Was Don King good for boxing?

Because Arum has Pac man and is going to milk him for all he's worth.

 

Without Duff and Lawless Stracey would never have become champion,neither would he have gotten a soft defence against Hedgeman Lewis who had lost 2 of his last 6 fights.Duff lobbied for that defence and got Lewis accepted as a challenger.He also lobbied and got Stracey accepted as the number 1 challenger to Napoles .
Did you know that as an amateur Stracey had a leg problem and that Lawless arranged for him to have treatment from the West Ham physio ? Stracey wasn't a great fighter he was kod by Jim Watt in the amateurs,
I don't think he would have gone beyond Euro level with Duff and Lawless behind him.
Conteh left the group he was managed by George Francis he received £10,000 to sign with Francis when he came out of the amateurs .The money was put up by a guy called Lenny Martin who did not have a managers licence.
Conteh's first two fights were for Solomons,after that he was promoted by Duff on a two fight deal at a time after Conteh won the vacant title against Ahumada,he got £33,000 for beating Lonnie Bennett and was due to fight a non title easy ten rounder for which his purse was to be £15,000.Conteh reneged on his contract refusing to take the second fight and sacked Francis and said he wouldn't work with Duff anymore ,Duff took him to court for breach of contract, Conteh did not appear and his licence was suspended by the BBBOC until he did,under the WBC ruling Conteh eventually had to pay Duff and Co compensation. Conteh then went on his own with his brother who knew jack sh*t about boxing.
Conteh fought in the US and injured his hand,his next fight which Tony his brother negotiated was a real tough one against Alvaro Lopez in Copenhagen ,Conteh was promised£100,000 but received £2000! Conteh got a big payday for Len Hutchins in Liverpool ,that was due to Bob Arum bringing in US TV.
Conteh's next defence was against Miguel Cuello whom Conteh should not have had any trouble against,but he refused to fight him and the WBC stripped him of their title. The WBC allowed Conteh to challenge their champion Mate Parlov in1978 he lost.Conteh then came back to Duff.
Duff matched him with Leonardo Rogers and paid him £25,000.The show didn't make a profit and Duff made the following public statement."The show was no good financially.If Harry Levene wants to do business with Conteh,he will do so,but I'm reluctant to because I feel everybody in the game is entitled to their share of the profit".Conteh did appear on a Duff bill at the Anglo American Sporting Club, trained by Francis. I was there,his opponent was Jesse Burnett ,Conteh was down twice and I thought he was lucky to get the draw.Conteh was p*ssing it up ,clubbing till the early hours and putting the white stuff up his nose.He spent£4,500 on a round of drinks in one London club drove his Roller into a line of parked cars and damaged his suspect right hand even more ,so badly that he couldn't make a proper fist again. Was that Duff's fault? Did Duff insist on his getting p*ssed,and taking that ****? Who left who? Conteh admitted his mistakes and he didn't blame Duff! Conteh came back to Duff after 3 years with his tail between his legs and they met socially at several EBA nights,both had kind words to say about the other.Duff said Conteh was the most talented boxer he was involved with.

Francis insisted on all in deals with Duff he wouldn't gamble on taking a percentage of the gate. Duff said Francis was a better trainer than a manager.


Conteh decided he could do better going with his brother Tony ,we know how that turned out, his troubles were entirely of his own making!
Sibson was managed by Sam Burns when he fought Collins. Sibson got £500,000 to challenge Hagler.

 

