Maybe he was aloof. Mike wasnt close to him. Everyone in boxing gets fired. Id rather have a Cayton aloof, socially awkward but good with $ and knowledgeable on contracts than a really personable imbezzler. Don was charming and smooth when he wanted but Don cared about Don and probably his family but he definitely didnt help Tyson as a fighter or a person. He was a guy who could have!!! Don King could have helped him if that was his thing. I don't blame Don for the whole thing. Arum was no better. Marvis Frazier had more of a chance to fight Tyson off and beat him than Tyson had of figuring out where all the sharks were coming from and who is real? and who can i trust? It was a real life Soap Opera.
Do you think John Horne and Hollaway were managing Tyson other than on paper? Do you believe King had control over those two fukboys?
Tyson was a free agent during the unification fights. He wasn't tied to King. King absolutely went all low life and threw the spanner in the whole Tyson works. It's well documented and irrefutable. That's what he was - an epic low life. It doesn't matter what fights he gave us and all that - the man was a grub. Tyson could have kept King at arms length, kept Cayton and Rooney or more particularly Rooney and soldiered on. King would still be bidding for fights or offering them up. If he didn't Tyson went have went another way and made someone else richer. His roots were already in.
Of course they were just managers on paper. But, frankly, so was Cayton once the HBO tournament began. What were Cayton's big managerial moves once King told Tyson he was fighting Berbick? And then King told him he was fighting Bonecrusher. And then the WBC told him he was fighting Thomas? And on and on. It's not like Cayton said 'we're dumping King, leaving the tournament and fighting Cooney." Butch Lewis did that. Cayton didn't. Tyson fought the guys King told Tyson to fight from Berbick to Botha. But, on paper, Horne and Holloway got Tyson purses far larger than Cayton ever got Tyson. Right? $30 million to fight Bruno in 96 was better than getting $7 million to fight him the first time around. Right?
King had a deal with HBO to promote the heavyweight series. Every unification fight was a King promotion. Tyson was a free agent who fought solely on King promotions for 13 years.
Tyson didn't have a deal with anyone for anything when he went to prison. Bill Cayton and Kevin Rooney could've shown up in Indianpolis when Tyson was in prison. And Cayton could've told Tyson how much he cared about him. And Cayton could've said let's work together again. And Cayton could've brought Tyson a huge deal. And they all could've made up and been best buds again. There was nothing stopping them. Nothing at all. But Cayton and Rooney didn't do that. Don King, on the other hand, visited Tyson in prison all the time. And King showed up when Tyson was about to be released with a deal with the MGM Grand guaranteeing Mike Tyson $30 million a fight. That's how you dig your roots in. Crying racism because things don't go your way and you haven't put in the work is easy. Delivering monster deals is another. King went to HBO with the idea for a heavyweight tournament and worked with Seth Abraham at HBO to put it together. Bill Cayton and Jim Jacobs didn't. And King let Tyson in the tournament and laid out a clear path for him to win all the belts. All Tyson had to do was keep winning. And Tyson kept winning. And King kept delivering. And when Tyson lost, King kept delivering. And when Tyson went to jail, King kept delivering. King just delivered. More money. Bigger deals. Title fights. That's not poisoning anything. That's being better than the next guy. That's all.
Tyson was a free agent until King slimed on in. Tyson was not even guaranteed to be in the package, it was dependent on his results. HBO were actually the instigator of the series. Cayton and Tyson were always going to participate but again there was no tying Tyson to King. King was promoting the series and it's fights. Tyson did not need to sign on with King ever. He could have went on his merry way from fight to fight like others had done at times. For sure King would have been involved in some or most of the fights but not on a long term contract. King was great at making the fights happen, no argument there. Even without a contract the fights would have went on and anything contrary is fodder.
