How many of Mike Tyson’s fights were fixed?

Well if there’s one constant in boxing, it’s that we can always take Don King’s word as golden truth.

The fight was to go to purse bids because Lewis was the mandatory. No ifs ands or buts about it, Lewis had the right to not deal directly with King to fight Tyson for that belt and to be free and clear of any future association with King as a condition to getting an earned title shot — and that’s what purse bids are for: one fee for one fight, no options, no anything.

Tyson dropped the belt rather than letting it go to purse bids. That is not in dispute. It’s documented.

 

Don King always wanted options on future fights of anyone facing guys he controlled. Options means he had their promotional rights — they had to sign with him for a number of fights or he wouldn’t let his Tyson or Chavez or whoever fight them.

You want quotes? I doubt Don held a press conference to announce how many fights he wanted Lewis to be obligated to fight for him by “allowing” Lewis to face Tyson in a MANDATORY.

The whole point of purse bids for mandatories is that the challenger doesn’t have to sign away his future fights, his first-born male and his left tentacle to get a title fight.

Tyson/King would not go to purse bids. The quote you provided there is basically Lewis’ camp saying ‘put it up for bids and we’ll win the bid, we can offer Tyson $45M.’

He even went further, saying if Don King would offer $15M they’d do a deal (presumably without options, as he used the word ‘bid’).

When these networks sign a fighter exclusively, they know how purse bids work. They know to keep the guy on their network they have to pay the freight. If Tyson’s side (King/Showtime) weren’t willing to put in the top bid, they’d lose out on that fight. Showtime doesn’t get to say ‘Mike Tyson fights for us, and we only pay $1 to any challenger’ … they have to get in the market and pay market rates.

And Lewis’ side, in the quote you provided, said, in effect, ‘fine, we’ll fight on your network … this is the price, because we can meet a lower price in purse bids. If you meet this price, you win the bid.’

 

I of course do not have quotes from Don King saying what options he wanted because afaik he’s never openly spoken about that part of offers or negotiations regarding any fight. You don’t say ‘I made them a fair offer for the fight, and he’d only be enslaved to me for six more fights, with me having the exclusive right to extend for six after that.’ Not how it works.

Let us also consider that basically every fighter ever tied to Don King — INCLUDING Mike Tyson — says they were cheated by him and did not get what he promised nor what he put in ink on contracts. Many, including Tyson, took him to court over it. But Lennox is supposed to trust that Don will deliver on his promises? LOL. A purse bid mandates that the side that wins the bid has a certain number of days to put the money up, in full, in escrow, and the sides get paid out of that by a neutral party … King cannot **** them out of what he promised because he hands the money over to the governing body to disburse at the predetermined champion/challenger split. A purse bid guarantees Lewis gets paid what the contract says — history says signing a contract with King outside of a purse bid virtually guarantees that NOBODY gets paid what they were promised.

Here, exactly, is how it works: If you don’t want options, you let it go to purse bids and you put in the highest bid you can and hope you win the right to promote the fight. The ONLY reason you try to cut a deal outside of a purse bid if you’re Don King is so you walk out with the winner either way and you control the heavyweight championship. He asserted that he had options on Buster Douglas after he beat Tyson and Buster went to court and won the right to make his mandatory vs. Holyfield … and then would have had to fight for King.

Lewis and his team were not interested in step-aside. They wanted to fight for the title. So any offer of that is just King paying the guy to allow Tyson to duck him. That’s not a fair offer to fight for the title, it’s a fair offer to **** off and go away so Tyson wouldn’t have to fight him.

Fair would be putting the fight up for bids and the top bid wins. What in the world could be more fair than that? The split is predetermined and each side makes the most possible money because the promoters are going to put in the biggest bids they can afford for the fight to not let the other side promote it.

Tyson’s ‘superior market value’ would be a factor in what each side bid, so that is baked into the equation. The split is determined in a bid, so that the mandatory challenger doesn’t get a hot dog and a handshake to fight for the title and the champion takes the lion’s share — that’s not fair given that the mandatory challenger has by definition earned the title fight. He shouldn’t have to bend over for Don King nor have to sign with Don King because Tyson has two choices: fight him or give up the title.

As we know, Tyson gave up the title. And Don King orchestrated it.

You provided a source that indicated Lewis’ side was willing to make concessions: they named a price and said ‘we’ll fight on your network if you meet it.’ King didn’t meet it. Showtime and King should have put together a winning purse bid if they were dead-set on the fight being on the network … they don’t get to set the ceiling and say ‘too bad mandatory challenger, we don’t want to pay you fair market value (predetermined share of the winning bid) because we want it on our network and we want it at a lower price than the fight might fetch on the open market.’

Well, they do get to do that if they decide to give up the title and duck Lewis … which is what they did.