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The talks about his success.
he is very smart guy in and out. He made Formen sign on a white paper to fight Ali. Who could do this today
Don King perfected and personifies boxing's outlaw economy. He dreams of backing one last great fighter.
No one knows the names of fighters anymore.
Kids in schoolyards don't mimic the Champ; women in beauty salons don't swoon over the latest Sugar of the ring. It has been years since boxing fans witnessed a historic bout in the making. Purists of the sport dubbed "the sweet science" by English writer Pierce Egan in the early 1800s now make do dissecting great fights from decades ago and great fighters who, if not dead, are withered remnants of their once beautiful selves. These days heavyweight belts change hands in obscure bouts staged on a Saturday night, and come Sunday morning few people realize, or even care, that a new champion has emerged.
But one name in boxing is recognized by dilettantes and fanatics alike. Fittingly, that name is King.
On a crisp January afternoon in New York, promoter Don King emerges from the bowels of Madison Square Garden and draws a crowd of normally blasé New Yorkers who jockey to get a peek at his trademark light-socket hairdo that has now grown white and stringy. Clad in a sequined, red-white-and-blue denim jacket emblazoned with his hackneyed slogan, "Only in America," he is here to promote a lineup of fights the following night. No one even notices as a dozen professional boxers spill out onto the street behind him.
"It's going to be exciting!" King says as he postures for the press. "It's going to be provocative! It's going to be beautiful! You are going to see fights made in boxing heaven!" He has said this a thousand times before. Does he mean it as much as he used to?
The Garden has played host to some of the great fights in boxing's history, and King, 74, remembers many of them, from the Joe Louis vs. Rocky Marciano classic in 1951 to the matchup of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier 20 years later in the "Fight of the Century"--which King heard on the radio, while serving time in prison. In 33 years he has staged at least 600 championship bouts and raked in $1 billion in boxing revenue, producing seven of the ten largest pay-per-view events in history. He has amassed a $350 million fortune doing it.
But boxing is in deep peril, and King--according to your point of view, either the best or the worst thing ever to happen to the sport--wants to rescue it. Pay-per-view revenue, which totaled $168 million from the three largest fights of 1996, when the sport was peaking financially, faded to $66 million from last year's three top bouts; tickets sales for the top three fights of 2005 totaled $13 million, a 58% drop from the top three of 1996.
The Numbers Man and His Numbers
Over $1 billion
Total boxing revenue
$110 million
Largest grossing fight (Tyson vs. Holyfield, 1997)
113
Total boxers currently represented
$70 million
Largest annual salary, 1996
$350 million
Estimated net worth
Even a reality TV show on NBC--The Contender, hosted by Sugar Ray Leonard and Rocky actor Sylvester Stallone--didn't help; it got canceled after one season. By contrast, a reality series for Ultimate Fighting Championship, whose bare-knuckled, full-contact fights draw legions of young viewers, soon begins its third season in the U.S. on Viacom (nyse: RBV - news - people )'s Spike TV channel; Nevada's top boxing regulator has just quit to join UFC.
Boxing's biggest problem--and Don King's ready-made solution--lies in the fact that it hasn't found a flamboyant and dangerous new heavyweight champion since Mike Tyson went to prison (for the first time) in 1992. Heavyweights drive the entire sport, but can you name the champ today? Late last year King himself controlled four heavyweight champs in four rival organizations, but none came close to replacing Tyson.
"Boxing has to find another star," says King. "I'm in constant search, but whoever finds him, I'm the one who will make him a star. I'm the diamond-polisher."
"Boxing needs fighters who excite people," says Tyson, now 39, retired and living in Arizona. "You have to be their fantasy. You have to be their soap opera."
Since Tyson's exit in 1997, after a disqualification for biting Evander Holyfield's ear, the sport has been better known for one-round letdowns, mismatches, bums and embarrassments. Even Don King Productions, in Deerfield Beach, Florida, has felt the effects of boxing's decline. It recently scaled back on office staff by 40% to 30 full-time employees. King also keeps on his roster 113 fighters in myriad weight classes from 27 countries. Dozens of them train and live at a barracks-style camp owned by King in rural Ohio.
He has high hopes for a few of his fighters, especially Ricardo Mayorga, a 154-pounder who is preparing to face Oscar (The Golden Boy) De La Hoya, who at age 33 is the most financially successful boxer in the sport today.
Outside Madison Square Garden a couple more of King's brightest prospects go unnoticed by the people crowding around the promoter. Jean-Marc Mormeck, 33, is a 200-pound cruiserweight from France; Zab Judah, 28, is a Brooklyn-bred, gazellelike welterweight at less than 150 pounds. Both are slated for bouts at the Garden the next night. Mormeck, with a few devastating victories--and maybe 15 extra pounds--might remake himself into the heavyweight star that King longs for.
Even then, however, King's quest may fall short because of a quirk of capitalism: Too much competition makes it harder than ever to create a new superstar. There isn't a monopolistic league, as there is in baseball or basketball. Fights are overseen by an alphabet soup of a dozen or so rival sanctioning bodies, seven of them widely recognized--the WBA, the WBC, the IBF, the WBO and more; and anyone can set up a new one, anytime. Each group has up to 20 weight classes, yielding 200 different champions at one time. Currently five different punchers lay claim to five different World Heavyweight Champion titles, and two other major titles are vacant. In 1975, when Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier in their third classic matchup, the King-staged "Thrilla in Manila," just two sanctioning bodies held sway. Ali was the only heavyweight champ.
"The title of champ is diluted," says top boxing manager Shelly Finkel. "You can be a champ, but it doesn't mean anything."
for more info
http://www.forbes.com/business/globa.../0424/042.html
he is very smart guy in and out. He made Formen sign on a white paper to fight Ali. Who could do this today
Don King perfected and personifies boxing's outlaw economy. He dreams of backing one last great fighter.
