 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein. We're going to do another producer episode would bring in Benny to go kind of volley back and forth. We're going to keep, you know, I've always really enjoyed trying to mix the old with the new and taking things that are happening now and giving some historical context. So we're going to kind of stick with our recent theme of the Great White North and mob activity. Organized crime activity up in Canada, Quebec, Montreal, and again shout out to the guys over at Dirty News who do a great job covering the Quebec underworld. And those guys made me aware of a cold case murder from about 40 years ago. And I was unaware of and gave me a little bit of direction and where to find some info they did a little piece on it. And this is a mob murder from the fall of 1985. And a criminal defense attorney, a mob attorney mob mouthpiece by the name of Frank Shufi, who was a Lebanese criminal defense attorney high profile guy in Montreal, and his murder, even though unsolved. We can pretty much nail down the, the, the reasons and the circumstances, and those reasons and circumstances tied into professional boxing, the role that the mafia played in professional boxing. And in the mid 1980s, the face of professional or the two faces of professional boxing at that time, Don King and Mike Tyson, all kind of play a role in this story Tyson more tangentially. But so we're going to talk about that a little bit and then maybe talk a little bit more in general about Tyson and Don King's connections to the, to the mafia mob and just maybe just in general the way old school boxing was was ran. Benny thanks for joining me man. For sure. Outside of the glass. Yeah. The wife. The children from the glass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Benny, were you ever, I mean, there's, there's some, you know, age gap between Benny and I a generation gap in one sense that I grew up in the 80s and 90s Benny grew up in the late 90s throughout most of the 2000s. 2000s born in 94. So, right. Don't remember too much of the 90s. But I remember when boxing was a big deal. I'm sure Benny doesn't, Benny probably his first memory of the fight game I'm guessing was MMA related. Yeah, pretty much. Floyd Mayweather in his earlier years, they were hype around that. MMA was what really, I guess, took off in the. It's had a different stratosphere. Yeah, yeah. Boxing boxing is a is, I hate to say it is just it's a dead sport. And I don't know if it's ever going to come back. I hope it does. I loved it. Again, getting you know, not having to go down a personal rabbit hole here, but boxing was one of my first loves in terms of me falling in love with professional sports. I'm not into boxing now I haven't been into boxing in a while but when I was growing up in like again in the 80s and 90s. I was a big fight fan and my first two loves. In terms of sports were baseball and boxing, two things that I don't really care about as an adult, but those are really the two things that got me really into sports, then basketball, and then eventually football was kind of the last pro sport that I fell in love with and now for me, it's all football. I mean, I still love basketball, but to me that's the only thing that really gets me excited. So, but but boxing was a was a really big deal on a big level when I was, you know, until it's just my let's just say my first 15 years of life. You know, boxing had, you know, you were born what year were you born 77 so like you're so 87 you were 10. Yeah, so 97 you were 20. Okay, you're in your in your these were things that you saw on your television every day these were athletes that were being promoted by sneaker companies and soda companies, car companies. On every Saturday and Sunday, I remember turning on the television with my grandpa's both grandpa's and watching boxing on NBC CBS ABC. HBO, when we got when we first got HBO, I got it, you know, say in the mid 80s. That's an important point right there. It was on national television. Yeah. And then if you got HBO. It was a big deal when at first, you know, when you could watch tell you watch movies on your on your TV. They were their entire sports division was, they have like the NFL today show that they would run once a week with like highlights, and then the rest of their sports department was all boxing. Let me ask you this. How often was there a big fight on back in the late 80s, early 90s. So that's another thing that I remember the fights, those big fights were never you could never catch them live. You would they were all pay per view events I mean you I shouldn't say you could catch them live but you had to pay pay for you couldn't sit. And then and then at a point in the 90s you could order it on your through your cable box, but you were still paying you weren't just paying the regular fee for the HBO or your regular you know hook up to have a television so you could have ABC NBC CBS. But no big fights were free. They all