Vulture on the Ring Post

Don king was selling. Don King was doing what he does best--promoting his next fight, with a torrent of misplaced words and malapropisms.

America's most gifted robber baron and con man was standing in the ring in Las Vegas last year trying to make Mike Tyson's next fight sound more exciting, more dramatic, than Ali and Frazier, or the Gulf war.

As usual King had no shame.

It didn't slow him down in the slightest that five minutes earlier he had put on a fight between Tyson and Bruce Seldon that had been a fraud and that should have caused Seldon's license to be revoked and his pay withheld.

The disgusted crowd was still chanting "Fix, fix, fix," but King was smiling and huckstering and jiving like there was no stench hovering over the arena and filling more than 900,000 homes across America, where people had paid $45 to view the 109-second swan dive by Seldon.

This was the first heavyweight title fight in history in which both contestants had served time in prison--Tyson for rape and Seldon for armed robbery--as had the promoter, for man-slaughter. (He was later pardoned.) It was the ultimate criminalization of one of the most dazzling prizes in all of sports.

King had just delivered a sucker punch to every boxing fan around the world, and here he was, already setting up the pay-per-view market for his next fight.

Seldon had fallen down from a Tyson punch that missed his head by three inches. He had fallen down a second time from a left hook that barely grazed his crystal chin. The man had fainted from fright, had hyperventilated from intimidation. Seldon had provided a powerful audition for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The crowd, feeling cheated, was still cursing and booing.

And like he has done all his life, Don King was ignoring reality and performing his bombastic rap-opera filibuster, shouting over the catcalls, denying the fraud--and selling his next fight, which would make another $5 million or $10 million to add to his net worth of more than $100 million.

The world of hustlerdom is a meritocracy, and Don King is the best. If bullshit were poetry, he would be Shakespeare.

•

In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that King and I have gone a few rounds together in the past.

In 1991 I wrote and reported an Emmy-winning PBS documentary about King that includes a scene of him threatening me, calling me a "scumbag" and revoking my press credentials for the Tyson--Razor Ruddock fight.

In 1995 I published my book Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King.

In 1990 King and I negotiated over whether he would sit down for a series of taped interviews for the book. One day he put his arm across my shoulders, in a friendly manner, and said, "I've decided, no interviews for your book."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the day your book comes out," King explained, "I want to be able to call a press conference and tell the whole world that that damn white boy didn't even have the decency to speak to this poor nigger!"

With that, King laughed loudly and patted me on the back, as if he had just put something over on me and wanted to gloat a little.

But when the book was published in August 1995, he called it a "rehash" and refused to talk about it.

The book contains some of the same revelations as the television documentary, which he had called lies but never sued over.

Only in America reports that King has killed two men: The first death, in 1954, was ruled justifiable homicide; in the second case (in 1967), King stomped and pistol-whipped a man to death over a gambling debt of $600. His victim was 100 pounds lighter than he and unarmed.

I reported that King took $1 million for the promotional rights to a fight in South Africa in 1984, in violation of the worldwide anti-apartheid boycott of that country. It was my question about this payment that triggered King's "scumbag" tirade, making the PBS documentary a hit.

My book also describes how King shortchanged Muhammad Ali by almost $1.2 million of his pay for his tragic, health-ruining comeback fight with Larry Holmes. And when Ali, sick and almost (continued on page 124)Don King(continued from page 108) broke, sued King for his money, King paid him $50,000 in cash to drop the lawsuit.

After the book came out and HBO had purchased the film rights, I encountered King in the men's room of the federal courthouse in Manhattan, where he was on trial for insurance fraud. I didn't know what to expect from my formidable adversary in the closed privacy of the washroom.

But his immensely likable, good-humored streak came out, instead of his brutal, bully side. He just looked at me zipping up my fly and exclaimed: "I read in the papers that I am now feeding your whole motherfucking family."

And he laughed--"Hee, hee, hee," the way he did back in 1990, quite boisterous but with cold, dead eyes.

•

Don King is a hip exploiter, an intelligent flesh peddler. He knows which fighters to steal, how to exploit anyone's vice, vanity or insecurity and make a profit for himself.

