Just to play devil's advocate, was Don King really this evil garbage?

Do you not know who Shondor Birns is? Of course, King knew the mob. He worked for Shondor Birns, who was a mobster. He ran numbers for the mob.

Was that not in the Jack Newfield book you seem obsessed with?

You guys are so predictable. You trot out the same couple names of boxers. And then you bring up Jack Newfield book ... the guy who hyperventilated when Don King promoted and essentially managed BOTH fighters on a card because it was a conflict of interest.

Golden Boy obliterated that wall when Oscar (the promoter) began promoting his own fights against his own business partners in Golden Boy - Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley.

Everything King did back then that so outraged Newfield and his readers is common practice today.

Can you even name Anthony Joshua's manager? Eddie Hearn is his promoter and Eddie Hearn makes Joshua's fights. That's the same thing King did and people had a heart attack about how outrageous that was.

You can put your Jack Newfield book away. It's not "scary" anymore.

A guy (Daniel Kinahan) wanted AROUND THE WORLD on drug and murder charges is putting together heavyweight title fights with oil sheiks who have reporters cut up into bits.

Don King looks like a lovable grandpa compared to the new guys.

 

Just because there are bad people now doesn't take away from the fact that's he's still a very bad person. If society had this mindset of 'oh it was so long ago who cares' then we would've never caught the Golden State Killer, alongside numerous other solved cold cases.

 

He killed twice, but was only charged once!

 

Don King gave Muhammad Ali $7 million to throw about seven punches in the Holmes fight.

And then King put $50,000 or $100,000 in a suitcase and gave it to the leader of the Philadelphia mosque to ask Ali if he'll take the cash instead of the last million. And Ali took the cash.

Why did Ali take cash? Because Ali didn't want to pay taxes on it. Why does anyone accept payment in cash?

So Ali took cash (so he didn't have to pay taxes on it) and Ali took PEDs against Holmes and failed his post fight tests, got busted and Nevada was going to take his boxing license away, but Ali gave it up rather than sit though a public hearing.

Then Ali tried to get a license in Hawaii, and they followed Nevada's lead and said no.

So he went to the Bahamas and fought Berbick there where there was no athletic commission.

If the Holmes-Ali fight took place today, Ali would've had his entire purse held for taking PEDS and he'd have been banned from the ring for two years.

I'm not painting Don King as some Robin Hood. But don't paint Ali as some saint. Ali was trying to avoid paying taxes, taking PEDs and getting teenage girls pregnant in the late 70s. There was a 15-year-old living at Deer Lake with Lana Shabazz who said Ali was the father of her kid, and Ali's wife Veronica had the girl thrown out.

As for King's relationship with his wife, Henrietta, everyone who knows anything about them knows how close they were. You can do a simple web search yourself. She was well liked. Earnie Shavers, in particular, liked her because she hired him when he was retired and needed a job. Do your own homework. It's common knowledge.

You guys just regurgitate Jack Newfield stories and clutch your pearls and don't realize the sport moved on and King's moves look pretty tame in comparison to the folks running things now.

 

That's because the first guy was shooting at him. Even in Cleveland, if people are blowing up your house with your wife and kid inside and shooting bullets at you, you can fight back.

I'm going to bed now.

 

King wasn't involved in a mafia war was he?

 

1) King's moves are not tame: the amount & scale of his crimes -at least adjusted for inflation-were monumental.
2) A little intellectual rigor please: it makes no sense to suggest I said Ali was a Saint.
Read what I said again, the praise came after I alluded to his flaws.
3) These or Tyson Fury's Brother's sins have nothing to do with Don King.
4) What on earth does Henrietta's virtues & popularity have to do with King's sins, virtues or ethics? NOTHING at all.
5) I asked you for proof King has a conscience or loved anyone.
Being "close" does not show that; could be all for his benefit.
Best you showed links of that specifically, not just spout "do your homework".
It is not homework for me to do when I say I am open to evidence-if so easy to prove, show me.
Again her being decent

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King needing her does not show he is not a sociopath or psychopath.
6) King STILL was evil to cheat Ali.
And if Ali paid taxes on it he STILL would have end up with a lot more money than taking the suitcase-he did that to Rahman, Holmes, & who knows how many others.
7) Ali took a DE-enhancer. I do not think Ali had a mature understanding of the effects of that drug, which was for weight loss, he was not trying to 'roid himself, just get in shape, & stupidly took them like a kid would vitamins, thinking more was better.
8) Ali EARNED his 7 million, & did as much as he could have given his self-mummification.
Please do not delude yourself that King was generous: Ali was a massive attraction & great promoter of himself & that particular fight!

9) We are taking this info from so many sources & boxer's themselves, not just Jack Newfield.
Wait until (hopefully) Witherspoon weighs in on this!!

I'll bet he can also destroy the lazy, cynical assumption that everyone (or most) fighting in his era was a drug cheat.

 

Don King is no longer a man, he is a brand; evil brand.
And the evil brand getting a crown emblem just shows where this world is at.

 

He is no Jorge Videla, Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, Augusto Pinochet or Saddam Hussein.

But he is not Nelson Mandela-good, either.

 

It's an interesting question. I guess it's who you ask. Now Andrew Golota got 3 title shots in a row fighting for Don King, so to him I'm sure King is a saint.