caught my memory. I mean that you could get some really good fights that you would see on those Friday or sorry those Saturday and Sundays, where they would have the big big networks would have their boxing coverage. You could always be like the lead ups. So you would see like number two contender fight number three contender to then have a have a shot to go fight Tyson or fight whoever for a championship and then that would be pay per view. Got you. So you can follow it all you can follow the fighters kind of all the way up to the point where they became championships and champions and we're fighting for belts then you would have the, you know, kind of, you know, not kind of you have to pay for the right to watch it at that point. And back in the 90s how much was the average pay per view back then. I don't I just I always lived with like I lived in like fraternity house and I always live with a bunch of guys I was never the one handling the just always chipping in but I remember you'd always buy the flights. In the 90s but in the 80s. Sometimes I think you could watch it live on HBO. If you had HBO you could watch those fights live. Other times I think HBO would have the right to put it out like a week after it had been on pay per view. Okay. So I remember watching the sugar a marvelous Marvin fight in 87 or 88, but it was like a couple of days after it had been live but I was watching it for the first time, like it was live on HBO. Got you. And these pay per view fights, was everybody watching them like the Super Bowl? Yes. Like a, okay. Yes, a Tyson fight in the 90s, the world's stop in the 80s and 90s, the world's stop for Tyson fights. I mean, that's those are my memories as a kid like you're like it's a great analogy that it was like a Super Bowl. Tyson was a phenomena, like no other sports figure that I can imagine other than Michael Jordan Tiger Woods. You know, maybe like a Tom Brady step Curry type. Now, but he was just must see action at all times when he lost it. It was just jaw dropping. In 90, I think it was 91 90 or 91 when he lost to Buster Douglas. But let's just say from 85 to 91. That was the biggest ticket in professional sports outside of a Super Bowl Lakers Celtics and NBA finals or so. And let's just again put it in a context. The mafia weren't just influential in the pro fight game. Organized crime corruption, back deal wheeling and dealing. That's, that's, that was just the sport, you know, you couldn't have one without the other. If you were a if you were a fighter and you wanted to fight and you had a group of people around you that could get you to a championship, you had to deal with the mafia in one one shape, former or not. Was it mainly the five families? No, it was every family. Every family. Almost every family. So, you know, just for Benny and I are both at people probably know this are Detroiters. So Benny says it is, you know, his first memories of boxing come from Floyd Mayweather who's a, not a fighter, but a guy from Michigan who's really proud to be from the state of Michigan's from Grand Rapids or some of the west side of the state. And his dad was actually a big part of the Detroit fight game, even though his dad was from Grand Rapids but his dad was a fighter and trained down in Detroit, but just in Detroit. We had a couple guys that controlled all the boxing here. Little Sammy Fennazo ran the Motor City Boxing Gym. I believe it was on Woodward. I think you can still find on YouTube some old NBC Saturday afternoon fights I think this is from before I was painted tension to it I think they're from like the 60s or 70s, and they're at the Motor City Boxing Gym that's where the pro fights are happening they're being broadcast on national television. Little Sammy Fennazo ran the fight game here in, in Detroit he was a mob coppo in Philadelphia you had guys like Frankie Carbo, Blinky Palermo, Tony meets Ferranti. I know in St. Louis, Sonny Liston. The guys behind Sonny Liston were the St. Louis mafia, Johnny Bytes out. In fact, then the five families all had had their hooks and almost every fighter on the East Coast. And then they control the rankings they control the 15 different sanctioning bodies and then they could control who was getting what fights which is how they would leverage their power if you didn't want to play play ball with them you weren't going to get a shot at the title, let alone win the title. There were a lot of throwing fights. Yes. But like even in like the 80s and 90s. Probably not as much. But also in the 50s and 60s. I mean just watch Raging Bull. He you know he had to throw a fight to get his shot at the championship. And his Jake Lamada had a love hate relationship with the mafia. There's some great scenes in that movie with Frank Vincent who goes on to be Billy Bats and, and other great, you know, other great characters and Scorsese movies and then actually the guy that played coach on Cheers. I think his name was Nick Colosanto. He was the mob boss in Raging Bull. And