Without Duff and Lawless Stracey would never have become champion,neither would he have gotten soft defence against Hedgeman Lewis who had lost 2 of his last 6 fights.Duff lobbied for that defence and got Lewis accepted as a challenger.He also lobbied and got Stracey accepted as the number 1 challenger to Napoles Did you know that as an amateur Stracey had a leg problem and that Lawless arranged for him to have treatment from the West Ham physio ? Stracey wasn't a great fighter he was kod by Jim Watt in the amateurs,I don't think he would have gone beyond Euro level without Duff and Lawless behind him.
Conteh left the group he was managed by George Francis he received £10,000 to sign with Francis when he came out of the amateurs .The money was put up by a guy called Lenny Martin who did not have a managers licence. Conteh's first two fights were for Solomons,after that he was promoted by Duff on a two fight deal at a time after Conteh won the vacant title against Ahumada,he got £33,000 for beating Lonnie Bennett and was due to fight a non title easy ten rounder for which his purse was to be £15,000.Conteh reneged on his contract refusing to take the second fight and sacked Francis and said he wouldn't work with Duff anymore Duff took him to court for breach of contract Conteh did not appear and his licence was suspended by the BBBOC until he did,under the WBC ruling Conteh eventually had to pay Duff and Co compensation. Conteh then went on his own with his brother who knew jack sh*t about boxing.Conteh fought in the US and injured his hand,his next fight which Tony his brother negotiated was a real tough one against Alvaro Lopez in Copenhagen Conteh was promised£100,000 but received £2000! Conteh got a big payday for Len Hutchins in Liverpool ,that was due to Bob Arum bringing in US TV.Conteh's next defence was against Miguel Cuello whom Conteh should not have had any trouble against,but he refused to fight him and the WBC stripped him of their title. The WBC allowed Conteh to challenege their champion Mate Parlov in1978 he lost.Conteh then came back to Duff.Duff matched him with Leonardo Rogers and paid him £25,000.The show didn't make a profit and Duff made the following public statement."The show was no good financially.If Harry Levene wants to do business with Conteh,he will do so,but I'm reluctant to because I feel everybody in the game is entitled to their share of the profit".Conteh did appear on a Duff bill at the Anglo American Sporting Club, trained by Francis. I was there,his opponent was Jesse Burnett ,Conteh was down twice and I thought the was lucky to get the draw.Conteh was p*ssing it up clubbing till the early hours and putting the white stuff up his nose.He spent£4,500 on a round of drinks in one London club drove his Roller into a line of parked cars and damaged his suspect right hand even more ,so badly that he couldn't make a proper fist again. Was that Duff's fault? Did Duff insist on his getting p*ssed,and taking that ****? Who left who? Conteh admitted his mistakes and he didn't blame Duff!

Francis insisted on all in deals with Duff he wouldn't gamble on taking a percentage of the gate.


He decided he could do better going with his brother Tony we know how that turned out, his troubles were entirely of his own making!
Sibson was managed by Sam Burns when he fought Collins. Sibson got £500,000 to challenge Hagler.

I never thought Honeyghan would be a world champion ,I saw him as Euro level at best ,he astonished me when he beat Curry ,but there were weight problems with Curry. Honeyghan never looked as good again as he did against Curry. I don't know if he was like Conteh for the night life but he led a pretty hectic schedule with the ladies. Honeyghan was a bit like a Comet, he soared spectacularly then fell to earth very quickly.

 

I am confused. Are you suggesting Don King wasn't bad for boxing because there were bad actors in Britain?

 

So terry arranged for some physio for stracey....whaddaya want for me to give him a fuccking pulitzer...lol im paraphrasing mickey duff in jest and i hope u can take a joke.

Im familiar with conteh he had elements of a basket case but equally he was raging against the machine.

Duff and he were civil and magnanimous at the end and i hope u and i can be too

 

My point is Conteh's problems were all of his own making and ,when past his best with his drawing power considerably diminished ,he was happy to come back to Duff. Alan Minter said to Duff "if my boy ever wants to turn pro I'd like you to manage him ".Pretty good endorsement imo. I see no reason why we can't be cordial.I spoke to Mickey a few times at the fights we were never mates, he was a very smart man , apart from boxing and gambling at the tables he had no other interests , Jarvis Astaire was equally as shrewd but had a wide diversity of interests and fingers in many pies. Lawless benefited from Duff's canny match making, without him I very much doubt he would have had half the champions he did.

 

Then the article you read was wrong.

King went to the hospital with McClellan. He paid for McClellan's family to fly over. He paid for his initial medical expenses. And he paid for McClellan to fly back to the States. He was also in the fighter's hospital room and Frank Warren was with him, and Warren said King just kept shaking his head and repeating over and over, "This is bad! This is bad!"

