Don King

Don King is an American boxing promoter whose six-decade career has produced multiple defining 1970s and 1980s American boxing-promotion roles — particularly his 1974 promotion of the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman "The Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match in Kinshasa, Zaire (modern Democratic Republic of the Congo). He was born Donald King on August 20, 1931, in Cleveland, Ohio, into an African-American working-class family. His father Clarence King was a Cleveland-area steel-mill worker (who was killed in a 1940 steel-mill explosion when Don was nine), and his mother Hattie King was a homemaker.

His teenage and early-adulthood career across 1948–1966 — across multiple Cleveland-area illegal numbers-running operations — preceded his April 20, 1966 Cleveland-area homicide conviction and his subsequent 1967–1971 Marion Correctional Institution four-year prison sentence (initially convicted of second-degree murder, but later reduced to non-negligent manslaughter on appeal). His 1971 prison release and his subsequent 1972 pivot to professional boxing-promotion launched his American boxing-promotion career.

His 1974 promotion of the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman "The Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match — held October 30, 1974 at the Stade du 20 Mai in Kinshasa, Zaire (modern Democratic Republic of the Congo) under the patronage of Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko — launched his American boxing-promotion public profile. The fight produced approximately one billion international TV viewers and established Don King as the foundational late-20th-century American boxing promoter.

His 1975 promotion of the Muhammad Ali–Joe Frazier "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match — held October 1, 1975 at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines — extended his American boxing-promotion public profile. His subsequent 1980s American boxing-promotion career has produced multiple defining American heavyweight-boxing-championship promotions — particularly his late-1980s and 1990s promotion of Mike Tyson's heavyweight-boxing-championship matches. His later 1990s and 2000s American legal-difficulties — across multiple Tyson-related lawsuits and federal-tax-evasion investigations (although he has evaded federal-tax-evasion conviction) — shaped his later biographical narrative. He has been with American homemaker Henrietta King (until her December 2010 death) since 1957.

His name Don is the English short form of Donald (from the Scottish-Gaelic Domhnall meaning "world ruler"). Don has been a popular American boys' name across the mid-20th century.