Tim Witherspoon: "Larry Holmes beat a sick man when he fought ALI" ~ Listen In

King controlled the titles. He had ALL the heavyweights signed except for a couple that didnt need King. Spoon was not one of those fighters. They signed with him because he controlled the division and the titles. Along comes fighters like Mike Tyson, and Frank Bruno who are independently promoted, but have huge drawing power. The fighters that King owned had no drawing power on their own. Even the titles amongst this group did little else than give King bargaining chips to make fights with the bigger names, thus the reasoning of why he couldnt care less whose name was attached to it. The fighters that King promoted were more like employees rather than getting a promotional cut. I think Spoon admits he understood this later on, but his reasoning at the time was very foolish.
Throw the fight against Smith, lose his only bargaining chip, sue King and spend money on legal fees. Wind up with nothing, start over in a division that was completely controlled by King?

 

Fair or typical? You get title fights when you sign with King, not paid. If he didnt realize this going in, hes as stupid as you are.

 

No doubt that promoters take a risk, but you're making way too much excuses for King. He has been robbing fighters ever since he became a big time promoter since Ali-Foreman. He knows 99% of all boxers come from poor background and are neither smart nor good business men. He charms them into trusting him, but ultimately robs them and takes way too much money. I'm not saying other promoters are clean (it is a dirty business), but King knew damn well what he did..

 

Here, read this ( if you're capable )

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Witherspoon's second reign as a Heavyweight champion saw him travel to London, England and defend his title against hard hitting local Frank Bruno in front of 60,000 fans. After a tough, bruising fight, Witherspoon came from behind to stop Bruno in the 11th, retaining his title. After the fight, Bruno would receive a million sterling from his promoters.

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Yes, when I SIGN A CONTRACT clearly stating that I am owed a certain amount, upon performing a specific task, I expect to get paid. For the less educated, this is how business is done. To breach a contract, is against the law, and King was rightfully taken to court over it.

Now tell me something, do you sign contracts that you don't intend for the other party to honor? If so, then I seriously have to question your intelligence. Its also rather daft of anyone to think that its standard practice for the CHALLENGER to recieve close to 12 times the size purse as the defending champion......

 

Hey Im not saying its right, but like you said King was doing it since the early 70's, you knew what you got when you signed with King. King was and is the biggest dirtbag in the world, and Im not giving him all the credit, but some should be given to him. He did charm them into trusting them, because of what he had, the titles! Most fighters want the title, and because they came from poor backgrounds, they dont know anything about money or business of boxing. Thats why arming yourself with a good manager is just as important, but were talking about no name fighters here, that were signed in a gym, by King, his son, or his cohorts. They were given opportunities they would have most likely never gotten or gotten as quickly as King provided, and thats the only credit King should get.

 

And what was the verdict of that lawsuit? King was always taken to court, not because of breach most of the time, but because of how unfair it was. Do you know what his contract consisted of with King and what Spoon was responsible for? No. He could have been responsible for paying everyones first class ticket over to Wembley and back and their living arrangements plus buying them all new Ferraris upon their return. Do you think Spoon or most of the fighters read the contracts? Were their managers acting in their best interest, or on Kings payroll?
Was King, his son, or someone acting as his manager ulitmately connected to King? Most likely. Thats where the creative accounting comes in. Thats how King robbed all his fighters, including Mike Tyson. Is charging Tyson 30K for an oil change fair, no, but thats how King did it. He setup managers to manage his fighters and then charged their companies
exorbitant amounts of money, twenty times the actual cost. Is it a form of embezzlement, yes, but how many fighters could afford to sue King?
Tyson settled for what 8 million on a 100 million dollar lawsuit?

 

Spoon took King and his son Carl to court, and filed a suit asking for $25 million dollars. King offered to settle for $1 million and Spoon took it. No matter how you try to fudge the facts, Spoon got ****ed.

