Rear View Mirror - Don King

Rear View Mirror - A look back at the colourful career of boxing promoter Don King

GBN's Caledonian columnist, Donald C Stewart, looks in his rear view mirror at the eventful life and career of Don King

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 a colossus that has straddled so much of American boxing and by turn – the boxing world – in its entirety and was much of my experience of boxing in my formative fan years. I looked across at images of Don King and thought only one thought – boxing.

But, Don King, though a true Titan of the sport, is a man who provokes more questions than he has answers and that’s something for Don King has an answer for everything: such is his enigma.

Our promoters, by comparison are staid and conservative, by comparison. Take Eddie Hearn who has spread Matchroom across the Atlantic and taken on the good old US of A. It got me thinking. Eddie is not short of a decent barnet but if he needs to get hair to get ahead, he has problems – could you imagine Hearn with a King Mop?

But Don King has no shortage of presence and an unmistakable association with the greatest fighting game on the planet, though his star has in recent years faded, not just because he is in his 10th decade.

I think I saw him first in black and white, like some old-style feature from a Saturday morning Hammer show when he was promoting Muhamad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle and we caught him full on. Brash Americans dd not go down well with 1970’s Britain. Most could not take to him, trust him, believe him, though many liked him. Culturally we were increasingly in thrall to the American brash and confident way of doing things, and it could be argued, King became part of that wave of showing us that positivity and belief in an American Way was the only way to go.

King was also the ultimate image of a black guy making good in a white man’s business. In a time when exploitation usually had a white face – he seemed to be the very picture of capitalism with an acceptable face; now, I said SEEMED...

His rise to prominence came on the back of the 1974 Ali/Foreman classic. And from then on, it felt like each time we put on the TV, if Don King was not promoting the transatlantic fight, we had a fear and wondered if it was really going to happen at all.

But King is a killer. Literally. Twice.

In 1954 he shot a man in a justifiable homicide as the guy was trying to rob one of his gambling houses. 13 years later, hustler, street trader and fighter King, in 1967 was convicted on second-degree murder when he stomped on one of his employees for a debt of $600. He served just shy of four years, released after the charge was reduced to voluntary manslaughter. In prison King educated himself and left prison with an aura, an image and a reputation. 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 his 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.

And so, in 1983, Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes pardoned King. With support from the likes of Jesse Jackson, King was able to call upon political friends and influential people at will.

But his ethics and people being associated with his business practices continued to challenge. From the 1950s, ties with organised crime were levelled at him (he plead the fifth amendment in a Senate Hearing into organised crime in the 1990s), the IRS raided his house, blackmail charges set, and up until recently, King was never a stranger to a court room drama.

He was however a consummate mover and a hipsway shaker as he showed in the 1970s heavyweight scene. He was able to start with clear allegiance to Smokin Joe Frazier, sweep into the entourage around George Foreman and then emerge with the biggest fight in the history of the sport side by side with Muhamad Ali in Zaire; he often achieved this dexterity in the length of a sentence. It meant he could bring together promises and supply other people’s money to meet competing demands from which he took and distributed largesse in a one part to you, two parts to me style process that seemed, at the time, to be justifiable – because he said it was.

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

If we had thought the Jungle was hard, he made sure the Thriller shone in Manilla. King spotted not only how to get the 70’s dictators onside but also the TV. He was one of the first to realise that it gave him a bigger market than simply ticket sales; he took an entire sport AND the world along for the ride as he delivered packages which included close up access, pay per view opportunities and opportunities to broadcast to nations.

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

He was also responsible for the 1975 fight for Ali against Chuck Wepner that inspired a young Sly Stallone to write a screenplay!

He was adding people to a bigger and bigger stable with the likes of the new generations of Roberto Duran and Larry Holmes, showing the world how it needed done in the modern era. He was growing his business each year and there were times you thought it might all pop. It grew like topsy and then, when you thought he might have peaked, he brought to the world Iron Mike Tyson.

The late 80’s was a golden time for King and the next series of raids upon our pockets were achieved with explosive action demonstrating his tough reputation every time he needed to show who was boss – and it was he who was always was THE boss.

King’s problems though were beginning to bury themselves deep and plant seeds for the future. With anyone who finds thin ice attractive he was always going to be close to things which had fallen beneath him. Clients began to question his methods and their effects on their pockets. Fighters like Ali, Tyson and Tim Witherspoon asked questions that ended up being public as they took King to court.

He was, however, as slippery as an eel and each time he was 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 which all led to nothing.  He also launched his own litigation, when in 2005, he sued ESN for defamation as they claimed in a documentary King had, “"killed, not once, but twice", threatened to break Larry Holmes' legs, had a hospital invest in a film that was never made, cheated Meldrick Taylor out of $1 million, and then threatened to have Taylor killed.” Ironically it too was dismissed as King could not show “actual malice” or that any of the statements were false. King appealed and still got no joy.

And it was also in politics that King proved slippery – currently a supporter of Donald J Trump, he was also a Barack Obama supporter…

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 defending himself in courts and increasing numbers of lawsuits being filed against him. 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.

In 2016, he represented heavyweight Eric Molina in his fight against then WBC champion, Deontay Wilder. At the weigh in, he appeared and whilst the arrival of both boxers was muted with little excitement for the fight, the real star attraction turned out to be very fella who would not be getting punched for his money – Don King! People clamoured and strained as the new boxing public got to see a true boxing legend.

Whilst Eddie Hearn’s schtick at the time was Wilder was 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 recognisable face there.

His legacy is 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 try and straighten. 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, but they were appalling then and people got away with them because they got away with them. Don’t let old timers say anything about the Good Old Days…

But I leave you with Mike Tyson’s view of the man who made him champion – ruthless, deplorable, greedy. Tyson had sued and had won against King, proving at least that some of his opinions were clearly true.