“Only In America”: A Closer Look at Don King…

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

It’s the hair.

And to be fair – the hair never has been all of him as he is so much more than that mop of bizarre mane at the top of his head. For many, Don King has been like a colossus that has straddled so much of American boxing and by turn – the boxing world in its entirety that has been much of my experience of boxing over the years. I look across at Don King and think only one thing – boxing.

The action that saw our biggest boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn spread across the Atlantic and take on the US of A has got me thinking. Now Eddie is not short of hair but if he needs to get hair to get ahead he has problems. But Don King has no shortage of hair, presence and the unmistakable association with the greatest fighting game on the planet.

I was blessed by being able to see him first in black and white, like some old style feature from a Saturday morning Hammer show he was helping his Muhammad Ali promotion for the Rumble in the Jungle and we caught him full on. The thing about King was that we, in the UK, just could not take to him, trust him, believe him but we all kind of liked him.

He was the ultimate image of a black guy who was making good and in a time when exploitation usually had a white face he seemed to be the very picture of capitalism with an acceptable face; I said SEEMED…

His rise to prominence was thanks to that 1974 Ali/Foreman classic and from that point onwards each time we put on the TV on if Don King was not promoting the transatlantic fight we had fright and wondered if it was really going to happen at all. Now 86 years old we still see him, well we spot the hair, frequently when there are occasions that boxing is on TV and especially when the past is eulogized.

He was a hustler, a street trader and fighter who by 1967 was in jail on manslaughter charges but he left prison with an aura, an image and a reputation; after all it was not the first man he had killed. He was street smart and in the shark infested waters of the boxing world of the early 1970’s that was a perfect apprenticeship; many in that world who thought themselves as the sharks, became the bait.

His ability to stay on the right side of the powerful, coupled with a seemingly untouchable ability to rob his own meant there were very few who would take him on; many managed to win when they did – eventually. His ethics were buried in his childhood but his mark on the boxing world has never been doubted.

He was a consummate mover and a hipsway shaker as he could start with clear allegiance to Frazier, swap into the entourage around Foreman and emerge with the biggest fight in the history of the sport side by side with Ali in Zaire; often in the length of a sentence. It meant he could bring together promises and supply other’s moneys to meet competing demands from which he took and distributed in the one to you, two to me process that seemed, at the time, to be justifiable.

King though delivered. After having given the world a feast in Africa he did it once more with the Philippines his next destination.

If we had thought the Jungle was hard he made sure the Thriller was kept to Manilla. King spotted not only how to get the 70’s dictators on his side but also the TV. He realized that it gave him a bigger market than ticket sales; he caught on quick and took an entire sport AND the world along for the ride as packages included close up access, pay per view opportunities and broadcasting to nations.

By the end of the 1970’s this was not only A guy to know in boxing he had maneuverered himself into being THE guy to know.

He was adding people to a bigger and bigger stable with the likes of the new generations of Duran and Holmes and showing the world how it has to be done in the modern era. He was growing each year and there were times you thought it might all pop and then just when you thought he might have peaked he then brought to the world Iron Mike Tyson.

The late 80’s was a golden time and the next series of raids upon our pockets were achieved with explosive action and the delivery of true sporting beauty all with that tough reputation on the line every time he needed to show who was boss – he always was THE boss too.

King’s problems though were beginning to bury themselves deep and plant seeds for the future, and with anyone who finds thin ice attractive he was always going to be close to things fallen beneath him. Clients began to question his methods, not on their behalf but in their pockets. Fighters like Ali, Tyson and Tim Witherspoon asked questions that ended up being public ones as they took king to court.

He was, however as slippery as an eel as each time he ended up being charged and investigated by the authorities he evaded punishment. This included tax evasion in 1984, twice being under scrutiny for fraud and investigation by the FBI in the 80’s and 90’s all led to nothing.
By the new millennium, with the rise of MMA, the dilution of boxing titles and the fatigue with which many now viewed the sport, King found himself less relevant. His company began to downsize as his wealth was under attack from courts and law suits. It was no longer his suited attire that caused his wallet to wilt but the suits in court that were making it start to creak and moan.
His presence though was undeniable.

Just last year, in 2016, he was representing another heavyweight – Eric Molina in his fight against the WBC champion, Deontay Wilder. At the weigh in, with the arrival of both boxers muted and there being little excitement, the star attraction turned out to be very fella who would not be getting punched for his money – King. They clamoured and strained and the public finally got to see a boxing legend.

As Eddie Hearn keeps saying to people that Wilder is still an unknown it is ironic that the challenger Molina got no recognition, the champion got no real applause but an 86 year old man who was not even promoting the fight and was in the wrong corner for the evening was the most recognizable face there. King had presence and he still HAS presence.

His legacy will be tainted by what he had to do to climb the ladder but let us still be clear there was no ladder before King. He invented it, created it crooked a pathway, climbed it and has left it hanging for other people to tray and straighten it to try and climb in their own way. King’s rise may well have been in a different era. People may talk of different times, because they were different, and there were methods used, not needed, that would be appalling today. They were appalling then but people got away with them because they got away with them.

Eddie Hearn has no choice but to toe a line. You cannot, though, stop yourself from feeling nostalgic that it would be nice to feel we could see Don King rise again, maybe just for one more show and a last hurrah or final farewell. That’s unlikely but you know what – memories do keep you warm at night…

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