A famous story he often tells about himself is of what happened in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973. King arrived for a bout in the limousine of the heavyweight champion, Joe Frazier. As George Foreman, the challenger, began to win the fight, King inched toward Foreman's corner. When Foreman knocked out Frazier, King jumped into the ring with Foreman's faction, hugging the new champion and shouting, "You're my man!" King left the stadium in a limo with Foreman.

King always ends the Foreman-Frazier story with the same punch line: "I came with the champion and I left with the champion."

This anecdote captures King's ruthless opportunism and fickle loyalty, though he thinks the story reflects favorably on his cunning.

In 1983 King promoted a heavyweight title match in Cleveland between Michael Dokes and Gerri Coetzee. King usually referred to Dokes as "my son" and "my favorite fighter." But Dokes admitted he had used cocaine less than 48 hours before his fight with Coetzee, a white South African whom King pretended to despise.

Coetzee knocked Dokes out cold in the tenth round.

Then came one of the defining moments of King's life. He jumped into the ring, in his tuxedo and gold jewelry, stepped right over the fallen black champion he had called his son and embraced the new white champion from the land of apartheid. King was hugging Coetzee before Dokes could regain his senses and make his way out of the arena.

Before the fight, King had signed Coetzee to a contract with many options in case he conquered King's "son."

No one can take away from King the historical fact that he has promoted some of the greatest fights of all time: Ali-Foreman in Zaire, Buster Douglas-Tyson in Tokyo, Holmes-Norton in Las Vegas and the Homeric confrontation between Ali and Frazier in Manila, the third of their trilogy. The most recent was Evander Holyfield's upset over Tyson in November 1996.

And his memory is precise--when it suits him. Writer Mark Jacobson once borrowed an umbrella from him, and two years later, despite all the events that had intervened, King suddenly asked Jacobson, "Where is my umbrella?"

Even King's enemies in the boxing business--and he seems to have plenty of them--acknowledge his mental, tactical and financial mastery.

Seth Abraham is the president of Time Warner Sports--of which HBO Sports is a division. He was allied with King for 14 years, but they fell out bitterly in 1990 when King demanded that Abraham fire Larry Merchant as HBO's on-camera boxing commentator because Merchant, a good reporter, asked Tyson probing questions that were not easy to answer. Abraham said no, driving King and Tyson to the rival Showtime cable network.

Today Abraham says, "He has the most brilliant business mind I have ever encountered. Don King is formidable in his sleep."

Lou DiBella is HBO's top boxing executive and a passionate reformer of the cruelest sport. He told me: "Don can con anyone. He is brilliant and has no conscience. I marvel at his ability to get people to do things contrary to their own best interests. He can steal from you and persuade you to say 'thank you' to him. I'll tell you how resourceful I think Don is. I wouldn't flip a two-headed coin with him if I had heads."

King has survived: two federal trials, almost four years in prison, a quarrel with John Gotti, an FBI sting and an assassination attempt when he was running the numbers rackets in Cleveland in 1957.

Now, at the age of 65, he remains the predominant power in boxing as Tyson's promoter. Despite his criminal past and rascal reputation, he is a celebrity with surprising respectability who turns up in surprising places.

For example, shortly before last Christmas, King turned up at a crowded White House reception for contributors to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign. Visitors to King's office can't miss the autographed photographs of the three presidents who preceded Clinton. In politics as in boxing King knows how to position himself next to winners.

In September 1996 King spoke to 300 students at Harvard Law School, where he joked about having already spent more time in courtrooms than those future litigators ever would. During this speech King revealed his guiding principle: "Money is the answer to all things, so go get some money." The students listened respectfully.

•

Perhaps the best example of his marketing virtuosity can be found in heavyweight Peter McNeeley, King's "great white hope" who fell into the footsteps of previous white hopes Chuck Wepner and Gerry Cooney.

King signed McNeeley to a four-year contract in 1994, while Tyson was still in prison for rape. As soon as McNeeley signed with King he started to move up in the ratings, from 20 to 11 to 9.

King was preparing and packaging McNeeley to be Tyson's first postprison turkey feast.

