Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
It's May of nineteen seventy four. Amid the hustle and
bustle of New York City, Muhammad Ali walks up to
thirty Rockefeller Center. He's come to Manhattan to do publicity
for his upcoming heavyweight title fight against George Foreman. Between
Ali and Don King, this next great heavyweight fight is
(00:30):
about to become the most hyped event since the moon landing.
Don King promises it'll be an even bigger, more incredible,
stupendous bout than the fight of the century, the one
between Ali Frasier. When Ali moves through the lobby at
thirty Rockefeller Plaza, everyone he passes takes notice that it
(00:50):
is indeed the people's chant. It's spring, and this bright
May day brings with it clear skies, the kind perfect
for enjoying the panoramic view from the sixty fifth floor.
Ali steps out of the elevator and into the Rainbow Room.
(01:12):
It's a decadent restaurant and dance floor that, with its
floor to ceiling windows, boasts a stunning three hundred and
sixty degree view overlooking the glimmering skyscrapers of New York City.
And here under the domed ceiling and the opulent crystal chandelier.
Muhammad Ali is greeted by reporters from around the world,
(01:34):
ready to hear Ali's thoughts about the upcoming super fight.
The journalists pepper him with questions as Ali gets situated
at the dais. They know Ali won't answer their questions
until he's in front of the microphone, yet still they ask.
There just behind the podium, arranged as a backdrop, is
a vast collection of traditional West African wood and stone
(01:57):
cut tribal masks proudly on display, and there to greet
the People's Champ is Don King, But notably, George Foreman
is not present. He's opted to skip this press conference.
This gives Ali the chance to have the press all
to himself, a chance he relishes. A reporter asked the
(02:17):
People's Champ, what's his opinion of George Foreman, the reigning
heavyweight champion.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Can't take nothing from George Foreman. Ken Norton won twenty
four rounds with me. Gave me pure hell. He broke
my jaw second fight. I want a close decision. George
Foreman just knocked him over. Can't take nothing from George Foreman.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
A reporter asks who Ali thinks will win. It's a
silly question, Muhammad Ali rephrases it.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Why do I know I'll beat him? Three things. One
the power of Allah, who controls everything. I believe I'm
in good standing with him. Two experience, stay out of
the way for four or five rounds.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Three.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
You ain't seen George Foreman turn yet. Round four, round seven,
round nine, round twelve, last round. I haven't seen George
woman in a good scuffle yet. I haven't seen him
get winded. Joe Frasier, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, George Chuvallo,
Henry Cooper. The hit harder than me, but I beat them.
I don't rely on hitting power because I fix it
(03:24):
so they ain't nothing to hit. This will be George
Foreman's first title fight. He'll be meeting the heavyweight champion.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
To change the subject and the mood, Ali offers the
press a fresh rhyme.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Ali fights great. He's got speed and endurance. If you
signed to fight him, increase your insurance.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
The press loves that one. Ali smiles. His charm offensive
is working throughout his life. A Lei enjoyed an irrepressible ego.
He always assumed somehow, some way, through the providence of Allah,
he would be fine. But not only that that he
would prevail Ali. Biographer Jonathan Ike deduced from his research.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Ali's attitude in life was always like, it'll work out.
His wife's mad Adam, it'll work out. Elijah Mohammed kicks
him out of Nation of Islam, It'll work out. He
gets knocked down by Joe Fraser and loses a fight.
That's all right, you know, I'll win. It'll be okay.
He is amazingly zen in that way.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yet Ali's approach is far more ego centric than straight
up zen.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
He feels like he's the center of the world and
everything's gonna come back in line. He's the son and
everything is revolving around him, and it'll all that's never
gonna change, no matter who's mad Adam, no matter you know,
what's happening politically or in his love life. Like I'm
still the sun.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
They all need me. There was one other huge factor.
Ali always has a team pushing him from Louisville to
the Nation of Islam.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
When Ali comes back from the exile from the forced exile,
Herbert Mahammad becomes his manager, replacing for the most part
the white businessman from Louisville who had been managing his career.
And you know, Herbert's the son of Elijah Muhammad. He's
a very aggressive manager. He takes Ali's career into all
kinds of new directions. Some people would say he was greedy,
(05:14):
but then again, Damian boxing promoter who wasn't accused of
being greedy and putting their own interests ahead of their fighters.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Which brings us back to the looming shadow and malevolent
presence of Don King. Once you throw Don King.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Into the mix, along with Herbert Muhammad and the Nation
of Islam, man you've got It's amazing that somebody didn't
end up dead.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Welcome to Rumble, the story of Ali Foreman and the
Soul of seventy four. I'm your host, Zaren Burnett, the
third from iHeart Podcast and School of Humans. This is
is Rumble. Previously on Rumble.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
We came up with the idea of a concert as
a result of Attaka and seeing the horror of Attican.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
All the prisoners wanted to see bb King.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There's another left by George.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
He's getting into Fraser's head.
Speaker 6 (06:18):
Casselle was like the greatest setter of stage that ever
lived in.
Speaker 7 (06:24):
Sports goes Fraser, down, goes Fraser, down, goes Fraser.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
So it's my understanding that the fight will be held
in Africa, and that is more fitting. That way I
can knock him all over the jump.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
There's no easy way to describe Don King, to convey
the fullness of the man or his impact on boxing
and this story.
