Mobster, boxer, rat

On December 16th, 1985, Gambino family boss Paul Castellano was murdered at Sparks Steakhouse in midtown along with his underboss Thomas Bilotti. Watching from across the street in a parked Lincoln Continental were John Gotti and Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, architects of the murder. Gotti went on to become the Dapper Don of the Gambino family, with Gravano as his savage enforcer.

This has very little to do with sports, I know, but it gives me an opportunity to point out a not terribly well known fact - Sammy Gravano was a boxing nut who used to train at Gleason's in the late 80's, first with Edwin Viruet (who fought Roberto Duran for the lightweight title in 1977 at the Spectrum in Philly) and then with Teddy Atlas.

As Atlas tells the story in his autobiography, he met Gravano at Gleason's in 1988, and Gravano liked him so much that he got Atlas a gold membership at his preferred gym, the Narrows Fitness Club in Bay Ridge. Atlas trained him there for about a year and they became friends, sparring regularly and going to fights together at the Garden. Evidently Gravano had almost no range but could punch like a son of a bitch. Typical of almost all of Teddy's stories about himself, he says that Gravano liked him because of his hard-edged street psychology (bordering, at times, on "ghetto zen") concerning all matters of manhood. Who knows. Whatver kept the relationship going, eventually Gravano mentioned to Atlas that he "and his partners" were interested in getting into boxing and they wanted Teddy to manage their fighters. Atlas tried to say no, but Gravano insisted that he at least have a sitdown with his boys about the matter, so they met at a Brooklyn restaurant called La Tavola. At the place, Sammy the Bull was clearly royalty. Atlas writes, "here's a guy who's never done anything except kill people, yet he's being treated like Frank Sinatra."

There were nine total goombahs at the dinner including Gravano. They gave Teddy the hard sell, but he said no, and with good reason. You don't have to be the street savant that Atlas makes himself out to be to figure that one out.

Later on, when the indictments were rolling in on the Gambino family, Gravano told Teddy that he might have to go away for a while and asked if Atlas would train his son Gerard while he was gone. Then he turned rat on Gotti and went into the Witness Protection Program, humiliating his wife and son and even, it seems, Atlas. Nevertheless, he kept his word and trained Gerard a few times. But it turned out Gerard wasn't that into boxing. Go figure. That was the last Teddy Atlas had anything to do with the Gravano clan.