 

Don King did not promote the Ali v Foreman fight,he was only the match maker.
The fight was promoted by Hank Schwarz of New York Video Techniques and John Daly of Hemdale Leisure Corporation.
Anyone wishing to find out the truth about Don King should read Jack Newfield's book,
"The Life And Crimes Of Don King".

This statement from you is hilarious!

" Don King hasn't killed anyone in nearly 60 years and isn't likely to ever again."

 

There's been major uplifts in earnings for most sports.

The boxers did earn their money (or what they were supposed to be paid under contract). The boxer's own performances in the ring also contributed to the promotion of themselves and their own careers. They also made money for King.

Ali's rep. preceded him, and he was a promoter's dream for his own fights, including in real time.

Mike Tyson, by way of his own hard work and performances, lifted boxing back up in the 80s. He was hot property.

King monopolized the sport which positioned him to coerce less than ideal contracts.

Inflation in part is going to make the numbers bigger going forward in time - so it's natural to achieve so called "firsts" as per abstract numbers. For one example, the 5 million paid to Ali in 1974 is roughly the equivalent to 10 million in 1982.

There are technological advances that have allowed for greater earnings across the board- wider options for broadcasting etc. - nothing to do with King.

Did any boxers rip Don King off? Not that I'm aware of. Did Don King rip a number of fighters off? Yes, it seems he did. Ali filed a suit for 1.1 million owed by King. He got paid a paltry 50k in cash to back off and apparently signed the rights to any potential fights in the future. Larry Holmes claims that, over time, he was short paid by 10 million - if true, that would roughly cancel Larry's earnings for the Cooney fight. Of course, there are other examples.

I note you simplified King to just kicking a guy in the head on the street in '67. He pistol-whipped the guy and kicked him at least 3 times in the head while he was on the ground. It was a malicious, deadly rage attack, pure and simple. Of course, he didn't want the guy to die after the fact of his actions - he didn't want to go to jail.

How much did the guy "owe" to King btw? More than what King owed to a number of fighters late in the piece?

So, he was being shot at in '54 you say but apparently, King did shoot the other guy in the back, correct? We see lots of sh*t on YouTube that wasn't necessarily rife back in the day - and the mere showing of it on YouTube can actually cause people to copycat and perpetuate the actions they see. Point us to the vids showing a pistol whipping and then multiple kicks to the head. Whatever. Trying to cite equally bad actions by others (which you didn't) does not exonerate King for what did.

 

But the subject is not how bad some subsequent promoters are, its how bad King was,your argument is akin to saying well Hitler didnt kill as many as Stalin.
ps AJ manages himself.

King controlled one of the biggest numbers rackets in Cleveland, and, in 1954, he shot and killed a man named Hillary Brown, who was said to be trying to rob one of King’s gambling houses. When the case went to court, Don King claimed that he had killed Brown in self-defense. The court agreed with his argument, and he walked free due to the ruling of justifiable homicide.
He was convicted of second-degree murder in 1967
On April 20, 1966, Don King, still in the numbers game, got into an altercation with one of his employees, a 34-year-old man named Sam Garrett, near the intersection of Cedar Avenue and East 100th Street in Cleveland. King claimed that Garrett owed him $900, while Garrett said he only owed his boss $600. The two fought in the street, and although the exact details of the fight vary, according to Film Daily, some witnesses said that they saw King kick Garrett in the head at least three times and also struck him with a .38-caliber revolver before being pulled off of him by two Cleveland detectives. Garrett died in the hospital five days later.

During the trial in 1967, Don King once again claimed self-defense as he said Garrett followed him out of a bar and threatened his life over the payoff amount. King said that he got out of his car and returned kicks from Garrett but that he never stomped on Garrett’s face and never hit him with the revolver, which was in his right hand. He said he only used his left hand to punch. However, the two detectives who apprehended King testified that they did witness him kicking Garrett in the head.

After just four hours of deliberation, a jury of eight women and four men convicted Don King of second-degree murder, a verdict that brought with it a possible sentence of life imprisonment. However, the charge was later reduced to voluntary manslaughter, and King spent just three years and 11 months in the Marion Correctional Institution of Marion, Ohio.

Don King was pardoned in 1983
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Why Was There No Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman Rematch After ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’?

Don King got into the boxing business not long after being released from prison in the early 1970s. He made a name for himself by getting Muhammad Ali to participate in a charity boxing match to raise money for a hospital in Cleveland and just a few years later helped orchestrate the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between Ali and George Foreman in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), and then the “Thrilla in Manila,” the famed third bout between Ali and Joe Frazier.

After becoming one of the biggest boxing promoters in the world, Don King was pardoned for his crimes by Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes in 1983. Now in his old age, King has retired from boxing and reportedly has a net worth of $150 million. Only in America, right?

 

Is there no end to his evil?!

 

You want me to "prove" that Don King loved his wife of 50 years who died of stomach cancer? Seriously go **** yourself. By your posts, I'm guessing you didn't even know she existed until I posted that he had a wife.

The drugs Ali took caused him to shed weight. They were performance enhancers. And he ate them like candy. He practically ODed on them. And he had to forfeit his boxing license for taking them because as lax as the rules were then, you still couldn't do that. LOOK IT UP.

And I didn't say every boxer in the era took them, I said Ali took them, and he got caught red handed taking them. That's why he had to go fight in the Bahamas. Because he couldn't get a license to fight in the States afterward.