Boxing in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder

Sunday, October 12, 2025

     Bobby Stewart was featured speaker at a boxing club meeting last month at Gloversville’s  Eccentric Club.  Stewart, from Tribes Hill, won the National Golden Gloves Tournament as a light heavyweight in 1974, beating Mike Dokes in Denver, Colorado.  His amateur record was 45 wins and 5 losses.  Stewart turned professional after the 1974 Golden Gloves Tournament and won 13 of his 16 fights.

Some years later Stewart waa a counselor at what was then Tryon reform school in Perth.  Stewart introduced inmate Mike Tyson to boxing and also introduced Tyson to trainer Cus Damato in Catskill.  Tyson went on to a colorful and controversial career including a stint as heavyweight boxing champ.

Stewart was raised in Amsterdam which had a lively boxing scene years ago. His father was a New York State Police officer and his mother worked in local doctors’ offices.

Stewart said, “Tyson was a complete gentleman as he wanted to fight so bad.” Tyson was observed by Tryon staff practicing boxing routines in his room at 1:45 a.m.

Stewart and Tyson were boxing three rounds for Damato and Damato’s gym manager Teddy Atlas. Stewart hit Tyson in the nose toward the end of the match and the young man began bleeding although his nose was not broken.

Atlas wanted to stop the fight but Tyson said he wanted to finish it as he always did three rounds with Stewart. They finished the three rounds.

Damato pronounced that barring outside distractions Tyson, then twelve or thirteen, would become world heavyweight champion.

According to former Recorder columnist George Lazarou, Amsterdam was a boxing mecca in the late 1930s, a legacy of boxing matches arranged for soldiers at the South Side Armory. Lazarou himself was a fighter, trained by Buddy Benoit. Benoit once lost a close contest with the famous Jake Lamotta.

Another popular local fighter was Sailor Barron, who went on to head the usher corps at the old Rialto Theatre on Market Street, according to historian Hugh Donlon.

 “Barron’s ring expertise enabled him to administer fistic anesthesia to potential troublemakers so quietly that there was no awareness of the operation by most patrons,” Donlon wrote. Bothersome customers were removed to an alleyway outside.

Boxing was so popular in Amsterdam that 8,000 fans attended the city playground championship at Lynch School fields one year in the late 1930s. In a bout held behind Lanzi’s tavern on the South Side, the press of the crowd collapsed a wooden fence around the arena.

Many Amsterdam pugilists then were Italian-American. Sammy and Jimmy Pepe, who operated a popular West Main Street restaurant, trained fighters at the Mount Carmel Athletic Club in the basement of the former church building on the South Side. Jo Jo Zeno had training quarters at his Ringside Athletic Club on East Main Street.

Zeno trained John Duchessi, Senior, and his older brother Peter. John Duchessi, Senior, father of the former mayor, said boxers earned $2 a fight.

Peter had 57 victories in 71 fights and John, known as “Duke the Second” or “Duke the Dropper,” won 14 of 15 bouts in the 118 to 124- pound weight class.

Duchessi fought in one of the earliest televised bouts in 1942, broadcast by General Electric’s WRGB from the basement of the television station building in Schenectady. John Duchessi slugged his way to a decision over Don Trott of Saratoga Springs.

Many local fighters, including John Duchessi, went off to fight in World War II and the local boxing scene never recovered. Television also brought national fights into the homes of fight fans.

“Nobody wanted to get punched for $2 after the war,” John Duchessi said.

You may reach Bob Cudmore at 518 346 6657 or [email protected]