“He’s done more bad things to black boxers than any white promoter”
Don King is one of the shady greats in boxing
Source: Getty Images / Jamie McCarthy
Don King had the greatest in boxing under contract. The promoter pulled the strings for legends like Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson. It was highly controversial – and Don King is in trouble again for his 90th birthday.
So to say, on time for his 90th birthday, Don King is being sued again. This time it is the former boxing world champion Mahmoud Charr who wants to see the most colorful and at the same time most controversial promoter in history in court. In Florida, the Charr camp has filed a lawsuit for damages against King and is initially demanding around four million euros for breach of contract. It cannot be assumed that King, who is celebrating his special day on Friday, would be particularly itchy.
After all, the Cologne Charr is just one small number in the line of boxers who sued the man with the high-voltage hairstyle. An excerpt: Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson. Especially with the latter, King should not have been squeamish, according to Tyson he cheated out of 100 million dollars.
“The relationship between me and Mike is like a roller coaster ride. We loved and we hated each other. And he made $ 400 million from me, “King once claimed. Tyson, with whom he is said to have spoken out in the meantime, saw it a little differently: “He has done more bad things to black boxers than any white promoter in the history of boxing.”
Don King was rarely asked to pay the checkout correctly
Ultimately, “Iron Mike” and King agreed out of court on a payment of $ 14 million. That’s mostly how it works at King. The man just can’t be packed. When properly asked to pay, let alone convicted, he was seldom. Charr should also be prepared for this, who accuses King of having blocked a world championship fight for him through his relationship with the WBA association.
Don King with Mike Tyson at a press conference in July 1989. King endeavored to promote the image of “the badest man on the planet” because it was easy to market
Those: Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images / Ron Galella
In the past few years it has become quieter around King. He hasn’t fought a really big fight in a long time, plus there are health problems that you have at his age. People close to him say he has not been the same since his wife Henrietta’s death in 2010 after nearly 50 years of marriage. But a Don King doesn’t really think about retirement. “Call me half-retired,” he told the New York Times a few years ago.
Axel Schulz also suffered from King’s gift of pulling the strings in his favor. The German heavyweight darling rose on December 9, 1995 as a favorite for his world championship fight against Francois Botha in the ring. But the South African had bargained with King before the fight, and Schulz had a bad premonition. In the middle of the fight he saw himself confirmed.
“When I heard after four or five laps that Botha was ahead, I knew I needed a knockout. Otherwise I have no chance against Don King, ”said the 52-year-old. To this day, he still does not know what exactly happened. “But I had the feeling that I couldn’t win on points. And unfortunately I wasn’t the killer in terms of knockout “
In 1995, 18.52 million people in Germany watched the heavyweight fight between Schulz (right) and Botha on television
Quelle: Bongarts/Getty Images
The fact that King is still in business despite his more than dodgy reputation can be traced back to the great days of heavyweight boxing. After all, it was the son of a steel worker from Cleveland who set up the “Rumble in the Jungle” between Ali and George Foreman in 1974 and the “Thrilla in Manila” between Ali and Joe Frazier a year later, and that alone made boxing history wrote down.
Muhammad Ali (left) and Joe Frazier with promoter King
Quelle: NY Daily News via Getty Images/New York Daily News Archive
Ali was the one who got King into the boxing business. “He was the most remarkable man I have met in my life. When it came to his principles, he didn’t hold back, ”King said. That Ali eventually sued him for a million dollars and King managed to buy himself out with $ 50,000 in cash – that’s King.
Just as easily as with his boxers, King got away with it before his heyday. In 1967, after five days in a coma, a man whom King had previously beaten with a pistol died. The first sentence of life imprisonment was reduced to 15 years before King was released on parole after just four years.
“It was the fight of the century”
It is considered one of the greatest boxing matches: On October 30, 1974, Muhammad Ali defeated world boxing champion George Foreman in Kinshasa. 40 years later the memory of the “Rumble in the Jungle” lives on.
.