When the Tyson-McNeeley match was announced in May 1995, King truthfully told the public that McNeeley had a 36-1 record, with 30 wins via knockout. The numbers were impressive enough that King could charge pay-per-view subscribers as much as $60 to order the Tyson-McNeeley event. He priced ringside seats at $500 cash.

The hidden fact was that almost every opponent McNeeley had beaten had had a losing record at the time. He had never beaten a contender. The combined record of his 37 rivals was 206 wins, 441 defeats and 21 draws. They had already been knocked out a combined total of 160 times before they were deemed hopeless and vulnerable enough to become statistics in McNeeley's official record. McNeeley (continued on page 166)Don King(continued from page 124) was, in fact, a crude novice. He was slow, and he had no defense, no chin, no versatility--he had no skill. His record had been fattened with a pathetic string of stiffs, misfits, retirees, bouncers, guys in drug programs, Hell's Angels, guys blind in one eye and 12 opponents who had lost all their previous fights.

And even this padded record is worse than it sounds. McNeeley twice beat J.B. Williamson, who had a 26--13 record the first time, and 26--14 the second time. So Williamson, who was close to 40 years old, accounted for more than one eighth of all the wins by McNeeley's feeble foes.

Here are some of the lowlights that built McNeeley into a "white hope" with a 36--1 record:

McNeeley turned pro in August 1991 by knocking out Van Dorsey, who was 0--2. In June 1992 he knocked out Jim Harrison, whose record was 6-28-4; he knocked him out again in September. That month he knocked out Dorsey again. By then the hapless Dorsey was 0--5 and had been knocked out four times.

In June 1992 McNeeley knocked out John Jackson, who was 0--4 at the time. In March 1993, he had a rematch with Jackson. In the interim Jackson had lost six more times without a win.

In September 1993 McNeeley won a decision over Juan Quintana, who had lost 28 times and won only six fights.

In February 1994 McNeeley was stopped in eight rounds by Stanley Wright, who had an 8--5 record. But Wright, poor and black, remains an unknown. He was never considered by King for a televised fight, and certainly not one against Tyson.

When I contacted Wright by phone, he recalled: "McNeeley couldn't fight much. The main thing I remember about him is that he spit on me in the third and sixth rounds. It was the grossest thing I ever had done to me. Right in my face!"

By February 1995 McNeeley was rising like hot air in the monthly ratings. King put him in with Joe Barnes, which was not exactly a high-risk fight. Barnes had never won a bout in his entire professional career. He was 0--6, fighting a "contender."

McNeeley knocked out Barnes in the first round.

In April 1995 King matched McNeeley with the legendary Frankie Hines--who was a legend for losing. He had been knocked out 45 times during his years in the ring. His career record was 67 losses and 14 wins.

McNeeley flattened him in the first round, in a record six seconds.

So when the Tyson match was announced in May, McNeeley was rated among the top ten heavyweights in the world by all three rating organizations--the World Boxing Council, the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation.

•

The Tyson-McNeeley bout was an impressive triumph of hype, marketing and convenient matchmaking. McNeeley was actually about the 100th best heavyweight in the world, but here he was making millions of dollars for Don King while posing absolutely no threat to Mike Tyson.

The fight was, of course, a joke. McNeeley went down from the first punch and then was disqualified at 89 seconds because his manager jumped into the ring to save his life and put an end to the fiasco. Tyson landed a total of three punches, McNeeley none.

Gamblers who bet that the national anthem would last longer than the fight won a lot of money--Johnny Gill's version of The Star-Spangled Banner lasted a full minute longer than the so-called match.

The next morning, a headline on the back page of the Boston Herald--McNeeley's hometown paper--screamed the truth: what a rip-off. Fans pay price in McNeeley Sham.

A few days before the fight it was discovered, and reported, that McNeeley had to pay $100,000 of his reported $700,000 purse as a "finder's fee" to Al Braverman, King's director of boxing.

After the fight, defending himself against a nation of angry fans, King actually told the truth at a press conference. He no longer was selling McNeeley's "killer punch" or his "great Irish heart." He admitted:

"No one expected Peter McNeeley to win a fight with Mike Tyson. You couldn't sell it as the most credible fight in the world, because it wasn't supposed to be. It was a happening, an event. It was not meant to be a championship fight."

A year later, when he spoke at Harvard Law School, King offered another rationale when a student asked him about the farcical fight.

"Peter McNeeley was the best one-round fight Mike's ever had," King gushed.

McNeeley himself sank back to his natural level after his short ride on the Great American Hype Machine came to an end. Last year he was knocked out by Louis Monaco in five rounds in Denver. The fight was not on television and was not reported in most newspapers. It was Monaco's eighth fight.

To show just how bad McNeeley really is, Monaco lost his next fight to 43-year-old Trevor Berbick in Westbury, New York in September 1996.

Showtime announced that 1.4 million homes paid up to $60 to see the Tyson-McNeeley 89-second scam. The gross revenue was $63 million. It is estimated that King made a profit of about $15 million on the promotion.

With McNeeley, King had taken scrap and sold it as silver. He marketed the mismatch as a racial drama. He made a financial killing with a consumer fraud, once again picking fans' pockets and giving boxing a black eye.

•

If Peter McNeeley's rise and fall illustrate King's marketing genius, the career of heavyweight Frans Botha shows King's genius for manipulation--again at the expense of disappointed fans and the concept of a fair, clean, competitive sport.

Critics who underestimated King thought his monopoly over the heavyweight title was doomed when Tyson went to prison in 1992. But King, by then past 60, just worked harder to be a player until Tyson got out.

To do this he sought out and signed up some of the worst heavyweights around and promoted some forgettable and artless waltzes: Tony Tucker versus Oliver McCall, McCall versus Francisco Damiani, and Bruce Seldon versus Joe Hipp.

King signed Lionel Butler, who was an admitted drug addict. He signed Tucker, who had flunked a drug test. He signed McCall, who had been in drug rehab. And he signed white South African Botha, whom he billed as "the white buffalo." King's strategy was to monopolize mediocrity, to manipulate the ratings so that these journeymen became champions by the time Tyson was paroled.

Though he had nothing to work with, King made his strategy a success. Seldon became the WBA champion. McCall became the WBC champion, followed by Frank Bruno. And in 1995 King persuaded the IBF to strip George Foreman of its version of the heavyweight championship and declare it vacant.

The IBF's president, Robert Lee, had once been a severe critic of King, but they had reconciled and become collaborators. By 1995 King had signed Botha to a long-term exclusive contract. His idea was to make Botha the IBF champion, so that he would have three turkeys called "champions" as placeholders for Tyson.

It was a farsighted plan, and another reason why HBO's boxing boss, Lou DiBella, calls King--admiringly and to his face--"Blackiavelli."

With the IBF title declared vacant, boxing writers and managers were aghast in April 1995 when Botha was suddenly jumped over all other boxers and rated the number one heavyweight contender, ensuring that he would fight number two contender Axel Schulz for the IBF crowns Botha had never beaten another fighter in the top 30, normally a requirement to enter the top ten, much less be ranked number one, a rating with vast economic value.

King had somehow persuaded Lee to rate the minimally skilled Botha ahead of much more talented fighters, including people such as Riddick Bowe, Andrew Golota, Tim Witherspoon, Ray Mercer, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and Michael Moorer. None of these seven fighters had a promotional contract with King.

Patrick English, a lawyer for Main Events, a rival promotional company, then filed a lawsuit against the IBF on Moorer's behalf. The following month the IBF responded by dropping Moorer from the ratings, giving "pending litigation" as the excuse.

When reporters asked Lee why Moorer, a former IBF champion, had been rated below Botha, Lee had a simple answer. He said the reason was "Moorer's inactivity."

But Moorer had returned to activity soon after losing his title to Foreman. He had beaten Melvin Foster in May 1995, only six months after the Foreman loss. During the same period Botha had looked awful, barely winning an eight-round decision over an unknown boxer named Willie Jake.

Moorer's suit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, did not mince words. It claimed Robert Lee had "solicited bribes and/or extorted monies" to rig the heavyweight ratings for Botha and against Moorer.

Moorer's complaint alleged: "Acting unilaterally, Robert Lee jumped Botha over Michael Moorer in the rankings in conformance with the plan of Don King.... Lee was completely unaware that King had, in fact, disclosed his plan and his control over Lee."

The lawsuit was dropped when Lee agreed that Moorer would get a title fight against the winner of a December 1995 contest between Botha and Schulz.

While everyone was waiting for the decision to be announced after that match, Showtime's microphones picked up King, in the ring, telling Botha in plain English not to worry because "you won the fight."

A moment later the official verdict confirmed that Botha had indeed won, though most ringside reporters thought Schulz deserved the decision. Joe Gergen, sports columnist for New York Newsday, wrote:

"Botha has done little to date to prove he has anything but rudimentary boxing tools. His decision over Axel Schulz...raised serious questions about his ability. Many attribute his victory to the fact he is promoted by King, whose rule over the heavyweight division is complete."

Three weeks after the fight, Botha's urine test results came back from the lab--he had tested positive for steroids. IBF rules state quite unequivocally that any positive drug test requires the disqualification of the boxer who took a banned substance.

At first Lee claimed there were "mitigating circumstances" and that Botha would keep the IBF title despite the rules. But a federal judge in New Jersey disqualified Botha and opened up the fight between Schulz and Moorer for the revacated crown.

Moorer won that match in June 1996. But that same night, in Moorer's dressing room, Lee told Moorer's manager, John Davimos, that they had to give Botha the first chance at the title and that Botha was to get 50 percent of the money--which is highly unusual. Lee, who is supposed to be an independent regulator, not a matchmaker, also told Davimos that King would give Moorer a big-money match with Tyson if he beat Botha.

In November 1996 Moorer knocked out Botha, suggesting that the IBF's rating of Botha above Moorer was indeed misleading.

•

In the autumn of 1995 Don King was on trial in New York for an insurance fraud of $350,000 against Lloyd's of London.

In the climax of the trial King took the stand in his own defense. Anyone who attended his 1985 trial for tax fraud knew what he was going to do. He was going to act dumb and blame it all on his subordinates.

That's how he won an acquittal in 1985. Connie Harper, his co-defendant, his faithful employee for many years, took the rap. He had even registered her as the manager of one of his fighters, Estaban de Jesus.

At the trial, King's loyal servant became the fall woman. She was convicted and sentenced to four months in prison while King swaggered out of the courthouse and roared, "America is a great country! Only in America!" King's lawyer, Vince Fuller, had convinced the jury that the employees in King's Manhattan office had handled all of the incriminating financial transactions without King's knowledge.

When King took the witness stand at his 1995 trial, the evidence against him seemed strong but circumstantial. His former accountant, Joe Maffia, swore the $350,000 claim was contrived and that King had told him to pad expenses to reach it.

Boxing champion Julio César Chavez had also testified against King, telling the jury that King had not kept his word, kept him on a string with loans and had even billed him for 55-cent and 81-cent phone calls.

But when cross-examined by prosecutor Paul Gardephe, King acted as if he had amnesia. During his first full day on the stand, King said "I don't recall" more than 20 times about events that had taken place during the previous five years.

Even when his memory was refreshed by evidence, King kept saying he could not remember, that his deputies handled all the details, that he never read documents that had been sent to him and bore his initials and signature.

Yet King paid enough attention to detail to charge Chavez for a 55-cent phone call. He had demanded that Mark Jacobson return his umbrella two years after he borrowed it. But under oath he played an Alzheimer's casualty.

The key document in the complex financial case was a forged rider to a contract that made training expenses for a canceled Chavez fight nonrefundable.

The government established that this contract was faxed to and signed by King in Las Vegas on October 10, 1991. But when the government subpoenaed King's fax logs, 31 consecutive days were missing, including those for October 10.

King was in Vegas on that date. But he told the jury he couldn't remember anything, that his disloyal employees in New York must have done something fishy.

King was walking a tightrope, admitting a few embarrassing facts but sticking to his basic story that he was a busy man--traveling the world, babysitting Tyson, making deals--and too distracted to pay attention to every little detail. That's why he hires accountants.

"Is it your practice to insist on signing checks even if they were for only five cents?" prosecutor Gardephe asked King at one point.

"Yes," King replied.

"Yet you were content to let your bookkeeper make a decision to spend nearly $80,000?" Gardephe asked.

"Yes," King answered.

King also admitted that it was company policy that he sign every check and control every wire transfer, and that he owned 100 percent of the stock of Don King Productions.

King even conceded that he backdated one check to Chavez and postdated another, but he insisted it was unfair to draw any negative inference about his motives for such machinations.

But the government held no smoking gun, no videotape of King reading or signing the bogus contract, no witness who typed the contract.

After only five hours of deliberation, the jury sent the judge a note saying it was "irretrievably deadlocked" and the judge declared a mistrial. Afterward several jurors told me they were split six against six. King faces a retrial on these same fraud charges sometime this year.

•

On November 9, 1996 Don King's biggest source of revenue, Mike Tyson, was knocked out by Evander Holyfield in an event that surprised the boxing universe and shook up the cable TV and casino industries. Holyfield, the scripture-quoting gentleman, destroyed the trash-talking Tyson and silenced Tyson's thug-nation entourage.

But King's monopolistic power was not dented by this epic upset. In order to get the fight with Tyson, Holyfield had to sign a contract giving King options on his future fights if he won, and sign papers giving Tyson a rematch in case Tyson lost.

On the same boxing card, Michael Moorer retained the IBF version of the heavyweight title and also had to sign away some of his future fights to Don King.

Evander Holyfield privately despises King. King has called him a tool of whites. King tried to get Holyfield to betray his Italian promoters, the Duva family, but failed because Holyfield is a class human being.

Holyfield is now trapped in the tentacles of the King Octopus, just as Buster Douglas was trapped after he knocked out Tyson. Douglas also had to sign the same options to get the opportunity to fight Tyson.

Tyson lost to Holyfield because his years in the grasp of the octopus eroded both his skills and his character. King forced Tyson to fire his trainer, Kevin Rooney. And once that happened, Tyson drifted away from the style that made him seem invincible at 22. He stopped moving his head. He stopped jabbing. He stopped punching in combinations. He stopped training as hard.

And he had no one around him to tell him the truth. He became a captive in a cult of retainers who told him only what he wanted to hear.

Tyson lost to Holyfield, but Don King never loses because he always controls both fighters. He has done this ever since 1973, when he walked to the ring with Joe Frazier and left with George Foreman, the new champion.

•

Boxing's failings are systemic and historic. If Don King dropped dead tomorrow, the sport would still be a sewer for suckers.

King is a great symbol, the vulture on the ring post. But he did not invent the sport that resembles 18th century piracy. It is important to remember that gangsters managed Primo Carnera and Sonny Liston long before King entered the boxing scene.

Boxing is the only major sport without a national commissioner to set standards, the only sport without unions, pensions or health plans for its athletes. Boxing regulation is a joke. Boxing ratings are corrupt and have no credibility with knowledgeable fans.

King had nothing to do with the riot at Madison Square Garden last July after the Bowe-Golota match. He did not promote or referee the mismatch last year in Las Vegas in which Jimmy Garcia died.

King does not need to be demonized or scapegoated to be placed at his appropriate level in the chain of human exploitation.

King manipulates fighters out of their just earnings. He cheats fans by putting garbage fights on pay-per-view. He uses racism and the crudest emotions of wrestling to market his fights.

King has no personal loyalty to his fighters because his method is monopoly, and under a monopoly all boxers are fungible--including Dokes, his "son." As King suggested at Harvard, money is his god.

King uses long-term option contracts to impose servitude on boxers who are told they can't have their own lawyers and accountants. King's methods do not allow boxers to be free agents and sell their services to the highest bidder.

Don King has often called himself "the greatest promoter in human history." This is not an unreasonable statement in the sense that King has always been the real product he promotes.

The point of King's career may be the same one made by the film The Usual Suspects:" Sometimes the bad guys are just smarter than the good guys.

At Harvard Law School, King revealed his guiding principle: "Money is the answer, go get money."