“Boxing is the only jungle where the lions are afraid of the rats”
– Don King

DON KING was a man whom nobody could ever accuse of naïveté in a career that saw him emerge from the hard streets of Cleveland as a street thug responsible for killing two men, followed by a stint in prison, to go on and dominate top-flight boxing as a promoter in the ’70s, ’80s and for much of the ’90s.

Responsible for putting together two of the greatest heavyweight clashes the sport has ever witnessed — the Rumble in the Jungle between Ali and Foreman in 1974, and the Thrilla in Manila between Ali and Frazier in 1975 — King once bestrode the sport of boxing like a colossus.

A crook to the marrow of his bones, he’s also been sued by the likes of Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, been the subject of an FBI investigation and excoriated by more figures in the sport than any promoter ever has.