For Controversial Don King, Everything Was Never Going to Be Enough

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Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

Don King

Don King

As a lifelong boxing fan, over the years I’ve been privileged to meet, and interview, some of the biggest names in the “sweet science”—including championship fighters, trainers, writers and promoters—in New York and Milwaukee.

Included are boxers Muhammad Ali, Charles (Sonny) Liston, Floyd Patterson, Jose Torres, Gerald McClellan and Milwaukee’s Orville Pitts, LeRoy Allen and boxer-trainer Baby Joe Gans; trainer Army Sgt. Tommie Johnson; writers Jack Newfield, Wallace Matthews and Mark Kriegel, and flamboyant promoter Don King.

Along with Ali, the controversial King was, by far, the most famous. And, by far, the very best fun I had was spent with King in person in New York and Cleveland, and in Milwaukee as one of my most popular, high-profile telephone guests on WNOV-AM radio’s “Carter McGee Report” in 1994.

During the latter, I asked King if he’d consider staging a heavyweight title bout outdoors at Milwaukee County Stadium. His boisterous reply: “Absolutely, Dick. And I promise to get started on it as soon as we hang up.”

Of course, it didn’t happen—which was typical Don King. Lots of talk, lots of action, lots of promises, many of which he never kept. Still, I loved the guy. 

After years of marveling at his brash, albeit successful, big-time promotions, it began on a personal level for me in January 1978 at a United Airlines gate in the Cleveland airport. As my Plain Dealer reporter wife, Janice, interviewed a departing passenger, I was startled by the deplaning King—signature hair and all.

“How you doing?” he said, handing me a flyer for a coming fight between Roberto Duran and Esteban DeJesus. “You’ll love this one.” We talked for the next half-hour.

“That was Don King,” I said to my wife. But as the world’s most famous boxing promoter, she’d easily recognized him.

One of a Kind

Indeed, King was a one-of-a-kind force having parlayed an ebullient manner, startling appearance and flair for the flamboyant into instant recognition. And as a Black man, he’d made serious inroads into historically, a white man’s turf calling the shots for big, megabuck fights.

At the urging of Muhammad Ali, King got into the business side of boxing after serving four-years in the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio for manslaughter. By 1972, he’d put on some 210 world title fights in the United States and abroad.  

In 1988, my second go-round with King came when, as a high-profile columnist with the New York Daily News, I called him and asked for an interview. Never one to turn down an opportunity for major media publicity, he eagerly agreed, inviting me to his sumptuous Upper East Side brownstone. 

That Saturday, I spent several hours in his dining room with King clad in in an “Only in America” sweatsuit. And it was conversation with a flourish, as I took copious notes. During the day, we were joined by his son and partner, Carl King, and the manager of one of his fighters, who presented him with a huge wad of cash. 

“I’ve eradicated the word ‘failure’ from my vocabulary,” he said. King truly transformed himself from the numbers boss I used to hear about in my Cleveland days, to one of the best-known Black men in the world. And as a Black ex-con, it wasn’t easy—which is an understatement.

“Look, Dick,” he said, “you and I know that if you’re rich and you’re Black, you’re just a rich Black n__. If you’ve got a Ph.D and you’re Black, you’re just an educated n__. If you’re poor, and you’re Black, you’re just a poor n__.

“A white man can tell a lie and it’s believable. A nigger can tell the truth and it’s questionable. All I want is to be judged by my performance. I perform first, best.”

Performing best despite the lies and deception in the fight game was key to King’s success. “My word is my bond,” he said. “My forte is economics. I’m a capitalist. Where there is no demand, I create one. My whole thing is making deals.” 

While the deals he made and demands he created dramatically changed the economics of boxing, they often caused consternation among the predominantly white powers-that-be—perhaps most notably at the time, his main promotional rival, Bob Arum.

Over the years, King has created almost too many big deal promotions to name. But the two most famous probably were the 1974 Ali-George Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” in Africa, and Ali-Joe Frazier’s “Thrilla in Manila” in 1975 in the Philippines.

As we concluded our interview, he said he was working behind the scenes to put together a group to try to buy the New York Post from Rupert Murdoch. Indeed, that would have been a really big deal. But, of course, it also never happened.

Finally, in typical glad-handed Don King fashion, he began our 1994 “Carter-McGee Report” radio interview saying: “I sure hope your listeners appreciate you, Dick, the way I have ever since we got together in New York.” And I thanked him profusely.

That was my Don King – truly one of a kind. And at 92, he’s still at it. So go on wit’ yo’ bad sef’ Don. Mah man!