Comments Thread For: Cooney: Don King ****d The Game, Now Heavyweights Returning

[_Rexy_]

Everyone knows Don King was bad for boxing. However, there are plenty of reasons boxing has been in decline, especially at the HW division. NFL and basketball had way more superstars so naturally athletes gravitated to those sports. Wilder would have been a much bigger star back in the days than he is now. Whether he was with Don King or not.

Agreed, he’d just be broke lol

[clemenza]

Gerry is always full of class, a true gentleman. Tell ya , he had a mean left hook Too.

[N/A]

Everyone knows Don King was bad for boxing.

Bad for boxing? Boxing was far more popular, far more entertaining and had way more big fights (with stacked undercards).

Don may have been bad for BOXERS, but he definitely wasn't bad for boxing fans.

[_Rexy_]

Gerry is always full of class, a true gentleman. Tell ya , he had a mean left hook Too.

Yup! Very classy, great puncher. It was a shame he just never knew how to defend himself once he got hurt.

[_Rexy_]

Bad for boxing? Boxing was far more popular, far more entertaining and had way more big fights (with stacked undercards).

Don may have been bad for BOXERS, but he definitely wasn't bad for boxing fans.

You act like boxing was a fringe sport until King came along lol. Majority of the best HW champs came back when King was running numbers back in Ohio.

[////]

he shot a man in the back over a ******** dispute, stomped one of his employees to death, got out of prison after a couple years and pardoned by the governor of ohio via bribery

he left nearly all of the fighters he worked with flat broke and threatened to have them murdered if they disputed their contract terms -- given that he had a history of bribing his way out of murder sentencing they believed him and fought as ******

You still see people defending him and saying he's "part of boxing history, made big fights". Yeah and Trotsky, Lenin are part of world history and made big fights. So?

[N/A]

You act like boxing was a fringe sport until King came along lol. Majority of the best HW champs came back when King was running numbers back in Ohio.

Don had most of the heavyweight champions from 1974-2007.

It's not that it was a fringe sport until he came along, but you can't compare the days of radio and 3 channels to the amount of money the business starting generating under Don King's rule. More fighters making 7 figure purses than anybody thought imaginable (even if they had to give Carl half), HBO boxing the biggest it's ever been, heavyweight boxing so big that over $32,000,000 was big for Douglas-Holyfield (over $60,000,000 adjusted for inflation).

You can't look at boxing now and boxing then and say things have improved for boxing fans without King.

[_Rexy_]

Don had most of the heavyweight champions from 1974-2007.

It's not that it was a fringe sport until he came along, but you can't compare the days of radio and 3 channels to the amount of money the business starting generating under Don King's rule. More fighters making 7 figure purses than anybody thought imaginable (even if they had to give Carl half), HBO boxing the biggest it's ever been, heavyweight boxing so big that over $32,000,000 was big for Douglas-Holyfield (over $60,000,000 adjusted for inflation).

You can't look at boxing now and boxing then and say things have improved for boxing fans without King.

Things are worse now because of the talent pool, not becuse of don king.

And who cares about 7 figure purses when Don and his son were getting 75%?

[////]

Don had most of the heavyweight champions from 1974-2007.

It's not that it was a fringe sport until he came along, but you can't compare the days of radio and 3 channels to the amount of money the business starting generating under Don King's rule. More fighters making 7 figure purses than anybody thought imaginable (even if they had to give Carl half), HBO boxing the biggest it's ever been, heavyweight boxing so big that over $32,000,000 was big for Douglas-Holyfield (over $60,000,000 adjusted for inflation).

You can't look at boxing now and boxing then and say things have improved for boxing fans without King.

He had the financial momentum to lure the best fighters in then rob them -- he got there with death threats and blackmail.

Pretty much every major sport exploded due to the rise of televised mega-events, although HW boxing's market share was actually lower than it had been years prior.

He gets credit for simply being there and taking a cut. He didn't do anything in particular that a hundred other promoters weren't there to do. High visibility, crazy hair, promoting himself as much as his fighters & taking most of the pay.

& the elephant in the room: He should have been serving two life terms in prison for two brutal homicides.

[N/A]

Things are worse now because of the talent pool, not becuse of don king.

How convenient. Don reigns for decades, things fall off a cliff without him, but we're not going to give him any credit for the success during his time . . .