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<\/p>\nSport\u2019s greatest salesman shuffles between bifold doors and settles down for another pitch. Outside, snow piles high on poolside sun loungers; at this time of year, temperatures in Warren, Ohio, flirt close to -20\u00baC. Inside this room, though, where Don King is flanked by his grandson, confidants and those trusty companions \u2014 his flags \u2014 the heat is stifling.<\/p>\n
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\u2018Ooh, boy!\u2019 the promoter exhales. It has been a long day, one that began with a blizzard. And business remains unfinished. So King takes a swig of Diet Pepsi and swirls an ice cube around his mouth.<\/p>\n
He is 90, and the electricity which once shot through his hair has begun to frazzle. But the lips remain loose and the fire in that belly still burns.<\/p>\n
Legendary promoter Don King is now 90 years old but shows no signs of running out of steam<\/p>\n
It is 50 years since he convinced Muhammad Ali to help save a hospital down the road from here and that tale is part of an avalanche down memory lane that clatters between Winston Churchill, Kim Jong-un, Eddie Hearn, Tyson Fury, Plato, the Taliban, and bubonic plague.<\/p>\n
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Only in America. Only with Don King. First, though, this great survivor has advice for someone else learning to cling on.<\/p>\n
\u2018I tip my hat to ol\u2019 Boris. He deserves a break,\u2019 King says. \u2018He got caught in the same thing Joe Biden is getting caught in\u2026 saying one thing and doing another.\u2019<\/p>\n
That, in part, is why King wound up back home \u2014 promoting yet another heavyweight title fight, staging his first show in a year on Saturday night and branding it \u2018Return To Greatness\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018This promotion is about fun, it\u2019s about taking your mind off that Covid-19 that\u2019s killing you, inflation, weak leadership,\u2019 King says. \u2018It\u2019s not \u201cV-Day\u201d or a \u201cMayday\u201d of Churchill, it\u2019s a \u201cMayday\u201d of understanding, believing, having faith in God and rising to the occasion\u2026 when you\u2019re dead, you\u2019re done, so let the good times roll!\u2019 King lets out a cackle.<\/p>\n
He staged the \u2018Rumble in the Jungle\u2019 (pictured) and \u2018Thrilla in Manilla\u2019 within a few years after setting up camp on boxing\u2019s summit<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019ll give old Boris a chance to get a moment of respite. To change the narrative at 10 Downing Street,\u2019 he adds. \u2018So what the heck, Boris: take a chance and have fun while you\u2019re on the run!\u2019<\/p>\n
If this is an opportune time to wind back the clocks, Warren feels a fitting setting. There is charm in the city\u2019s quiet streets and classic architecture but it is a far cry from the frenzy of Las Vegas, Manila and Kinshasa, where King made his legend.<\/p>\n
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Though Saturday\u2019s show features several title fights, it too is a harder sell than past extravaganzas King built with Ali, Mike Tyson, George Foreman and Co. But, as he points out: \u2018The star of the show is opportunity. Yesterday\u2019s nobody is tomorrow\u2019s somebody.\u2019<\/p>\n
Turn back 50 years and King was nothing to boxing. He was an hour up the road, heading down a dark path. A child of the ghettos in nearby Cleveland, King ran the numbers for an illegal lottery. \u2018I was promoting then but promoting a scheme of chance,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n
In 1954, he shot a thug who was trying to rob his gambling den. It was ruled justifiable homicide. In 1967, King was convicted after he \u2018pistol-whipped and kicked\u2019 to death a man who owed him $600. He spent nearly four years behind bars for manslaughter.<\/p>\n
\u2018I made the time serve me,\u2019 King says. \u2018That was from God, he made me work in that penitentiary. To read Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Socrates. I came out of the darkness of ignorance and sin into the bright light of truth, enlightenment and wisdom.\u2019<\/p>\n
Soon King set up camp on boxing\u2019s summit. Within a few years he had staged the \u2018Rumble in the Jungle\u2019 and \u2018Thrilla in Manila\u2019. Not bad, considering his first brush with boxing promotion came in 1972, only months after his release.<\/p>\n
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Barry has handed down the torch but King and Arum, fierce rivals for so long, battle on. As they both enter their 10th decade, the Top Rank boss holds the trump card.<\/p>\n
\u2018I love Tyson Fury because he\u2019s similarly lived a life that shows you that never-say-die attitude,\u2019 King says.<\/p>\n
\u2018He went berserk because he got what Delilah put on Samson \u2014 he told the secrets of God and God clipped off his hair where his strength was.\u2019<\/p>\n
He explains: \u2018Tyson Fury fell into degradation, disrepute, disgrace\u2026 now he has come back and revitalised boxing.\u2019<\/p>\n
Sport\u2019s greatest salesman shuffles between bifold doors and settles down for another pitch. Outside, snow piles high on poolside sun loungers; at this time of year, temperatures… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6121,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6118\/revisions\/6121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}