he's great. And there's some great scenes there about him not wanting to play ball with those guys. I don't. I don't know I should I should have done some more preparation for this. I don't know exactly who Lamada was dealing with anybody in the comments you can chime in. Which New York guys were were, you know, making it so Lamada couldn't get a title title shot unless he, you know, help them out. I know in Detroit, at that point again not to always bring it back to the motor city but that was a, just like with a lot of other things in organized crime at that time this was a real hub. And a lot of professional boxing's biggest fights were happening in Detroit from the days of Joe Lewis forward Joe Lewis again somebody who was, you know, probably outside of what Ali and Tyson and sugar Ray Robinson Rocky Marciano. Jack Johnson I mean I would say those guys are the icons and he got a Joe Lewis is probably at the top of it. Okay, let's get back on track. Joe Lewis was being was controlled by the mob. He was controlled by the black mob at that time who was working for the Italians in Detroit so I didn't know that Wow yeah yeah so so Joe Lewis so just from the days of Joe Lewis Johnny Roxborough was Joe Lewis is a manager Johnny Roxborough is one of the biggest black policy number bosses in Detroit controlled a lot of black bottom Paradise Valley which was an area of Detroit that bred a lot of great athletes and great entertainers and through Joe Lewis spent most of his time in Detroit anyway he yeah so he was and then went and then in Detroit when it kind of moved into the 80s and you had Tommy the hit man herns he he was I don't want to say he was Cronk Jim which is the Detroit kind of the boxing Legendary Jim yeah unfortunately now close but right the many RIP many Stewart who is you know I believe he trained 40 41 champions world champions against the most any any trainer and pro boxing's ever had and Tommy herns was his protege is his first major champion to get other champions his first real superstar and and Tommy the hit man was mob adjacent I don't I don't want to say he was controlled by the mafia per se but his entourage was filled with black gangsters I mean that's a fact there's a lot of pictures and videos out there of of Tommy herns going to the going to the ring on some of his biggest fights in the 80s surrounded by like Demetrius Halloway and Maserati Rick Carter you know some hardcore Detroit gangsters we grew up with and then he comes up in a bunch of FBI investigations for hosting a lot of mob gambling events that is his mansion in the suburbs all right let's go back to the original story that we buried the lead on but let's just talk about we wanted to give give a little bit of a precursor a little precursor a table setter a little appetizer a pallet pleaser so Frank Shufi was very high profile criminal defense attorney in Montreal came to prominence in the media in the mid to late 60s was representing his first you know big client that got him a lot of publicity was independent gangster named Richie the cat Blass and had a I think he had a couple brothers and they opposed the at that time the reigning mafia empire in Montreal was the Cotrone family and the youngest Cotrone brother big Frank Cotrone was you know a formidable force in his own right his older brother's oldest brother that Cotrone AK the egg was you know he was kind of the Al Capone of Canada until the risottos and what's going on over the last you know 40 40 years but the Cotronis were the the name brand mafia there and Frank Cotrone controlled all the boxing in in Canada a lot of great fighters came out of Canada and Frank Shufi made a name for himself as a criminal defense attorney represented these Richie the cat Blass who was at war with the Cotronis and it got a lot of headlines back then he also represented members of the Cotrone family members of the risottos members of the violins I think he represented some West End guys Irish mob just a guy that was involved in politics served as a kind of a business counselor and one of the people he was counseling for business and handling legal affairs for was the Hilton family which was a big boxing family in Montreal the dad David Hilton trained his two sons the Hilton brothers Matthew Hilton and Davey Boy Hilton are both of them were world champions Matthew Hilton who this particular situation a contract between him and Don King that's where the situation arose from was the junior middleweight champion in the IBF I believe his brother Davey Hilton was the super middleweight champion in the WBC I didn't really know about these guys for being for criminal claims to be a boxing aficionado I'd never heard the Hilton brothers and I looked at their records and I think Matthew Hilton finished with a record of like 34 and 3 32 3 and 2 32 right 32 and 3 so what I'm saying is they were commodities in the mid 80s Frank Shufi had the ear of their father who was their manager and their trainer Frank Cotrone