By T.K. Stewart

While Don King's enthusiasm and love for the fight game never wanes, the same cannot be said about the public.

With recent pay-per-view events performing poorly and with thousands of empty seats at some of the biggest fights, certainly the global financial crisis can be blamed, but the sport boxing has it's own deep rooted issues.

Don King is aware of these problems and the man that has promoted some of the largest events in boxing history says he knows what the sport needs if it's going to turn itself around and regain it's former glory.

"You gotta' get heroes," said King. "It's as simple as that. I'm a promoter of the people, for the people and by the people and my magic lies in my people ties. Boxing is just a catalyst that brings people, the masses, together."

King, who helped make heroes out of a generation of prizefighters from Muhammad Ali to Julio Cesar Chavez to Mike Tyson says the solution to boxing's problems is simple.

"Boxing needs heroes," says King. "You need somebody like a Mike Tyson that can come up and capture the imagination of the people. These days many of the would be boxers have more options. Back when I first started promoting (in the early 1970's) there were very few options for a black man in America, you know what I mean? Now we have a black man as President."

King is of the opinion that American men, who in the past would have gravitated toward boxing because they didn't have any other choice, now have more avenues to make their way to a better life. As a result, the potential talent pool for potential fighters has been diluted.

"The doors are open now for those people," said King. "They don't have to fight."

But the man known as 'The World's Greatest Promoter' is optimistic that boxing will come around and that it will survive.

"Boxing will always be here no matter what happens," says King. "It's in the doldrums now because there is a lack of heroic fighters and a lack of heroic effort. And another thing is that the work ethic of fighters today has slowed down because they make too much money too fast. They all want to know what network they're going to be on. Fighters used to be in the gym all the time so they could win the fame and acclaim and influence."

Another big problem with boxing, says King, is the fact that HBO has a virtual lock on televised boxing and "if you don't go their way it's the highway." As a result, King has been practically locked out of dealing with the network that he helped to build into a boxing powerhouse.

King also decries the lack of options for boxing on so-called 'free' television.

"You don't have the ABC Wide World of Sports anymore," said King. "You don't have those things anymore where we had USA Tuesday Night Fights where you could expose the guys so they could be seen by the people and so they can become heroes. Now what you got is the monopoly of the networks."

King is also no fan of the UFC and as the UFC seems to get bigger and more successful, boxing seems to become more insignificant and marginalized.

"Now you got the MMA, which is kicking, biting, putting in elbows. It's doing the very thing that a sophisticated society would say we should get rid of for the betterment of the fighter and for the health of the fighter," says King.

But even though he was a major player of what some would call boxing's glory days, King knows things have to change if the sport is to survive and thrive.

"The game goes on," he says of boxing. "What you have to learn how to do is to adapt, like the chameleon. You have to be able to change with the times and you can't hang onto the good ole days, because there ain't nothin' good about the good ole days except they is gone!"

E-mail Comments To tkstewartboxing@gmail.com