 

See, Carl King, Monarch Management. Owned and controlled completely by Don King. So Spoon was managed promoted and completely owned by Don King, backing up what I said before. Hes on a long long list of fighters who got ****ed.
Ricardo Mayorga also managed by Carl King and promoted by Don King, just filed a lawsuit last week against King allegeing the same misfortunes. King pulled Mayorga out of a gym in Nicarauga and got him a title shot against Andrew Six Heads Lewis, another fighter who at the time was embroiled in a lawsuit against King. The rest is history. It will happen as long as that man is promoting fighters.

 

Signed contracts? YES! Many of King's contracts are signed before a major fight takes place.. However, it has also been widely reported that King had dudes like "Spoon and Chavez" signing their names to "Blank" contracts and King would later fill in all the blank slots to his liking........... Spoon has already admitted that he did indeed sign a few papers that were blank................ Folks, that is pretty dumb.............

MR.BILL

 

But none of these things justify labeling Witherspoon as being ignorant or " stupid " for taking the Bruno fight or any others. The King family was in control. They signed a contract.. They broke it....And Witherspoon got ****ed... It also does not explain nor justify Bruno getting more money.. As for Witherspoon's decision to drop the Smith fight in the tank to free himself of King, well I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I can see the logic behind it.

 

Sign here, your going to be champion of the world. Ill take care of you, trust me your going to be a star and make millions. Welcome to the world of big business.
You think thats bad, let's talk about the music business!

 

The FACT is he was ignorant, and most likely stupid too, but certainly ignorant, for signing blank papers, or signing with a manager who is the son of the devil. That in itself is red light and a huge conflict of interest.
If your saying Witherspoon was a good guy and fighter, and just wanted a fair piece of the pie, yeah sure, but like I said, unless you were a box office smash on your own, and didnt need the promotional services of Don King to land super fights, you played on his terms.
Without King, Witherspoon could have never landed a title shot, or even fought for 90K, and thats how King sees it. He believes without him these guys wouldnt have a chance in hell of earning any serious money. I know Don King, he is so ridiculously enamoured by money, you can go to his office in Deerfield Beach Florida and meet with him to buy old fight posters and promotional material. He will personally sit there and set the prices for the ****. The guy is a reported billionaire, but he will sit there and collect his 100 bucks for posters..

 

Did you see these " unsigned contracts " or are you just taking Mr. Bill's word for it, because it seems like an easy way out of a debate that you once again can't hold on your own? Don King readily wrote a check to Witherspoon to avoid going to court. If he was a billionaire who indeed spent time finaggling over $100.00 posters just to amuse himself ( like you say ), then I doubt he would so willingly wright a $100,000,000 check just to get a guy off his back, especially considering the further damage that it did to his reputation. Unless, of course he had something hide, or knew he couldn't win. Had Witherspoon foolishly signed an unwritten agreement, then he'd clearly have nothing to fight with in court, and King would have known this....

Witherspoon started off doing what every other man including Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, and Larry Holmes did. He bit the bullet, swallowed his pride, and got raped. But, he took things a step further and did what no other fighter had ever done.... He stood up to King and basically won.. That to me constitutes both heart and intelligence....

 

Cant hold my own?? There's a reason why people call you an obnoxious ****, and this is why. There are plenty of books written by fighters which have copies of the blatant one sided contracts that King presented to fighters that they did sign. They all claim their managers were at fault or that they trusted King. If this is news to you, they can easily be found on the internet or ebay.
Witherspoon was not the first, nor the last to sue King for a contract dispute. He didnt do anything other than ruin his own boxing career thinking he could take down King. "Stood up to King and won" Hmm lets see, after legal feels he probably received a 1/3 of the million, he was blackballed from the heavyweight division, and blew a chance at fighting Mike Tyson. If you consider that winning, well, dont ever become a boxing manager, or an attorney for that matter.
For the record, how could you even begin to discuss a contract when you cant even spell "write" or put a million dollars in the proper numerical order??

 

I saw those mistakes right before I clicked submit last night, but was too tired to change them and figured that they were well suited to the audience... :hi: