MIAMI — He was one of the biggest stars in boxing history and one of sports’ greatest showmen. He was the celebrity-promoter who shaped the careers of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. He was as big as they get in his reign from the mid-1970s through the ‘90s.
He was.
Don King introduced himself to the world by staging “The Rumble In The Jungle,” Ali KO’ing unbeaten champion George Foreman in Zaire in 1974. The African crowd adored Ali, chanted, “Ali, boma ye! (Ali, kill him!)” It was such a spectacle that B.B. King and James Brown were the warmup acts. The fight was watched by 1 billion worldwide, set pay-per-view records.
By the 1990s King’s goldmine cards included the infamous but wildly consumed Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield bout in which Tyson bit off a piece of Holyfield’s ear.
In sports as in life, alas, the greatest seldom get to go out on top.
Willie Mays in a Mets uniform in 1973, batting .211, struggling in center field. Dan Marino limping off a football field for the last time in the first days of 2000, after a miserable performance in a 62-7 playoff loss. The fans in Jacksonville were heckling him.
The greatest actors don’t so much retire from film-making as see the movies retire them.
Well, Don King fights on, still alive, still promoting.
“I will slow down when I go to heaven” is his stock answer.
He will be 91 in August, if heaven can wait.
“God has kept me here so I’m going to continue to work for a betterment of life,” he told the Miami Herald on Thursday. “Anything I can contribute toward peace and freedom, it keeps me going. I’m a promoter of people.
Boxing gives you a chance. After the fight you grab the [opponent] and hug him and say ‘Great fight.’ This is a symbol of what we should try to emulate in life.”
On Wednesday’s media session this week, King sat at a long table in a ballroom of a Miami airport hotel, because Don King Productions — two decades past being a major player in the sport — is putting on Saturday’s fight card at Casino Miami, what used to be the old jai-alai fronton, at 3500 N.W. 37th Avenue.
In the headlining bout, Trevor Bryan will defend his WBA heavyweight title against Great Britain’s Daniel Dubois.
“One of the greatest heavyweight title fights in history,” proclaimed King. Because he’s a promoter!
