Matt Baranski, age 88, dies in Albany
Away from the ring, he was a career mailman.
When it came to boxing, he carried a spit bucket and had Q Tips behind his ears.
His name was Matt Baranski, he just died at 88 in the Albany, NY, area and I remember him as a quiet guy who always delivered as the cutman for the young heavyweight phenomenon that was Mike Tyson.
Make no mistake, although he never sought the limelight, Baranski was a key part of the original Team Tyson and he walked Iron Mike into the ring along with head trainer Kevin Rooney and camp coordinator Steve Lott.
Obviously, Baranski made more money from a few big Tyson bouts than he did toiling for the U.S. Postal Service.
But you can’t say the man did not do his job well as I don’t think Tyson was ever cut during his tenure in the corner.
Mike Tyson looked like an unconquerable beast when reserved but competent cutman Matt Baranski was in his corner. For the record, this SI cover was the SECOND national magazine piece on teenager Tyson, the first was a piece in SPORT magazine written by a scribe named Michael Marley
Unfortunately, when Don King swooped down and replaced impersonable and pompous Bill Cayton as the Tyson career shotcaller, both Rooney and Baranski got swept aside.
This was the time period when Tyson foolishly let Heckle and Jeckle, his running buddies John Horne and Rory Holloway, organize and run his training operations. When he was in Indiana, impriosoned on a rape charge, he actually made the pair his co-managers although King turned them into marionettes,
Rooney brought his removal upon himself, appearing inebriated on an ESPN interview in which he badmouthed Tyson’s wife, the actress Robin Givens and her not as slick as she thought but always plotting mother, Ruthless Ruth Roper.
Long after her tumultuous marriage to heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, Robin Givens remains a sexy, successful actor (Getty Images)
Tyson rang me up and told me I could write in The New York Post that Rooney, who certainly did his job in the gym and in the corner, was an FMF, a fired motherflyer. Though I tried for hours to reach Rooney to inform him, the trainer held a grudge against me, the mere media messenger, for years.
Baranski was attached to Rooney so he was canned also through no fault of his own.
I distinctly recall the last time I saw Tyson and Rooney together. I drove up to Catskill one afternoon, to the old Cus D’Amato Gym.
King was looming large and Rooney was not happy. In my presence, he warned Tyson that the promoter would ?wreck? his career and his life.
?I am not worried,? Tyson shot back. ?I know how to handle him. Like Cus used to say, when you’ve got a snake in your room, you keep the light on the snake.?
There aren’t that many solid cutmen working today although Danny Milano, aka ?Cut Man Dan,? the busy, New Jersey-based bloodstopper comes quickly to mind.
Milano is a throwback to reliable cutmen such as Baranski, Eddie Aliano and the late, great Ace Marotta.
I should also mention Chicago’s Jim Strickland and San Antonio stalwart by way of New Bedford, Ma., Joe Souza although Old Joe has been ailing in recent years.
It’s not easy being a cutman.
When you do your job, few notice.
When you goof, everybody notices.
I never saw Matt Baranski goof.
Farewell to a solid boxing man.
He never said much but Baranski’s work ethic was superb.
He was an integral part of Tyson’s most impressive pugilistic period.
