Don King The Greatest Promoter EVER

[The Old LefHook]

i can think of no Boxing promoter who has not committed crime, Arum, Warren, Rickard all committed crimes. King is no different, has he committed crimes against me? ..No. Lets get real here, some are talking on this subject as if Don King has "Robbed them and their mother"..We have all read the books on King, we have all watched the Documentaries on Don King. What i am saying is, "Don King put on the greatest boxing shows ever" for fight-fans. Did he rip me off like all today's promoters do?... NO

My son, have you gone plain goofy? Every promoter put on better cards in those days than now, it is called competition. He was the lead promoter in his era, that's all.

Other than that he was, still is, and ever will be a piece of filth that no one except you feels like praising. He did not spend any more money on those undercards than he had to to stay on top. The money he did spend was stolen from the fighters themselves anyway. He was the greatest promoter like Idi Amin was the greatest leader. He raised no great fighter from the streets like Rickard (also a first class scumbag) did. He burst in and took other peoples' action, which was his specialty in the first place.

He happened to have the greatest heavyweight of all time to work with, and several more that were way up there. Ali went with the halfwitted moslems, as well, so his judgement was already suspect. He had Donking in one pocket and the black moslems pilfering the other one. The moslems took his money and invested it for themselves. From the profit of those investments Ali gets a fixed, small stipend. When Ali dies, Donking will be out some money for flowers. He can use part of what he stold from the champ.

The moslems will bury him and put out a collection bowl. Their tradition is to p*ss on graves, since water is so scarce over where the goats point their ass*s away from passing human males.

[Mugwump]

A promoter's job is to give the public what they want and create demand.

Practising the morality of a Franciscan Monk is completely irrelevant.

I'm not condoning Don King's behaviour. But it's an entirely separate question to whether he gives the public what they want (TICK) and creates demand (TICK).

In any case - it's not like Mike Tyson was a friendly Hobbit before he met Don King.

King made boxing King.

These days it's little more than a pauper insofar as promotion is concerned. Half the time they seem more interested in NOT making fights.

[Humean]

A promoter's job is to give the public what they want and create demand.

Practising the morality of a Franciscan Monk is completely irrelevant.

I'm not condoning Don King's behaviour. But it's an entirely separate question to whether he gives the public what they want (TICK) and creates demand (TICK).

In any case - it's not like Mike Tyson was a friendly Hobbit before he met Don King.

King made boxing King.

These days it's little more than a pauper insofar as promotion is concerned. Half the time they seem more interested in NOT making fights.

Not that I'm defending all of the promoters today but there is a reason that promoters don't provide the stacked cards that Don King was able to provide, namely that it would put them in the red. That raises the question of how Don King was able to do something that other promoters had considered economically unviable. The answer to how he was able to do it was that he ripping off the fighters. The idea that we can separate the high quality of cards he undoubtedly put on from his crookiness is ridiculous. Tyson was, and is, a low-life himself, and lets be honest plenty of fighters do their upmost to short-change the fans and screw over their promoters too but that doesn't excuse Don King's behaviour.

[Mugwump]

Not that I'm defending all of the promoters today but there is a reason that promoters don't provide the stacked cards that Don King was able to provide, namely that it would put them in the red. That raises the question of how Don King was able to do something that other promoters had considered economically unviable. The answer to how he was able to do it was that he ripping off the fighters. The idea that we can separate the high quality of cards he undoubtedly put on from his crookiness is ridiculous. Tyson was, and is, a low-life himself, and lets be honest plenty of fighters do their upmost to short-change the fans and screw over their promoters too but that doesn't excuse Don King's behaviour.

I don't agree at all. Don King was a successful promoter because he understood that boxing is so much more than two fighters knocking lumps out of each other. He was a throwback to the old carnival hucksters whose job it was to weave this or that act into one overarching Grand Entertainment Narrative.

The fact that he was ALSO corrupt is irrelevant. In any case, it's not like he was the only promoter on the take. If the sport was squeaky clean Don King would never have figured it's acceptable to be crooked in the first place.

Whether you like him or not, NO PROMOTER since has achieved anything like the kind of imprimatur of quality a "Don King Promotion" guaranteed when he was at the top of his game.

If you are saying this new "completely clean" (?) sport we are watching has sacrificed entertainment for moral probity then I say it's all the poorer.

Personally I don't think the two are mutually exclusive anyway.

[Humean]

I don't agree at all. Don King was a successful promoter because he understood that boxing is so much more than two fighters knocking lumps out of each other. He was a throwback to the old carnival hucksters whose job it was to weave this or that act into one overarching Grand Entertainment Narrative.

The fact that he was ALSO corrupt is irrelevant. In any case, it's not like he was the only promoter on the take. If the sport was squeaky clean Don King would never have figured it's acceptable to be crooked in the first place.

Whether you like him or not, NO PROMOTER since has achieved anything like the kind of imprimatur of quality a "Don King Promotion" guaranteed when he was at the top of his game.

If you are saying this new "completely clean" (?) sport we are watching has sacrificed entertainment for moral probity then I say it's all the poorer.

Personally I don't think the two are mutually exclusive anyway.

King was able to put on stacked cards because he was able to rip off fighters, and their managers and promoters. That is how he did it. King didn't have some great foresight that other promoters didn't have, he was simply the most unscrupulous of an unscrupulous lot. You are right that he was like the old carnival hucksters, and they were every bit the con men that King was/is.

