This article was written in June 2022 and was first published on the Seconds Out website.
On June 11, there is a heavyweight fight between Daniel Dubois and Trevor Bryan. Neither man appears in the top ten of the independent Transnational Boxing rankings, or the heavyweight rankings of The Ring. It is highly unlikely that a win for either man will propel the victor into those lists. However, at stake is the WBA world heavyweight title currently held by Bryan. In the nonsensical world of the WBA, Oleksander Usyk is their Super champion, while Anthony Joshua is down at number five, one place below Hughie Fury. But I will stop there about the WBA before we all go insane.
The promoter of the farcical title match, which could despite the pointless belt turn out to be an interesting contest, is Don King. Remember him?
Even at 90 years old, Don King still wants a piece of the heavyweight action. Unsurprisingly, we don’t see much of King these days. He wouldn’t be considered a major force in the sport at this point. As the weekends roll by, we are now familiar with a boxing landscape with the likes of Matchroom, Top Rank, Golden Boy and PBC churning out shows through their various broadcasters and streaming services. King has been left behind.
How is he now seen by a younger boxing fan? Something of a relic? We will see him on fight night in the ring, still the eccentric figure, with the big smile, the crazy hair, an American flag in each hand. He could seem a jovial figure, enough to provoke feeling of nostalgia. Surely this fight will prove to be one of the dying embers of his career in professional boxing. It was a career where many fighters got burnt.
It is considered impolite to speak ill of the dead, so while Don is still with us, it is important to remind ourselves of the true impact that King has had on the sport.
No one did more to shine a light on the dark side of King more than journalist and author Jack Newfield. His book, The Life and Crimes of Don King: The Shame of Boxing in America is essential reading for any boxing fan or fighter.
Don King is, without question, a remarkable man. He famously listened to the first Ali-Frazier fight on a radio in prison in 1971 and co-promoted their third meeting in 1975; an astonishing rise in an industry he had no experience of prior to his incarceration.
The first really historic promotion he was involved with was Muhammad Ali’s legendary reclaiming of the heavyweight title from George Foreman in what was then Zaire in 1974. Newfield gives King his due credit:
“The Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire would be the turning point in Don King’s life, his purest accomplishment and finest hour. He made the fight, and he saved the fight”.
It was the force of King’s personality and his relentless work ethic that pulled this unlikely event together and held it together when the cut Foreman received in training threatened to derail the whole show.
Newfield also notes King having demonstrated kindness when he paid for Bundini Brown’s funeral costs of $5,100 when no one else seemed ready to do so.
But generally, Newfield’s book is consistently damning of King as a man and his impact on those around him. The book was first published in 1995, and so chronicles King’s life and career only up to that point. It is incredible to think now how that was only the first twenty or so years of a career that has continued for close to another thirty years.
Newfield, who sadly died in 2004 at the age of 66 was described in positive terms in a New York Times obituary as a “proud muck raker”. His knowledge and love of boxing, combined with a lifetime in journalism, enabled Newfield to produce what is an incredibly detailed and powerful piece of work.
Beginning with the killing of Sam Garrett, whose last words were, “Don, I’ll pay you the money”, the book then takes us all the way through to King’s indictment in 1994 for wire fraud, essentially an insurance scam on fights involving Julio Cesar Chavez and Mike Tyson. Scandal, betrayal, and survival are the themes throughout the intervening years.
The most powerful sections of the book, for me, are when Jack writes about the tail end of Muhammad Ali’s career, and what he calls the hostile takeover of Mike Tyson.
When King was released from prison in September 1971, he was unsure which direction his life would take. He later reflected that, “I didn’t serve time, I made time serve me”. His long-time friend, musician Lloyd Price, visited him soon after his release and they spoke about various career paths open to King. In hindsight, it is hard to imagine Don in any other industry other than boxing. Professional boxing has long been described as the red-light district of sports, and pugilism and Don King is a match made in heaven, or maybe more appropriately, in hell. What other industry would welcome this man with open arms and allow him to thrive across the decades as he has? Boxing may be without King Rat when Don finally departs for good, but professional boxing is still a sewer.
Muhammad Ali’s fight against Larry Holmes in 1980 should never have taken place. It was evident that his health had been damaged by an already too long career. His long-term personal physician, Ferdie Pacheco, had already departed the scene having stated that Ali should not be fighting.
But this is boxing, and where there is money to be made, history repeatedly shows us that health concerns mean nothing. Don King was happy to promote the fight, although clearly, he can’t take all the blame for the fight going ahead. Pacheco is quoted as saying that Ali was “lucky he lived through the Holmes fight”, after having been misdiagnosed with a thyroid condition, for which he was prescribed medication that he should never have been taking.