was brokering contracts for fights at different major venues throughout throughout Canada taken broker fees finders fees specifically with Don King's fighters Don King you know the gotta be the most infamous famous iconic every one fight promoter of all time the hair alone and the big personality and reputation for being well he was a gangster and then he remade himself as a boxing executive and it was always a lightning rod but a pop culture personality and somebody that was difficult to he was ubiquitous him and Mike Tyson at that time are just everywhere and Frank Cotrone was fighting extradition he had a heroin case he was gonna have to go do some time and in a prison in New York I believe in he was banking on the contract that he was brokering for Don King and the Hilton brothers and then and Frank I think this is either can you Benny look up when Tyson got the bell this is October 85 Tyson is either on the verge of getting the bell or it just got the bell was it WBC champion when he beat Burbeck I think it was for the championship and then he was he was a heavyweight and he was 20 years old November 22, 1986 first title fight against Trevor Burbeck okay so this was like I'll say not 11 months this was a little no this was 13 months 13 months before Tyson takes the crown but Tyson at that time is still a the buzz started with him the real life club or Lang right exactly and Don King was going to sign a contract to promote fights for Matt Hilton two upcoming fights that were pretty relatively big name fights the fight the first fight was like literally like a week after Frank Shufi's murdered in Montreal in his office or right outside his office on October 15th 1985 and the reason the investigators believe nobody's ever been charged was that Shufi had convinced Dave Hilton to not have his son sign that promotion contract with Don King where he was going to promote the October 20th fight against Vito and a fight in February of 1986 against Wilfred Benitez these were you know pretty big name people at the time and then I think he was also had options to promote some of Dave Hilton's fights and Shufi told him not to do business with Don King was probably a good advice but it got him killed according to what investigators believe and what Frank Catroni's form of right hand man bodyguard Real Samard who flipped told investigators that Catroni put the head out on Shufi so it's interesting I didn't know anything about it and when I started to look into it I talked to some of my sources up there talked to some law enforcement you know this is just stepping on the wrong people's toes so do you think it was did Don King have any ties no so let's be well yeah he ties with the Catronis he was doing deals with the Catronis where the Catronis were kind of teeing up fighters like this to do deals with in Canada and then taking a piece of the deals so it wasn't just Canadian fighters it was like any fights that were taking place in Canada I mean I remember when I was a kid there was a big fight I don't remember where it took place but it was against a Canadian fighter and everybody was all they all thought oh this is the there was always like this is how my memory is a kid was like there was always like the next guy this is the one who's going to take on this one's this is the guy that's going to take down Tyson this is the guy and it was Donovan Razor Ruddick who was a Canadian fighter so stuff like that so when Tyson was going to Canada obviously King was going to promote it and then he was trying to take the market in Canada for doing any all promotions and the Catronis controlled the boxing market there so but Don King we don't believe right let's call the hit let's be clear Don King was never implicated in any wrongdoing or violence or anything shady in this particular situation but Don King is a convicted murderer that's not a not a secret he was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1960s stomped the worker of his to death back before he became a boxing promoter he was a have I heard this story yeah yeah this is this is not a secret this is Cleveland he was a Cleveland racketeer in the 50s and 60s he was a black mafia boss or mob associate to the Cleveland Italian mob ran all the numbers in Cleveland with his partner Virgil Ogletree and I think it was 1966 got into a dispute with one of his numbers runners over 600 bucks and killed the guy I think King had to go do five years four or five years he might have been got the sentence commuted or pardoned by the Ohio governor or something and then came out of prison and immediately jumped head first into the promotion game and was promoting Muhammad Ali within like a year or two we in a reinvented himself you can call Don King a murderer because he is a murderer not first-degree murder but he was convicted of manslaughter second-degree murder and that that says 1967 couldn't even convicted right so what I'm saying is like when he came into the business the general public