That is not true. King went to Seth Abraham with the idea for a tournament in 1985. They worked it out - the two of them. Bob Arum didn't. Cedric Kushner didn't. Butch Lewis didn't. The Duvas or Mickey Duff didn't. Bill Cayton certainly didn't. Don King did. King had all the champs under contract. He was the only promoter who could do it. And the tournament began in January 1986. Tyson wasn't ALWAYS going to participate. He'd been a pro for 10 months when it began, and less than that when negotiations began in the fall of 1985. Without King, there's no HBO tournament. Without the tournament, all King's champs kept fighting all King-signed challengers. And Tyson would've had to wait for a big fight, because all the top heavyweights were occupied. I'm calling it a night. Talk to you later.
Er no. King had already killed all that off. It's what he does. King looks after King, no-one else. That bird had long flown. King also continually assured Tyson that he would not go to prison. Yes he was known for that sort of thing. Visiting dying fathers on their deathbeds and inserting himself into funerals etc etc. King knew Tyson was still the cash cow. Everyone did. More on King post jail at the end of my reply. Blatantly false. King did not go to HBO with the idea for the unification series, he went there with Thomas - Berbick. The series was hatched by HBO not Don King and Don went along with it. Tyson was planned in (with hope) from the start. All parties wanted Tyson and knew it would add lustre to an otherwise so so event. Well Tyson was still a cash cow. Well yes Tyson was still going to be a cashcow when he got out. Of course King did assure him he wouldn't be going to jail. King certainly poisoned things and white anted Rooney and Cayton. The man was a leach no matter how good he was at promoting. Despite all this so called delivering Tyson still felt the need to sue King to the tune of $100mil for ripping him off AFTER he came out of jail. King ended up paying Tyson a $14mil settlement. King may have made guys money they might not have made elsewhere but at the end of the day King looked after Kings own best interests and leeched every cent off them he possibly could and not always legally. Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Yes have a good sleep. To be honest i'm all Don King'd out and will let you have the last replies whenever you get back. Not usually the sort of thing i put much time into as it's got convoluted and way over complicated. Per the bolded i'd already posted just above in post #67 it was dependent on his results. Per the bolded and underlined I will however paste the below about the HBO tourney (as i said King did not go to HBO with the idea for the tourney, HBO/Abraham was the one that suggested a tourney as categorically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt below) - The idea of the series originated in October 1985, when Don King visited HBO Sports president Seth Abraham to propose a WBC title fight between Pinklon Thomas and Trevor Berbick.[4] This content is protected .[4] King and Abraham mapped out the seven fights that would constitute the series, which King estimated could be produced for $20 million.[4]
I don't think that you can use any other description really. King has a history of exploiting racial tensions to turn black fighters against white promoters.
Without Don Kings influence, would Tyson have been greater? I think that King definitely helped to further Tyson's career. the problem that Tyson had was not necessarily that he used King as his promoter... The issues came up when they became 'buddy buddy.' when you become friends with somebody it is much more difficult to stick to 'deals' that are made & even contracts that are inked. my guess is that Tyson's career would have been better had he not become buddy-buddy with Don King... If he just would have stuck with King as a promoter... Nothing more, he probably would have been champ into 1991 or so. Tyson had an advantage over all the other champs that King controlled in the 1980s. The managerial and training system that Tyson came from was much more organized and structured... Other alphabet champs of the 1980s did not have this type of consistency. I think it would have been possible for Tyson to stick with King only as his occasional promoter... And it would have been mutually beneficial. But, King was a master manipulator and was able to gain total control over Tyson's everyday life by the fall of 1988. Even without Having King control everything...Tyson probably would have Reigned as champ for maybe another year beyond the Douglas fight. Tyson was getting tired of training and was not putting in the same type of work ethic to capitalize on his distinct style.
Conversely the only people Tyson did trust were from the D'Amato stable. Until Robin and her mother came along that is. Then Don becoming more than a promoter was the writing on the wall. Tyson would never have gone 80-0. His downfall was inevitable. But the way his fighting style deteriorated in his prime is a shame.