Which actually sounds more in tune with his actions than some ridiculous comment about him saying McClellan quit like a dog.

Why on earth would a guy sit bedside in a hospital with a comatose person saying that person quit like a dog? Why would he even be there if he thought that way?

Don't be an idiot. Wake the f*ck up. The whole world who watched it knew he didn't quit like a dog when left the ring unconscious on a stretcher with medical personnel frantically working on him. Benn was on a bed next to him for a brief time at the hospital and held McClellan's hand, and he had the same reaction as King.

Nobody was at the hospital "PROCLAIMING" McClellan "quit like a dog." Everyone there thought he was about to die. Don't be an @sshole spreading stories like that.

 

I've enjoyed your posts and it is clear that I was pretty harsh in my original description of Duff and Lawless perhaps allowing personal sentiment as well as a night of drinking to get the better of me.

Agreed on Conteh.

Alan Minter is one of my all time favourites. Such a class operator. I often wonder how different things had been if he hadn't made those unfortunate remarks before the Hagler fight and the crowd hadn't led him away from his gameplan of boxing cautiously.

Alan hurt Hagler with one shot more so than anyone else even Hearns. I do think Alan at his focused best would have given Hagler a very technical challenge . If Alan hadn't been a bleeder I could also see it being a close points thing, Minter was that good imo

 

I was at the Minter v Hagler fight sitting a couple of seats away from Harry Gibbs when the bottles began to rain down Gibbs went and stood in front of Sylvie Lawless to shield her from them . Minter did catch Marvin early on, I remember it, but TBH Marvin was just too good in every department imo.I saw Minter box Antuofermo's ears off, he was a very decent boxer with power,good enough to outpoint the underated Kevin Finnegan who also gave Marvin a decent nights work. No doubt we will exchange again and probably clash at some point, but no worries that's what a forum is for!

 

Indeed! This time you bought more closer to your way of thinking on this subject.maybe not next time but your posts are very informative

 

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You are a punk, You reveal yourself with your "clever langauge " and ad hominen attacks. I would believe the article before giving any credence to anything you would have to say. Here is another article from the New York Times mentioning the the fact King paid hush money and made empty promises so that McClellan's family would not talk

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/12/s...-bouts-with-everyday-life.html?pagewanted=all

Again, I give this article more weight than your nonsense.

 

Then why do most say that boxing was so much better pre Don King than post Don King? Everyone, talks about how great boxing was and how much better the boxer's were "back in the day" .. early 1900's up to the class of Haglar,Hearns,Leonard,Duran. Then boxing seems to fall of a cliff shortly after that, at least for me, and has never recovered. Huge amounts of money changes everything and Don King invented that. Maybe he was good for the boxer, but bad for boxing.

 

Tales Don King fleecing Mike Tyson are legion. The fact that Tyson was a multimillionaire was not the result of the moneyhe generated not because of King. King siphoned money from Tyson by paying his own family, including his son Carl King for no show jobs.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/05/s...yee-of-king-says-promoter-swindled-tyson.html

Your attempt to defend King somehow by besmirching Ali with an ilrelevant lie that Ali used PED's is bizarre. Ali never hid he was told that he had a thyroid condition and that he was prescribed medication for that misdiagnosed condition!, The other issue of course is the drug Ali took does not "enhance " perhormance but in fact would greatly inhibit it.

While it is true that another crook, not King, promoted Ali vs Berbick but King would get his due by ripping Berbick off down the road.

Nevada Regulators Say Berbick Received Only One-Third of Purse After Tyson Bout
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-31/sports/sp-2579_1_carl-king

 

Don King was no worse than any other big promoter in boxing history.
He's one of the greatest promoters ever too.

He attracted scrutiny because of his flamboyance and the feeling that he was using racial identity to dupe black boxers into going with him thinking they'd get a fairer deal (which wasn't always the case).
It's worth considering that some of this critics were in fact probably racially motivated, even if only subconsciously.
Anyway, he attracted scrutiny where other promoters (white or black) tended to get a pass.
That was his own fault really for being such a narcissitic personality. He invited stories about himself.