Today, August 20th, Don King turns the ripe old age of 94. Yes, 94! The way he\u2019s going, the former numbers runner from Cleveland who, as he said himself numerous times \u201ccame up the hard way in a hard place,\u201d will live to the age of 100. King seemed indestructible when he really was the king of boxing (promotional-wise, as well as influence-wise), and love him or hate him, it cannot be denied that the Gods have shined on King the gift of a long, long life.<\/p>\n
King, who famously listened to the epic \u2018Fight of the Century\u2019 between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier while he was in prison \u2013 put there for stomping to death a man who owed him $600 \u2013 would be Ali\u2019s big-time promoter just over three years later. Rapid progress indeed, and King would show he had astonishing levels of endurance, with him still in the game (at a lower level) today.<\/p>\n
From Prison Walls To Boxing\u2019s Mountaintop<\/p>\n
King once said he was, as young man, led to believe there would be a \u201cmountain top I could reach, where I could sit and rest.\u201d But King was either unable to find the settling place, or he was unwilling to go there after all; instead preferring to keep working, working, working.<\/p>\n
Arguably the most polarising figure in all of boxing, King has people who hate him, and he also has people who say they owe him a great debt. Heavyweight warrior Chuck Wepner, for an example of the folks who fall into the latter category, has nothing bad to say about King, and \u2018The Real-Life Rocky\u2019 goes as far to say the fighters who moan and groan about King are \u201ccry babies.\u201d<\/p>\n
King, Wepner insists, always paid him his full money and he always delivered when it came to promising him big fights. And when we look back, it\u2019s another of King\u2019s noted accomplishments indeed that he managed to get Ali, who had just shocked the world and George Foreman, to defend against a \u201cbleeder\u201d like Wepner and see the fight turn a profit (not a huge profit, and King was in deep with some gangster types as a result of his making the March \u201975 fight, but on Don went).<\/p>\n
The Hustler Who Gave Boxing Its Greatest Nights<\/p>\n
Speaking of big fights, what are King\u2019s biggest hits? King promoted everywhere, and over the course of five decades, this as he pretty much covered all eight (original) weight divisions. And King sure had some amazing talent to work with; fighting talent that either wanted to work with him or had no other choice.<\/p>\n
King\u2019s biggest, indeed proudest moment will always be the unforgettable \u2018Rumble in the Jungle,\u2019 the fight between Ali and Foreman that was dubbed by King as \u201cFrom Slaveship to Championship.\u2019 Had that immensely brave and unexpected venture failed, nobody would be talking about Don King today.<\/p>\n
King also promoted, or co-promoted: Ali-Frazier III: \u2018The Thrilla in Manila.\u2019 And also, on a sadder note (for Ali, but a financially beneficial note for King), Larry Holmes-Ali.<\/p>\n
King didn\u2019t waste much time in zeroing in on a peaking Mike Tyson, this a decade or so after Ali was worn out and Foreman had found religion. King promoted Holmes in-between, and the king of hustlers then persuaded an ageing Holmes to return and fight Tyson. Larry was the victim the same way Ali had been.<\/p>\n
King, wanting and getting \u201ccontrol,\u201d would work with the following greats: Wilfred Benitez, Salvador Sanchez, Wilfredo Gomez, Azumah Nelson, Julio Cesar Chavez, Roberto Duran, Felix Trinidad, Roy Jones Jr, Christy Martin (yet another string to King\u2019s bow being his risky move to promote female fighters).<\/p>\n
King sold-out arenas (to the tune of over 132,000 at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico when it comes to the Chavez-Greg Haugen fight), and he always left the place with a bigger bundle than any fighter he promoted (although not on paper). King was also taken to court numerous times during his ever so long heyday, but King always left the courtroom smiling (at least in public).<\/p>\n
94 and Still Standing: The King Won\u2019t Leave the Ring<\/p>\n
King is still here, he is still smiling, and it\u2019s about 50-50 as far as who is happy about it and who isn\u2019t. But as King once said himself: \u201cIf Don King didn\u2019t exist, you\u2019d have to invent him!\u201d<\/p>\n
Love him or loathe him, you cannot deny the fact that King made a huge impact on the sport, and he sure did give us some great fights\/cards\/events for our money.<\/p>\n
Bottom line question: did Don King do more good for boxing than he did bad?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today, August 20th, Don King turns the ripe old age of 94. Yes, 94! The way he\u2019s going,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-81803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}