986 to August 1987, we spent 27 weeks in Las Vegas. Hell, that was 21 years ago."

Baranski now is 86, but you wouldn't know it. He spends little time in the recliner watching old fights on tape. He moves as fast as he did when he founded the old Trinity Institute Gym in 1963.

He is pictured here in 1987, the year before he stopped running the gym.

Baranski, an accomplished middleweight fighter in the 1940s, hasn't forgotten how to work out. Four times a week, he is at Albany's Quail Street Gym. He goes four rounds on a speed bag, four more on a heavy bag. He goes through a rigorous routine of calisthenics. He rides the bike. Oh, and he does 300 sit-ups.

Cus D'Amato on how the recognition and acknowledgement of fear is the crucial lesson he taught and was ignored by other trainers:
“Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning in any area, but particularly in boxing. For example, boxing is something you learn through repetition. You do it over and over and suddenly you’ve got it. …However, in the course of trying to learn, if you get hit and get hurt, this makes you cautious, and when you’re cautious you can’t repeat it, and when you can’t repeat it, it’s going to delay the learning process…When they…come up to the gym and say I want to be a fighter, the first thing I’d do was talk to them about fear…I would always use…the same example of the deer crossing an open field and upon approaching the clearing suddenly instinct tells him danger is there, and nature begins the survival process, which involves the body releasing adrenalin into the bloodstream, causing the heart to beat faster and enabling the deer to perform extraordinarily feats of agility and strength…It enables the deer to get out of range of the danger, helps him escape to the safety of the forest across the clearing…an example in which fear is your friend.
The thing a kid in the street fears the most is to be called yellow or chicken, and sometimes a kid will do the most stupid, wild, crazy things just to hide how scared he is. I often tell them that while fear is such an obnoxious thing, an embarrassing thing…nevertheless it is your friend, because anytime anyone saves your life perhaps a dozen times a day, no matter what how obnoxious he is, you’ve got to look upon him as a friend, and this is what fear is…Since nature gave us fear in order to help us survive, we cannot look upon it as an enemy. Just think how many times a day a person would die if he had no fear. He’d walk in front of cars, he’d die a dozen times a day. Fear is a protective mechanism….By talking to the fighters about fear I cut the learning time maybe as much as half, sometimes more, depending on the individual.”

April 10, 1985. Today exactly 21 years ago Mike Tyson fought his second professional fight at the age of just 18. While the fight against Trent Singleton in the ring looked very easy, the psychological fight was all but that. People who have stepped in the ring aswell know this by experience: the crushing emotional feelings before your very first fights. Mike Tyson once said it the best with his quote: “A lot of people don’t understand the psychological trip in heavyweight fighting. The greatest fighter in the world is not the guy with the most skills and most talent. The greatest fighter in the world is good at keeping his composure under all the pressure”. This quote goes back to the very basic of Cus D’Amato’s famous teaching of Fire & Fear.

To put this psychological aspect of boxing in light I’d like to share the full video of this fight along with an excerpt about Tyson’s fight against Trent Singleton from José Torres’ book “Fire & Fear: The Inside Story of Mike Tyson”.

By José Torres:
On April 10, 1985, Trent Singleton, a fighter with a poor record but an impressive physique was coolly waiting to fight the relatively unknown Tyson. He would be Tyson’s second opponent. I had visited Singleton, wished him good luck, and told him, as I tell all boxers, to protect himself.
Tyson, tense and anxious, was not too far away in his own dressing room, throwing punches at an invisible opponent. He was trying to put into practices D’Amato’s teachings: relaxation, emotional control.
“I don’t have to tell you,” I told Mike as he paced the large dressing room he was sharing with a few other fighters, “that feeling of wishing to be somewhere else at this moment is normal. The other bastard in the next dressing room is as much or more afraid than you.” Mike, his head down, never looked up, his face remained expressionless. “You know this, but I must remind you that if you didn’t have those feelings I would tell Cus that you’re a dumb, crazy kid not worth keeping.”
No response. “Are you listening?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“At least you’re not shaking like I always did,” I said.
Before my first professional fight I couldn’t control the trembling of my hands or the butterflies in my stomach. I remember my teeth chattering so loudly that my opponent, Gene Hamilton, who was standing next to me, asked if I was cold. I gave him a nervous laugh for an answer because I had noticed his stomach was quivering out of control. I couldn’t control my own trembling, but I felt my energy level increasing as the fight approached.
“Just try to relax,” I said now. “And when you walk in, don’t forget to keep your hands up, your chin down, and punch always in combination.”
Tyson nodded a couple of times and then I told him to stand up and show me. He did, and I thought he was loose enough. I said, “Now, you’re ready to search and destroy.” He managed a spiritless smile.
Minutes later, as referee Sid Rubenstein gave the usual instructions in the center of the ring, Mike stared at the canvas, biting down on his mouthpiece. Fifty-two seconds after that, Rubenstein made Tyson stop punching. The referee had probably prevented Singleton’s brains from being scrambled. The fight was suddenly over and Tyson was a happy, beaming teenager. He looked at me as if he was surprised with the ease of his triumph. Rubenstein’s instructions had taken longer than the fight itself.