Newfield powerfully reports how, “by the ninth round a tear stained my notebook and I had to look away.”
“I had seen Ali upset Liston with his speed, beat Cleveland Williams with his power, Foreman with his imagination, Frazier with his bravery, and Spinks with his memory. And now he was being pummelled in the parking lot of a casino, so other men could make money”.
Journalist John Schulian adds, “That’s what it was, a human sacrifice for money and power.”
If what happened before and during the Holmes fight was not bad enough, what happened afterwards was tragic.
After Ali got out of hospital following the fight, Don King paid him $1,170,000 less than the signed contract stipulated. King paying fighters less than had been agreed is a long running theme throughout the book, with too many examples alleged in the book to detail here.
With Ali’s health continuing to deteriorate, he filed a lawsuit to recover the money in 1982. Knowing it was a strong case, King needed to act. He persuaded Jeremiah Shabazz, a long-term friend of Ali to go and visit Muhammad, who at the time was in the ICLA Medical Centre receiving treatment for his ailing health. With the promise of a cash reward if he was successful, Shabazz took a suitcase stuffed with $50,000 to see Ali. The suitcase also contained a letter that needed Ali’s signature that would end the lawsuit and free King from all legal and financial obligations. Unbelievably, the letter also gave King the right to promote any future Ali fights.
Shabazz got Muhammad to sign the letter. Instead of the million he was owed, Ali got the $50,000 in cash and King moved on. On discovering the deal, Ali’s lawyer at the time, Michael Phenner, sat in his office and cried. Any fan of Muhammad Ali is likely to experience a similar emotional reaction.
Mike Tyson’s fall from grace is well documented. His meteoric ascent to the summit of the heavyweight division was remarkable. By the end of the 1980s there was a feeling that if he retained his focus, he may well surpass Marciano’s 49-0 record.
To blame his demise on Don King would be too simplistic, but Newfield details King’s manoeuvrings to secure control of Tyson’s career and how that coincided with the decline of his skills in the ring, the unravelling of his personal life and the ensuing chaos.
Mike Tyson had a very close bond with Jim Jacobs, one of his co-managers. Jacobs passed away in March 1988 and Newfield writes how King was trying to get to Tyson, “even before Jacobs’ body was placed in the earth”.
Positioning himself as a father figure to a Tyson, who had lost the people closest to him, King ultimately took full control of Iron Mike’s career. The book describes the tactics and lengths that King went to, in order achieve this goal. The mission was accomplished, but at what cost? Newfield writes that, “once Tyson went with Don King in October ‘88, almost all positive reinforcement vanished from his life”, and that, “the deterioration of Mike’s character was accompanied by the deterioration of his boxing skill.”
Boxing fans know the big picture of Tyson’s loss of the title and subsequent rape conviction, but Newfield gives us cold figures to reflect on.
“During 19 months as champion, when Bill Cayton and Jim Jacobs controlled his career, Mike Tyson earned $48.3 million and was undefeated in eight fights from November 1986 to June 1988. He received endorsement contracts from Toyota, Diet Pepsi, and Nintendo. Under Don King, from 1989 to 1991, Tyson also had eight fights, earning $29 million on paper. He received no commercial endorsements. Under Don King’s tutelage, Mike Tyson lost his crown, lost his money, and lost his freedom”.
Boxers are surely among the bravest sportsmen and women, but Jack Newfield draws the conclusion that boxing is, “the only jungle where the lions are afraid of the rats”.
Don King is given credit as a force of nature, but also being a man who, “possessed the alchemy of a brilliant strategic mind, working class ambition and anger, and no conscience”.
Newfield’s book, which was reprinted with an epilogue in 2003 is still vital reading for anyone with an interest in the sport. Professional boxers are forced to swim in shark infested waters. This has been the case since the days of Tex Rickard, Mike Jacobs, and Frank Carbo. The recent scandal around Daniel Kinahan, and how he was made welcome in the sport at the highest-level shows that nothing much has changed.
The Bryan-Dubois fight may well end up being King’s swansong in heavyweight boxing, which makes this an appropriate time to reflect on his career. His place in the hall of fame is secured, but so is that of Jake La Motta, a wife beater who admitted throwing a fight, so what does that prove?
If you start to feel the tingle of nostalgia as we see Don King prepare to leave the stage, even though that will likely be kicking and screaming, read or revisit Newfield’s book. Remember the stories of the fighters King promoted, and the lasting impact he had on them, and feel that tingle of nostalgia turn into something else.
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