Published by on January 12th, 2009
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By Scoop Malinowski
Love him or hate him, Don King has been around as a central figure in the sport since the 1970’s and he has produced some of the biggest events in boxing history. Though his overall influence on the sport these days seems to be on the wane as he enters his late seventies (DK’s talent pool of boxers consists of Nate Campbell, David Santos, half of Nikolay Valuev & Samuel Peter, Andrew Golota, Guillermo Jones, Ray Austin, Steve Cunningham, Marco Antonio Barrera, Cory Spinks, Devon Alexander, etc.), it is still a worthwhile exercise to listen to his unique point of view. Recently, during a trip to New York, BoxingInsider had the privilege to hear Don King converse about the sport as we enter 2009.
Here is Don King speaking about a number of topics including his rival promoters, loyalty, what’s missing with today’s generation of fighters, Oscar, Roy, what makes a successful promotion, and more:
“You’re gonna have the pros and cons in boxing when the fans are justifying spending money in an economic crisis situation that we’re suffering worldwide,” says King. “Needless to say, it (Oscar vs. Pacquiao) hurt the marketplace for pay-per-view.”
“It’s gonna come down to can you promote? Most of the guys – they match people together, they package deals, they don’t negotiate for rights. And they don’t make it an attraction. When you get an attraction you have to give it to the people so they can feel the pulse of that attraction. The 24/7 show that HBO is doing – it was better than the fight. But if you’re really grassroots promoting, most of them can’t do this. Then to go along with that, the whole fight card wasn’t 15 rounds. The whole evening. You’re putting all your eggs in one basket. If you’re basket has dysfunctional ability, the public don’t get nothing. I thought that was the worst promotion of an event for the kind of money they were receiving. And the money comes ten-fold important when it’s in a crisis like it is now. Many of the nation call it a recession but it’s actually a depression if you pro rate it away according to the basis of 1929 to now.”
“And you got to be able to deal with people. I’m a promoter of the people, for the people, and by the people, and my magic lies in my ties. I ain’t gonna give them something they can’t relate and identify with. We lack heroes in America. I still think America will be the proving ground because we’re still 20 years ahead of anywhere else. The ability and capability of doing pay-per-view – we’re dropping the ball. With no network exposure we have forgotten from which we’ve come. Our work ethic leaves a lot to be desired. What we have done is fall in love with the headlines and the bylines rather than the glory and the pride. The glory and the pride is the difference that needs to be recaptured for America, the glory and the pride.”
“The work ethic is poor. They want money they haven’t earned. They got to learn to be able to put pride and the glory into what they’re doing. And then get paid. Because they don’t understand, when you got the pride and the glory – ie a Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Larry Holmes. This is what gets it – the re-dedication and commitment to what they’re doing as well as to what they’re trying to be. This, to me, is what makes the difference in the sport. I watch them all and they come and go. But when you find a fighter that is committed, and that he would lose, sacrifice, Muhammad Ali, his heyday, then the Supreme Court supported him – he was true to what he was doing. The prime of his career – no one really knew how great Ali could have been. Four years in his career, the heart of his career, he was incapacitated. But he didn’t have to be incapacitated.”
“They sell themselves, a sellout is a sellout. I think America can truly bring back great fighters because their skills, talent, the trainers, their rhythm, they teach the guys – but they just can’t teach ‘em loyalty and commitment to their struggles. That’s why they can’t teach ‘em. Because the majority of them ain’t loyal themself. Then they find out when they do get this guy with all of their rhythm and all of their moves, they desert them. And they wonder why they desert them – because they never taught them what loyalty means. It’s more than money. You could call it poaching, you could call it cattle-russling.”
“Roy Jones-Trinidad – we had 600,000 buys. But we could have had more than that. Let me show you where loyalty comes in. I got a friend named Jim Dolan (owner of Cablevision, MSG). I said, Here’s what we can do to make the fight a success. Jim Dolan bought into it. He added one caveat, eventhough I knew the caveat left a lot to be desired, my loyalty to him would not let me just ride roughshod, especially when he stood up and been loyal to me. When he took on the guys that broke us. Without that added addition the fight would have sold out like this (Oscar vs. Pacquiao). And then that would have added a synergistic magic – we did 600, you know we would have did a million buys. But here, don’t forget, I couldn’t have even got to the post if I didn’t have Jim Dolan. It would be tantamount to what I’m preaching against. I’d become one of them. To find any kind of fault to what it is, there ain’t no fault, just a miscalculation to fighting on too many fronts at one time.”
