Don King turns 90: “King would kill his own mother for a dollar”

A spiky hairstyle and a big cigar are his trademarks: the famous and infamous boxing promoter Don King is 90 years old. Former world heavyweight champion Larry Holmes once claimed that the spiked hairstyle was used to hide the horns. King’s reputation was and is definitely not the best. His fame is based on the fact that he organized the two largest boxing matches of the 20th century in the 1970s: the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman and the “Thrilla in Manila” between Ali and Joe Frazier. In the years that followed, the unscrupulous and seedy man from Cleveland stayed in business. He organized fights for Larry Holmes, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield and of course Mike Tyson.

And he took off his boxers as best he could. Most of them sued him for it, and King often paid compensation that was probably never as high as the profit he had previously skimmed off. “He’s ruthless, pitiful, greedy and cannot love anyone,” said Mike Tyson. The Klitschkos withstood King’s calls and refused to cooperate.

In the past few years things have calmed down around him. He hasn’t hosted a really big fight in a long time. People close to him say he has not been the same since his wife Henrietta’s death in 2010 after nearly 50 years of marriage. But a Don King doesn’t really think about retirement. “Call me half-retired,” he told the New York Times a few years ago.