I was surprised to hear so little about Don King in all of this. I realize Tyson is on his best behavior here, and probably realized that talking about King too much would make him appear to be playing a "victim card", but King is a scumbag by any measure. I for one would have liked to hear more about why he ever got involved with King in the first place and why he kept returning to him.
Amateurs built The Ark, professionals built The Titanic.
Probaably because Don King was (still is?) 'godfather' in boxing scene - nothing happens in boxing without his blessing.
He was the man who had the power, connections, money... to make you rich and famous or distroy your carieer.
Hes like the devil - first you get the money and fame, but in the end you still get screwed.
Don King is known to play on the "brothers gotta stick together" credo when dealing with black fighters.
Of course it always ends up the same way with King robbing the poor suckers blind.
How he briefly speaks of King is one of the best bits of the film, though.
"I've been turned down more times than the beds at the Holiday Inn; I still try"
I think what he did say in the film about Don King was more than enough:
"My first manager Bill Caton and those guys, they were like slave masters basically. Cause I was just a young kid 18 years old, 17 years old, too young to sign a contract with those guys, but I signed a contract, Cus died, I signed a contract with these guys, and they took what, a third of what I had. Eventually I got rid of them, and then I got caught up with this other piece of s**t, Don King, who's a wretched, just a wretched slimy reptilian m*&%f&*ker right. This is suppose to be my brother, my black brother, and he's just a bad man, a real bad man. He'd abuse you, he'd kill his mother for a dollar. He's deplorable."
You'll notice the lead in; to Mike Tyson, Don King is worse than a white "slave master". For a black man, that's saying something significant, so nuff said.
You gotta understand that Don King was the best there was in promoting a fight. I really don't blame Don King. Mike should blame himself for blowing his millions.
And if you listen to the documentary, I think Mike kind of realized he was largely at fault too and have taken responsibility for it.
Huh? Did you miss the part in the documentary where Tyson explains that King had ripped him off and where he had confronted him? And you don't blame Don King?
The guy took advantage of the fact that Tyson could barely read and had no idea of all the ways King knew he could siphon money off Mike. He did really sleazy things like put tons of his relatives in pay by Tyson for whom they did absolutely nothing, stuff like that. Sorry but the guy is a scam artist, and if you don't fault king then i'm sure anything goes in your book.
Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.
- Kin Hubbard