[billeau2]

A promoter's job is to give the public what they want and create demand.

Practising the morality of a Franciscan Monk is completely irrelevant.

I'm not condoning Don King's behaviour. But it's an entirely separate question to whether he gives the public what they want (TICK) and creates demand (TICK).

In any case - it's not like Mike Tyson was a friendly Hobbit before he met Don King.

King made boxing King.

These days it's little more than a pauper insofar as promotion is concerned. Half the time they seem more interested in NOT making fights.

Ok so lets take Pete Rose. One of the best american crickiteers, what us yanks call baseball....Rose was denied entry to the hall of fame because he gambled. It was outrageous because a lot of ball players in the history of the game gambled and there was no evidence that Rose threw anythng, merely that he bet on his team. I would agree with your argument as it applies to Rose because Rose's actions were, in a very real sense, immaterial to the Stucture and integrity of the game. They were the actions of a gambler who was also, a great ballplayer and as you might say "well, so many other players have gambled as a little incentive to add to the outcome and who wants antiseptic baseball teams full of free agents who stay a year and go the next anyhow?"

Now...lets take the Blacksox scandel where shoeless Joe jackson, a great player threw the game. This action was not immaterial to the game, and while we could parade out the same reaction we had to Rose being denied....Jackson's actions were not only immoral, but had a material effect on the outcome of the world series.

Mugs you see where i am going with this? Guys like Tex Rickert were probably scumbags and they may have gotten over on guys like Dempsey, but they understood enough ethical perogatives that they did not destroy and materially effect the lives of fighters. King destroyed careers, he made it so fighters could not even concentrate on their careers. His actions destroyed more in boxing and for fighters than any great cards he put on. Thats a fact.

The argument that there are other equally scummy guys does not excuse the actions of King. We will never see guys like Witherspoon because of king.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Don King was a crook but dude usually delivered what the fans wanted to see until the post 2000s

Chavez-Whitaker
Chavez-Camacho
Chavez-meldrick
Tito-vargas
Tito-Oscar
Tito-hopkins and the mw tourney
Tyson vs spinks, ruddock, holyfield, etc...


Don King may have ripped off a lot of fighters but from a fans perspective he was great until the post 2000s with byrd, ruiz, etc... Then don ****** at matchmaking...

[Mugwump]

Mugs you see where i am going with this? Guys like Tex Rickert were probably scumbags and they may have gotten over on guys like Dempsey, but they understood enough ethical perogatives that they did not destroy and materially effect the lives of fighters. King destroyed careers, he made it so fighters could not even concentrate on their careers. His actions destroyed more in boxing and for fighters than any great cards he put on. Thats a fact.

The argument that there are other equally scummy guys does not excuse the actions of King. We will never see guys like Witherspoon because of king.

Again, I can't agree. You're effectively saying Don King's - so far unmatched - ability to promote fights inevitably lead to him becoming corrupt.

I, on the other hand, think Don King was a peerless promoter who was ALSO corrupt.

One does not necessarily predicate the other and therefore it should be entirely possible for a promoter to be as successful as King without being (as) corrupt.

I mean, I recognise your point and agree that King deserves every criticism levelled at him. But boxing was always a dirty business. There's a new documentary now coming out featuring Tyson, Hopkins and somebody else in which they're all claiming boxing is about as dirty as any sport gets. You can't level it all on Don King. And if we disqualify promoters who've shafted fighters I doubt there'll be many left to talk about.

[Mugwump]

King was able to put on stacked cards because he was able to rip off fighters, and their managers and promoters. That is how he did it. King didn't have some great foresight that other promoters didn't have, he was simply the most unscrupulous of an unscrupulous lot. You are right that he was like the old carnival hucksters, and they were every bit the con men that King was/is.

I think we have to be VERY careful when making moral judgements within the context of a sport which is on morally shaky grounds from the outset.

I love boxing more than any sport. That said, I can't say I feel particularly moral watching two guys effectively trying to inflict brain dysfunction upon each other. And I won't even begin to describe my feelings witnessing some guy I was rooting against slip from brain dysfunction into brain damage.

I mean, consider the position of ring physician. Here is a guy who has taken the Hippocratic Oath which completely precludes actions which inflict harm or injury upon the patient. And yet he must break that oath every time he takes the role or step in once the first punch is thrown.

Again, I'm not condoning King's actions. But given that competition for audience and/or viewers has arguably never been tougher (think of how many new combat sports have emerged recently) - we've picked a VERY BAD time to ostensibly clean up the sport (a questionable statement, IMO) at the expense of Prime Time fights.

[billeau2]

Again, I can't agree. You're effectively saying Don King's - so far unmatched - ability to promote fights inevitably lead to him becoming corrupt.

I, on the other hand, think Don King was a peerless promoter who was ALSO corrupt.

One does not necessarily predicate the other and therefore it should be entirely possible for a promoter to be as successful as King without being (as) corrupt.

I mean, I recognise your point and agree that King deserves every criticism levelled at him. But boxing was always a dirty business. There's a new documentary now coming out featuring Tyson, Hopkins and somebody else in which they're all claiming boxing is about as dirty as any sport gets. You can't level it all on Don King. And if we disqualify promoters who've shafted fighters I doubt there'll be many left to talk about.

One point of clarification is I think King was corrupt before boxing. He came into the sport already ruthless convicted criminal who had murdered twice.

With that said you are entitled to your opinion.