”It’s a free-market system run by merciless promoters who only give you what they have to… It’s every man for his own damn self. And most of us, pitted against blood-sucking sharpies like Don King, are way overmatched.” -Larry Holmes on the boxing business in his autobiography Against the Odds
‘I Have Great Respect for the Psyche of Human Beings’: An Interview With Don King
If you think Obama and Hillary would make an unlikely ticket, consider the case of Don King and Larry Holmes. After years in which Larry told anyone who would listen (including me once in an interview) that Don King is a greedy snake in the grass who robbed him throughout his entire professional career, Holmes is now comfortably allied with King in the enterprise of King’s new video game, Don King’s Prizefighter, which is in stores today. He even went so far as to single King out for special praise in his Boxing Hall of Fame induction speech this past weekend.
They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but nothing brings enemies together quite like dirty filthy money. It all comes back to the old boxing adage – “if it makes dollars, it makes sense” - and this, it would seem, is the kind of lesson that both Larry and Don would have you learn from Prizefighter. It’s a game about boxing, of course, but it’s also a game about the game, the biz, the whole universe of promoters, trainers and two-bit floozies that make up the fight scene, a world fraught with backroom peril that any boxer worth his salt ultimately will have to reckon with like a one-two-hook from hell.
Recently, I had a chance to talk with Don about Prizefighter and not surprisingly he’s pretty passionate about the project. I got the whole panoply of his oratorical repertoire, the Shakespeare quotes, the malapropisms and, of course, the relentless self-aggrandizement. In the end, I came away feeling that whatever I, or anyone else, may think of King, there’s no arguing the fact that if the Machiavellian labyrinth of the boxing business had to be turned into a video game, he was the man for the job. As Larry himself put it very succinctly in that quote up there – if you’re going to play this game with Don King, you’re going to lose.
Large: Don, let’s get right into it. Tell me about Prizefighter.
Don: I’m so glad you asked me that because I’m so excited about this thing, I can’t even tell you. Prizefighter takes you into the sport of boxing pertaining to the actuality of life. We’re bringing it all together, the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, the struggles, the joy, the pain, the gain. At the end of the day the meat of the situation is that you take away the virtues of being able to focus and discipline yourself and being accountable and responsible for your actions and being able to grow with the will to win. That’s what’s so vitally important in this life.
Large: It definitely seems like the game is going to great lengths to take you outside the ring and into the life of the boxing business – the training, the money side of the business and all the temptations that come with it, women, partying, the media.
Don: The whole 3-6-9 yards. That’s why it’s incomparable. It’s peerless.
Large: But it paints a picture of a universe where the temptations that fighters face outside the ring are almost as dangerous as the violence they face inside it. Has that been your observation of boxing over the course of your career?
Don: Look, life gives you a choice. People think these guys just show up with their muscles glistening and they just go in and win and that’s that. They don’t think about WHY those muscles are glistening. They don’t witness the running and the training and the discipline. They don’t see what it takes for a man to go from nowhere to somewhere.
Large: They also don’t see the ruthlessness of the business end of things. Would you say that the world of Prizefighter is a ruthless world?
Don: No, the game is very reflective of life itself. For instance, you got all these fighters who came to me – and you all are teaching them NOT to come to me – but when they do come, then they become something that is unshakable, something worthy of admiration and respect. The ones that listen to me are still rich, the ones that are listening to me now will become rich if they have the talent and the skill, and the ones that didn’t listen to me, you can find them by the wayside, because it’s a historical fact that no matter how many hundreds of millions they might have made, they squandered them. And you see, this is why this game is important to me, because this is not a pulp piece. This is a REALITY piece. It’s about instilling in yourself or your kids those qualities and virtues that sustain a man and give him longevity and success.
Large: I’m interested in the “Historic Fights” feature of the game, where you can relive famous bouts from history. What went into choosing those fights? Did you actively participate in that?
Don: These guys are just looking at my life, really. I mean, look at my life. You go from The Rumble in the Jungle (Ali-Foreman) to The Thrilla in Manila (Ali-Frazier III) to The Last Hurrah (Holmes-Ali). You got Roberto Duran beating Sugar Ray Leonard, and that right there is an instance that shows the meaning of loyalty because Ray Leonard had a guy, a lawyer, who was trying to go around me to make the match with Duran. But I had been with Roberto throughout his career and he wouldn’t allow them to make the match without me. These are the types of things that show the quality… you know, the quality of mercy is not strained. And when you find people that will demonstrate this type of loyalty, this type of dignity… people do not think these things are inured to a prizefighter. They think a prizefighter is a big punch-drunk guy. We’re trying to tear that down because the fact of the matter is that people are fighters and fighters are people. And I have great respect for the psyche of human beings. Irrespective and irregardless of whether you put on boxing gloves, you’re still fighting in the struggle of life for upward mobility and elevation and academic redeeming factors.
Large: Who are some of the big-name fighters involved with Prizefighter?
Don: You got Shannon Briggs, you got Samuel Peter, you know, the champion right now from Nigeria. You got Nate Campbell who scored a major upset in Cancun over Juan Diaz who everybody said was invincible. Roberto Duran, Manos De Piedra. Andrew Golota, the guy from Poland who never had it so good until he came to me. And of course you got Larry Holmes.
Large: Yeah, I saw that Larry is involved in this project and actively promoting it with you. What got you guys together for this thing?
Don: Larry Holmes is an attestation of the American dream. Don King is a true attestation of the American dream. The American dream is emboldened by men like ourselves who come in with nothing, guys who take nothing and make something out of it. I mean, look at what Larry Holmes accomplished. He went from amateur to professional to heavyweight champion of the world, and now he’s just been inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame.
Large: I know, I know. I’m a very big Larry fan. I have to say, I love the inclusion of the Holmes-Norton fight in the historic fights. That bout is a real favorite of mine, one of those 70’s classics that’s often overlooked.
Don: There you go. You said it. Thirty years ago, almost to the day, June 9th, 1978, Larry Holmes beat Ken Norton at Caesars Palace for the heavyweight championship of the world. And then he reigned as champion for seven and a half years, longer than any other man besides the incomparable Joe Louis. But what we’re interested in is the process of… what did Larry do over that time? What did he learn? How did he stay above the median income where he still has money? Cause you know, today Larry is a multi-millionaire, he’s a developer, he OWNS the federal court building in Easton, Pennsylvania. You know what I mean?
Large: I do, yeah. I got family near Easton. One more thing, Don, I gotta ask you – do you play video games yourself? It’s hard for me to imagine.
Don: I can’t say that I do. You know what? I’m not even computer literate. But I’m learning. You should check out my new website donkingtv.com – we got a lot of magnificent things going on over there.
Large: I will, Don. Thanks.
Previous Prizefighter posts: The story behind Prizefighter ... Creating the fighting system ... Creating the fighting venues ... Classic fights featured in the game.↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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