Don King's Fall From The Top

[GrandpaBernard]

what caused his decline in power?

He had a unique appeal to black fighters, the sport's best and biggest names

Barely anyone signs with him these days.

[Flabulous]

what caused his decline in power?

He had a unique appeal to black fighters, the sport's best and biggest names

Barely anyone signs with him these days.

The transition in race ethnicity and nationality of the best boxers have changed from black Americans to white eastern Europeans. All the best talent - .new talent - comes from Europe.... moreover, he has exhausted his reputation as manipulative dirty cheat who used boxers but still got them paid greatly, to manipulative dirty cheat who can't get his boxers paid, or even consistent dates...

[PK3434]

A few things:
1. He screwed over so many people that his reputation took a huge hit'
2. His operation had too many incompetent people involved..family members, etc.
3. Did not keep up with technology or modern times in general, at all.

[Scipio2009]

what caused his decline in power?

He had a unique appeal to black fighters, the sport's best and biggest names

Barely anyone signs with him these days.

Don King's entire promotional company, basically from the moment that he arrived as a feature promoter in the sport, was built around his domination of things in the heavyweight division. King stacked his shows with solid undercards, but everything revolved around the heavyweights.

The moment that Mike Tyson ceased being "the guy", King's leverage basically ended with it (he tried to keep things going with some of his undercard guys, but no longer having that heavyweight title cudgel led to more and more guys being less willing to hold their noses to work with King).

No different than Bob Arum, tbh (rather than build around the heavyweights, Arum built his company on smaller and Latin fighters, riding Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, and Manny Pacquiao to leverage his company; with Pacquiao now done, Arum is standing without any cudgel over anyone, with new talents no longer holding their noses to work with him)

[GrandpaBernard]

Don King's entire promotional company, basically from the moment that he arrived as a feature promoter in the sport, was built around his domination of things in the heavyweight division. King stacked his shows with solid undercards, but everything revolved around the heavyweights.

The moment that Mike Tyson ceased being "the guy", King's leverage basically ended with it (he tried to keep things going with some of his undercard guys, but no longer having that heavyweight title cudgel led to more and more guys being less willing to hold their noses to work with King).

No different than Bob Arum, tbh (rather than build around the heavyweights, Arum built his company on smaller and Latin fighters, riding Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, and Manny Pacquiao to leverage his company; with Pacquiao now done, Arum is standing without any cudgel over anyone, with new talents no longer holding their noses to work with him)

very interesting to hear about their business strategies

[low blows]

The transition in race ethnicity and nationality of the best boxers have changed from black Americans to white eastern Europeans. All the best talent - .new talent - comes from Europe.... moreover, he has exhausted his reputation as manipulative dirty cheat who used boxers but still got them paid greatly, to manipulative dirty cheat who can't get his boxers paid, or even consistent dates...

This! King blatantly tried to play the race card with Ali and won over the naive Ali.

Also King used force guys to sign with him because he controlled all of the champions and most of the top contenders. I remember when he had a card where all 4 heavyweight champions defended their belts. Recently he had a heavyweight card where Grano ko'd Kaufmann as a headliner on a Showtime future stars broadcast. This type of fight would have been a dark bout on one of the loaded cards.