“We had a big net to overcome, overcome that net, so it troubles me. What does that mean? It means I’m going to find some kind of promotion somewhere, that, whatever he did lose, he ought to get back. It ain’t got no contract, no obligation legally but morally. This is why I can go to guys and they’ll give me what they won’t give to the rest of ‘em.”
“I had Roy Jones, I resurrected Roy Jones from the dead. Tito Trinidad and I worked with Roy Jones and did 600,000 buys with a fight that everybody thought Roy Jones was dead. Everyone would call me and write me and tell me all kind of sad sob stories, Don’t do this, you’re being mercenary. And Roy Jones put on a performance of his life. Becaue he had the type of atmoshere to be able to work with. And that’s when Golota put on his finest hour – blind, but he didn’t give in. But the idea is you put on a show. You do 600,000 buys. Now what they did with Calzaghe – I would have made it a masterpiece. Number one, I wouldn’t have fought it in the Garden. I’d have fought it in Wales. 100,000 people would have come out. Then you greet and meet the people and talk about how Calzaghe came up. The fight was made with double crossing, it was fraught with danger. Frank Warren had been the promoter (of Joe) – I’m not a promoter’s promoter to go and try to protect a promoter – but the guy had been with the guy for 30-some odd fights. And I got a contract on Roy and they puttin’ larceny on. And after I cleared my name with Roy what we gonna do? Ain’t gonna do nothing. Just go ahead on. But I didn’t advise anyone who put their time,effort and money to give away contracts, make the person live up to their contract. But I didn’t want it. I just didn’t want it.”
“You got to make matches that are called People matches. You gotta make matches that people can relate and identify with. Matches where, in the kitchen, in the boardroom, in the pub, in the church, everybody will talk about it and each one will be finding reasons to support their hero, whoever it may be. Then you got a match. Then you got something that you can deal with. You can go with all the different aspects of life – the good, the evil, you could go with the joy, happiness, the cause, the charity. You could make things happen for people. And this is what really counts. And you lack this in promotions today. In fact, there ain’t the one out there that’s just a major, major packager, that goes into promoting – that’s Bob (Arum).”
“They don’t have a ghost of a chance. What they can do acumen-wise, they could do deals, but promotion-wise, they don’t have a clue.”
“You don’t get punished for doing good business in entertainment. At the same time you get punished when you just do business without any emotion, without any passion, without anything that goes along with human interest. And desire. Because people take out their frustration and exasperation, their confusion with sporting events. It’s like a catharsis. Then when you betray that, then they’re really totally confused. Because they really go to see it to be entertained and to take out their frustration at whatever their problems may be. So, vicariously, these sporting events help people to relieve themselves from constant, every day crisis and problems. You need relief. You got to appeal to that type of relief to give people the chance to be able to have a cathartic, emotional experience. While they’re enjoying the fight, they’re also taking their minds away from all the horrific things they got to face the next day or the next. At the same time they get it out, then they could have something to talk about. They can carry on a conversation at the water hole or the pub. Then, when is the next one? Nobody wants to say when is the next one after what they saw (Oscar vs. Pacquiao). And nobody certainly don’t want to see nothing more of Roy Jones. I mean it speaks to itself. It’s the issues, it’s about people man. That’s what’s most important.”
“I’m going to see Tito but not about (boxing) Oscar. Oscar is the last on the totem pole because Oscar wasn’t there when he should have been there for Tito.”
“Without the people you have nothing. The network is working for it’s own self aggrandizement. The network is working for how many ratings are they gonna get and how cheap can they get ‘em? They gonna cut off the pipeline of taking these kids coming out of the Golden Gloves and putting them on ABC Sports and introducing them to the people. The people can get heroes out of their neighborhood. Oh, I know Little Johnny, I remember Little Johnny was this… That’s gone. You gonna stick a guy out there, this is so and so. That ain’t gonna work. That don’t work. There’s no love there, man.”
Don King’s next promotion is the Nate Campbell vs. Ali Funeka Lightweight championship bout on HBO next month.