might not have known that I mean I didn't know about it until Ben didn't know about it until I didn't know about it at all I didn't know about it until I started studying the stuff but that you don't think that helps you in that business yeah people aren't going to fuck with you like they would fuck with a Jewish promoter that evokes fear yeah so let's wrap up by talking about Tyson and not a lot of people know his ties into the mafia or the people that he was connected with um he's he was a I don't want to say he belonged I think that's the wrong way to phrase it but he was trained by custom motto who's a famous fight trainer who died before he got a chance to see Tyson become champion and what was so unique about that situation was that Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion of all time and the person that he beat out for that achievement was Floyd Patterson which had been custom motto's first champion um and and cuss was a very uh controversial figure was kind of I fought the mafia but also was controlled by the mafia a lot of people thought that he was too strong willed too strong minded too stubborn when he found Tyson he was kind of held to upstate New York and the Catskills he wasn't really even training champions at that point he had kind of been blackballed a little bit and then he discovered Tyson who was at a reform school down the road I think Tyson was like 12 years old yeah Tyson had a rough upbringing and people know that in Brownsville in Brownsville and Catskills some of the guys that trained with cuss were counselors at the reform school and one of them discovered Tyson brought him to custom motto and so custom motto everybody had to have a guy and again that's just the way business was done the guy was Charlie Antonucci went by the nickname Charlie Black whose brother or half brother or step brother was Fat Tony Solerna who was you know at the head of the table at least on the street for the Genovese crime family for quite a while he's kind of like got a big cigar in his mouth and he just looks like like a cartoon character of what a monster would look like there's a famous video of him walking out of court barking at the paper or barking at the cameraman like he's a penguin but Tyson's not shy about this I just heard him on a podcast recently saying that Charlie Black used to bring Tony Solerna up to Tyson's training camps like before Tyson became champion I'm sure Solerna was by the time Tyson became champion I think Solerna was locked up but in the lead up to that as he was being groomed and rising through the ranks he's Tony Solerna sitting there with a few feet away from him sitting there with Customano I bet you he had some stories there I saw a funny interaction or an account of an interaction where there was an old time boxing writer I'm forgetting who he was I don't remember if I saw this on a boxing documentary or if I read it but I remember them saying like Customano used to whenever he would have the media by him he would just start railing about the mafia and how the mafia had its hooks into all the different sanctioning bodies and all the different fighters and how he could never get a fair shake and how he was a one man fighting squad against the big bad mob or this big popular prominent boxing writer was like I would sit with Cuss after he would go on these tirades and the media would all go away and I turned to him and be like Cuss what are you talking about it wasn't for Charlie Black and Fat Tony you wouldn't even be and he's like yeah but you gotta arts and minds man you gotta play the game so I just thought it was interesting to kind of chop up for a little bit I would recommend anybody that's interested in the genre or reliving that stuff there's so much great stuff on YouTube of fights from the not just the fights but just the way they were covered it was just so much pageantry it's like what the UFC is now but times a million because there were only Russian networks and it just was such a it was so grand and we're just an interesting story I wanted to share and I'm glad Benny was here to share it with us and thanks Benny. Speaking of Tyson he's got a fight coming up against Jake Paul on July 20th it says exclusively on Netflix I believe it says if I'm Jake Paul's people and I understand it's all money grab it's all for clicks it's all for content or whatever but how do you benefit at all if you win you beat up on a 60 year old if he eats you alive you got your ass handed to you by a 6 year old who hasn't fought in 20 years. 15 years. It's the money, it's the greed and it's the fame. Well everybody please like, subscribe, share we're going to be doing a little more of these kind of split in the baby episodes not quite a quick hit or not quite a long form episode with a big interview but maybe like these like 30, 25 to 35 minute breakdowns of some things and hope you guys enjoy them Thank you Benny. We will be back very soon here on the OG pod. I'm Scott Bernstein for Benny.