Was boxing promoter Don King really as unscrupulous as he was portrayed in the film Rocky V?

Simply read Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King to find out what a sociopath and monster King was/is.

He's a truly evil human being, and a joke movie like Rocky V didn't even come close to scratching the surface of what he is.

 

I have read it. King was neither. Read or watch something Jack Newfield didn't write.

Or, better yet, open your own eyes and took a fresh look.

You couldn't get a more biased point of view than Newfield's when it came to King. It was comically biased. He had one point of view on King, and he only spoke or mentioned those who supported his view.

It was like watching MSNBC and trying to find something pro-Trump or watching Fox News and trying to find something pro-Clinton. Only in America is laughably biased.

And regarding Rocky V, which is the only time the "King" character appears in the series, Don King promoted Ali-Wepner, which the whole Rocky series was based on/inspired by. Wepner made more money fighting for King than he ever made fighting for anyone else. Fighting for King was the highlight of Wepner's boxing career.

And when Wepner sued someone for "robbing" him, it wasn't King ... it was STALLONE, and Wepner won.

Wepner and King get along just fine.

But why go with reality when we can talk about Jack Newfield's opinions or Rocky V?

 

I don't doubt that there was a lot of bias involved in Newfield's writing, but even in a biased point of view theres some validity.

King stompted a man to death over a small debt, then escaped significant prison time because of his connections to the Cleveland mafia.

He's a ruthless, corrupt gangster. Always been a gangster. He might not be Hilter or Stalin, but we arent exactly talking about a good individual.

 

He ran numbers. Math came easy for him. But he had little formal education. He angrily kicked a guy in the head who owed him money and the guy died. People get kicked in the head every time you watch an MMA fight and they don't die. He didn't set out to murder the guy. That's why he wasn't charged with murder. He was no more a ruthless, corrupt gangster his whole life than the fighters he promoted who were ruthless, corrupt gangsters and then got out. He got out.

His partner was blown up. His boss was blown up. His own home was blown up. He was charged with a crime. Convicted. Went to jail. Served his time.

Got out, saw everyone he used to hang with were basically dead, and he left that life behind and became WILDLY SUCCESSFUL in a global sport. And made other fighters richer by bringing more money into the sport than it had ever seen.

But let's ignore that and talk about what he did 50 or 60 years ago before he ever got involved in the sport, because all the boxing garbage has been debunked or looks mild by comparison to what his peers have done in the years since.

I'm done badmouthing the guy.

 

This. I’ve had several roommates that were fighters in my college days, who fought for Arum, Duva, Oscar, Goosen, etc. and they all admitted that King paid the best. Some fighters like Tyson and Witherspoon just happen to be irresponsible and took advances against their purses and then complained when they received a smaller purse than they expected due to their own poor decision making.

 

As for being a gangster and remaining a gangster for life ...

There is a famous video of the Klitschkos coming to Ohio to meet with Don King before they were both going to turn pro. Vitali says in the documentary KLITSCHKO they didn't sign with King because they didn't think they could "trust" him because at one point King sat down behind a player piano in his house and pretended to play it ... and Vitali thought he was really playing it. Then Vitali thought that was King trying to "trick" him ... instead of just taking it as a joke, as most would.

At least that's the story people who bash King like to use.

The "funny" part is Vitali had just been kicked off the Ukrainian Olympic team for testing positive for PEDs. And Vitali and Wlad were supposedly working at the time as "muscle" for Ukrainian gangster Viktor Rybalko.

Not numbers runners like King, but MUSCLE. And not decades earlier, but AT THAT MOMENT. As they were turning pro.

There are still numerous photos of them online with Rybalko, and waving Rybalko's guns around.

And, what's even more hilarious, they brought Rybalko with them to visit King. But Americans think KING is the gangster.

Or, more accurately, the GANGSTER the Klitschkos worked for came to size up King, and turned him down.

You've got the Al Capone/John Gotti of the Ukrainian mob with his towering enforcers visiting Don King and King goofily sitting behind a player piano is supposed to be an example of King being "evil" and "corrupt."

King is so "not scary" and "not mafia" in a room with actual mafia it's comical.

That's how utterly ridiculous and biased this Don King nonsense has all become.

Are the Klitschkos still corrupt, gangsters?

You can even hear King say at the start of the video, when he's introduced to Ryablko, "Ah Victor. Victor is the MOST IMPORTANT." Then King nervously laughs. They left that part out of the documentary, though.

Did Jack Newfield write about them? The Klitschkos essentially controlled heavyweight boxing for a decade or more. Where are all the mob stories?

(Rybalko is the short bald guy in these photos and the short bald guy with them visiting King in the video.)


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Good promoter for the fans.

Horrible promoter for his fighters.

 

Not signing with King was quite smart

If, they had they would likely have had more losses, less $ and worse health.

 

Is your real name Carl King.

The conflict of interest King had with his stable of HWs in the early to mid 80s is Exhibit A supporting the case against corruption in boxing.

No matter which of his two fighters in a given match won or lost, King always won.

The dumbest thing Mike Tyson ever did was sign an exclusive promotional agreement with Don King and get rid of Bill Cayton.

The smartest thing Ray Leonard did was not sign an exclusive promotional agreement with Don King, while retaining his manager, Mike Trainer.

And Hopkins, De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather were simply cutting out the middleman, dealing directly with the PPV providers, keeping more money for themselves, rather than giving it to a parasitic promoter. Very smart move.

 

I'll tell you one thing, Don King has been the perfect scapegoat for many a failed fighter........

I blame Don King for Brexit!

 

Brexit is actually a smart move. Signing with King, not so much....

 

How did you end up living with a bunch of professional boxers? (just curious)

 

He can't be too bad if the current President of the United States is a big fan... right?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...ld-trump-don-king-make-sense-together-n652531

 

Is it? Most businesses tend to disagree......

 

Then I direct my answer to both of you.

When a promoter wields as much power as king, it is highly misleading to list all of the big fights that he has promoted, and cite that as evidence that he did a good job. That is like giving him praise for the fact that the sun rose in the morning. You have to look at the impact the promoter had on the era as a whole. Otherwise you would end up saying that Tex Rickard entrenched the color line, but he was good for boxing because he promoted a lot of good fights.

The eras where Don King was the dominant promoter, were characterized by divided titles, and few unification fights. Unification was only allowed when all of the possible outcomes would enhance his power base, which the vast majority of the time was not the case. Therefore the vast majority of important fights of those periods never took place.

The situation was considerably better in this respect, before King consolidated his hold on the support, and it has become considerably better since he lost control over it! This is how I would summarize King's overall impact upon the sport. Add to this the fact that he was a truly vile human being, and I cannot endorse him very enthusiastically!