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

Common. What about these comments?

Perhaps, but my only question is have you seen the contracts that Witherspoon signed specifically.

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I was always under the impression that he was at least the first.

His career was already trashed long before going to court with King..

Witherspoon chosing to throw the Smith fight in the tank and missing out on a shot at Tyson had absolutely nothing to do with Spoon taking King to court over lost earnings in the Bruno fight....Nothing whatsoever. And yes, taking a settlement for one million dollars is still better than letting the man get away with robbery.

I have no desire to endeavor to do either of those things.

Saw the mistakes last night...Was too lazy to correct them.

 

Yeah sure you did. Nice try though. Noone has called me a **** on this board. I may be confrontational with some but you bring out the fun stuff. Way to change your first insulting post. I was going to hurl some more insults right back at you, so you could add them to your list. Hell, I will anyway. What are you trying to accomplish? Are you looking for a gang of angry posters to try and make a negative comment towards me? I dont really care what you, or anyone thinks, and your constant longing for reinforcement by others, is a serious personal problem that you shouldnt be looking to pacify on a message board. Were you not loved as a child? Did your parents always put you down, and make fun of you?
As far as your rambling obsessive post, time to put it to a rest, but Im sure that's not going to happen.:dead

 

As you said, I cleaned up my first post. This sort of nastiness isn't particularly necessary, but I'm not going to contribute to it any longer. You stick to what you believe and I'll do the same. From now on, where both probably better off avoiding the other....

 

Where the hell is Boxing Babe at?

 

Boxing Babe,

I got video tapes older than you......... I watched / taped "Smith-Spoon" in '86 as it occured.........

I even saw Spoon school Smith in '85 on HBO on the undercard to "Thomas-Weaver." Spoon fell apart within a scant year and a half.........
:bbbrasta

MR.BILL

 

Yes I understand what you are saying but here is another example of what was common place with Don King. For the Tyson Holy fight, Tyson was getting supposedly 30 million dollars? The contract stated it, he announced it publicly, and his managers acknowledged it. What they didnt know and 99.9% of the fighters didnt know that were exclusively signed to King, was all the responsibilities that the fighter had to pay for before getting their final cut.
What King did to Spoon was the same thing he did with Tyson only under Mike Tyson Enterprises which had John Horne and Rory Holloway acting as managers for Tyson (but really working for salary under Don King), instead of Monarch Management run by Carl King, (Don's step son)
King took over their entire life, from their house payments, cars, cell phones, living expenses, sparring partners, etc. King would hire or purchase what was needed for the fighter through his company (Don King Enterprises) and then charge the management company an exhorbitant amount. For example he would pay Oliver Mcall 1,000 a week to spar with Tyson. King would then turn around and charge Mike Tyson Enterprises 100,000.00 for sparring partner services for the entire camp. So King would spend roughly 6-10 grand for the sparring partner, and turn around and charge Tyson ten times that. He did this with everything down the line. Everything had to be run through the management company with Kings approval. So the fighter would think he was getting 30 million or 600K but by the time King subtracted all the camp related and fight related expenses, they wound up with nothing or very little.
Where King usually made mistakes was the unfair charges he made against the fighters, like charging Mike Tyson 30,000.00 for an oil change on his Ferrari. The reason he settled with some of the guys is because he had made a ton off of them already, and most of them couldnt afford to sue King. Giving Witherspoon a million bucks was probably nothing compared to what he stole from him overall, and thats how King did it and still does it today. He has an army of lawyers working for him and he is right up there as being as smart and savvy as all the lawyers.
Tyson was in such dire straights financially when he was sueing King, he had to settle for pennies on the dollar, because King had the money to keep paying his attorneys to postpone and postpone the court dates.
Judd Burnstein a prominent fight attorney was the only one who seemed to consistently kick Don King's ass, with Lennox Lewis related lawsuits and a few others, so King just hired the guy. Money is power, and Witherspoon's attorney should have advised him to keep fighting and winning until he was free of his bum contract he signed with King. If it was a lifetime contract which King liked to do, (and was eventually outlawed when the Ali act was passed), well he really had no other choice than what he did.
You say look where he is now? He's a billionaire that made it by stepping on everyone he could flying around in private jets and living in a huge mansion in Manalipan Florida. Hes almost 80 years old now, but hes had quite the career. As much as hes hated, he was the first to pay a fighter a million bucks for a fight, and realistically is responsible for revolutionizing the pay scale in boxing. Before King boxers never made close to what they make today, and while hes been a cheat and a thief, hes one of the main players responsbile for making boxing as popular as it became.

 

Anyone interested in reading about King this book is excellent. King tried to sue Newfield over the content but lost. Every fighter should have read this book before signing with King.

http://books.google.com/books?id=sWYN6cETROQC&printsec=frontcover&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html

 

Most people are retired by 65, hes 78. Just yesterday he signed Sergei Liahovich and Steve Forbes. Never count out the Donald, until he officially announces his retirement. :hey

 

King has a piece of the WBA heavyweight champion. Hes got a couple junior welter titliest. A lightweight, and a few other heavies. King is always on the move, moving his chess pieces and positioning them for title fights. All it takes is one upset and hes back in control of a division. Thats how hes always done it. Noone thought he would be able to get control of the heavyweight titles before Tyson was released from jail and he did it. That allowed him to sign Tyson.
Fighters are a lot smarter now, they promote themselves if they can afford to, and Oscars company has put a big hurting on both Arum and King, by snatching up most of the HBO dates. The Klitschkos cant even consistently get on American tv and they dominate heavyweight boxing, so dont look for them to become a promotional force anytime soon, especially with Vitali being on his way out of boxing.