No one knows the names of fighters anymore.
Kids in schoolyards don't mimic the Champ; women in beauty salons don't swoon over the latest Sugar of the ring. It has been years since boxing fans witnessed a historic bout in the making. Purists of the sport dubbed "the sweet science" by English writer Pierce Egan in the early 1800s now make do dissecting great fights from decades ago and great fighters who, if not dead, are withered remnants of their once beautiful selves. These days heavyweight belts change hands in obscure bouts staged on a Saturday night, and come Sunday morning few people realize, or even care, that a new champion has emerged.
But one name in boxing is recognized by dilettantes and fanatics alike. Fittingly, that name is King.
On a crisp January afternoon in New York, promoter Don King emerges from the bowels of Madison Square Garden and draws a crowd of normally blasé New Yorkers who jockey to get a peek at his trademark light-socket hairdo that has now grown white and stringy. Clad in a sequined, red-white-and-blue denim jacket emblazoned with his hackneyed slogan, "Only in America," he is here to promote a lineup of fights the following night. No one even notices as a dozen professional boxers spill out onto the street behind him.
"It's going to be exciting!" King says as he postures for the press. "It's going to be provocative! It's going to be beautiful! You are going to see fights made in boxing heaven!" He has said this a thousand times before. Does he mean it as much as he used to?
The Garden has played host to some of the great fights in boxing's history, and King, 74, remembers many of them, from the Joe Louis vs. Rocky Marciano classic in 1951 to the matchup of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier 20 years later in the "Fight of the Century"--which King heard on the radio, while serving time in prison. In 33 years he has staged at least 600 championship bouts and raked in $1 billion in boxing revenue, producing seven of the ten largest pay-per-view events in history. He has amassed a $350 million fortune doing it.
But boxing is in deep peril, and King--according to your point of view, either the best or the worst thing ever to happen to the sport--wants to rescue it. Pay-per-view revenue, which totaled $168 million from the three largest fights of 1996, when the sport was peaking financially, faded to $66 million from last year's three top bouts; tickets sales for the top three fights of 2005 totaled $13 million, a 58% drop from the top three of 1996.
The Numbers Man and His Numbers
Over $1 billion
Total boxing revenue
$110 million
Largest grossing fight (Tyson vs. Holyfield, 1997)
113
Total boxers currently represented
$70 million
Largest annual salary, 1996
$350 million
Estimated net worth
Even a reality TV show on NBC--The Contender, hosted by Sugar Ray Leonard and Rocky actor Sylvester Stallone--didn't help; it got canceled after one season. By contrast, a reality series for Ultimate Fighting Championship, whose bare-knuckled, full-contact fights draw legions of young viewers, soon begins its third season in the U.S. on Viacom (nyse: RBV - news - people )'s Spike TV channel; Nevada's top boxing regulator has just quit to join UFC.
Boxing's biggest problem--and Don King's ready-made solution--lies in the fact that it hasn't found a flamboyant and dangerous new heavyweight champion since Mike Tyson went to prison (for the first time) in 1992. Heavyweights drive the entire sport, but can you name the champ today? Late last year King himself controlled four heavyweight champs in four rival organizations, but none came close to replacing Tyson.
"Boxing has to find another star," says King. "I'm in constant search, but whoever finds him, I'm the one who will make him a star. I'm the diamond-polisher."
"Boxing needs fighters who excite people," says Tyson, now 39, retired and living in Arizona. "You have to be their fantasy. You have to be their soap opera."
Since Tyson's exit in 1997, after a disqualification for biting Evander Holyfield's ear, the sport has been better known for one-round letdowns, mismatches, bums and embarrassments. Even Don King Productions, in Deerfield Beach, Florida, has felt the effects of boxing's decline. It recently scaled back on office staff by 40% to 30 full-time employees. King also keeps on his roster 113 fighters in myriad weight classes from 27 countries. Dozens of them train and live at a barracks-style camp owned by King in rural Ohio.
He has high hopes for a few of his fighters, especially Ricardo Mayorga, a 154-pounder who is preparing to face Oscar (The Golden Boy) De La Hoya, who at age 33 is the most financially successful boxer in the sport today.
Outside Madison Square Garden a couple more of King's brightest prospects go unnoticed by the people crowding around the promoter. Jean-Marc Mormeck, 33, is a 200-pound cruiserweight from France; Zab Judah, 28, is a Brooklyn-bred, gazellelike welterweight at less than 150 pounds. Both are slated for bouts at the Garden the next night. Mormeck, with a few devastating victories--and maybe 15 extra pounds--might remake himself into the heavyweight star that King longs for.
Even then, however, King's quest may fall short because of a quirk of capitalism: Too much competition makes it harder than ever to create a new superstar. There isn't a monopolistic league, as there is in baseball or basketball. Fights are overseen by an alphabet soup of a dozen or so rival sanctioning bodies, seven of them widely recognized--the WBA, the WBC, the IBF, the WBO and more; and anyone can set up a new one, anytime. Each group has up to 20 weight classes, yielding 200 different champions at one time. Currently five different punchers lay claim to five different World Heavyweight Champion titles, and two other major titles are vacant. In 1975, when Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier in their third classic matchup, the King-staged "Thrilla in Manila," just two sanctioning bodies held sway. Ali was the only heavyweight champ.
"The title of champ is diluted," says top boxing manager Shelly Finkel. "You can be a champ, but it doesn't mean anything."
for more info
http://www.forbes.com/business/globa.../0424/042.html
askin if he was close to a billionaire yet. but hell i guess he has 350million right now,but all time its probably like 700million
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