Speaker 8 (06:58):
Don King becomes a central figure in boxing with the
Rumble in the Jungle.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
In the months leading up to his crowning achievement. The
Rumble in the Jungle, King boasts to all who will listen,
this Ali Foreman title fight will be a spectacular extravaganza
to celebrate the global bonds of blackness. Meanwhile, the press
cannot believe the news. Yet another fight overseas and now
(07:27):
in Africa.
Speaker 9 (07:29):
You may remember George Foreman won his title at Kingston, Jamaica.
In the continuing game of can you top this? We
now take you to Conshasa formerly Leopoldville Dair, which formerly
was part of the Belgian Congo. Formerly or presently it
is still deep in the heart of Africa.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
This newcomer, the boxing world and the sporting press blame
for this development gets compared to some kind of tribal warlord.
Speaker 10 (07:56):
Don King is the newest strong man in fight promotion.
He is boxing's No. Number one impresario who put together
a projected thirty five million dollar George Foreman Muhammad Ali
heavyweight title fight in September in Zai Year Africa.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
There's also plenty of talk of his recent past, especially
his time out in Hollywood. You see, before his entrance
into boxing, Don King tried to become a blaxploitation filmmaker.
Speaker 11 (08:24):
You know what Don King was thinking about a year ago?
He was thinking about producing a movie.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I kid you not.
Speaker 11 (08:31):
This was a Lulu kind of a black godfather, if
you will. It was called something like Blood, Black and White,
and it was filled with four letter words and sex.
But the plot was a Dandi ruby. It matched the
black mafia of Cleveland versus the white mafia of Youngstown.
All King needed was five million dollars to produce it.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
But then Don King gets strategic. He looks across the
ranks of boxing champions and contenders and he sees that
with the new generation of heavyweight champs, men like ah Lee,
Frasier and Foreman, there's a niche These fighters will trust
a black businessman in a way they'd never trust the
(09:14):
white fight promoters. Mark Kriegel says, King found he could
capitalize on this racial dynamic, and he was also.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Able to exploit this whole idea of black consciousness like
there was no white promoter that was going to do that.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
The brilliance and the bullshit has always gone hand in
hand with Don King, but like any cultural figure, it
took time to cultivate his public persona. At the start
of nineteen seventy three, the R and B hit maker
Lloyd Price, who recorded the classic Stagger Lee, is staying
busy working for Don King as a headliner at the
(09:53):
nightclub in Cleveland that King owns. One day, the two
of them are hanging out and Lloyd Price suggests King
he needs to fix up his look. As Mark Kriegle
tells the story.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Lloyd Price, you know, one of the great original rock
and rollers, says, Hey, you know, we got to get you,
like you got to have a signature, you got.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
To have a look. Taking Price's advice, Don kinging decides
he'll start brushing his hair straight up to.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
God, and King was very taken at the time. Whether
a preacher, Daddy Grace up in Harlem. So somehow he
starts combing his hair in a way, and I guess
Lloyd Price says, yeah, that's it. That works. And of
course when Don spins it as only a great barnum can,
it becomes divinely inspired. That you know, God made his
(10:41):
hair stand.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
My hair is God's aura. Everything went up when I
got home from the penitentiary one night. I went to
lie down next to my wife and my hair started
popping and uncurling all on its own, ping ping, pinging.
I knew that it was God telling me to stay
(11:04):
on the righteous path so he could one day pull
me up to be with him.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yes, Don King believes his hair is a covenant with God,
his ticket into heaven and on earth. He knows full
well that it makes him iconic. Just like Ali, Don
King is a natural born showman. Now the two are
about to combine their powers for hype, and again the
world of boxing doesn't know what to make of this
(11:34):
new development.
Speaker 11 (11:36):
This whole thing, of course, is absurd. A heavyweight championship fight,
once one of the premier events in sports, could now
be held in Outhouse, Oklahoma, as long as closed circuit
TV could be involved.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Closed circuit TV is the early term for what we'd
call pay per view TV, and it was changing everything.
The early nineteen seventies are not often credited as an
exciting time for technology, but back in the early seventies
folks were witnesses to a revolution in how the world communicated,
(12:13):
and you better believe when it all goes down. Don
King sees how he can leverage all this new tech
to win power, fame, and big profits.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Don combines these unique and I think very American talents.
He's park gangster, he's part khn man, and he's part visionary,
and the brilliance in the bullshit come together in a
way no one's ever seen before in Don King.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
On October fourth, nineteen fifty seven, the Soviet Union launched
the first satellite into space, marking the beginning of the
space race, which in turn launched a wave of invention
and innovation that came to be called the telecom revolution.
Think satellites, cable TV, and pay per view events. International
(13:01):
jet travel was also this super cool new thing, and
so as the airlines were busy stitching the world together,
so was satellite technology. And thus, before the Internet, it
was international travel and telecom in nineteen seventy four. That's
the cutting edge of human connection and marks the birth
(13:21):
of new international markets. Fight promoters could now put on
world class heavyweight fights in distant foreign locations and beam
the footage of the event back home and to folks
all around the world. Its importance can be easy to
overlook now, but this marks an enormous innovation. Fights can
(13:43):
now be watched live on movie screens and in theaters
and event venues like Madison Square Garden in New York
or The Forum in LA Audiences can pay top dollar
to watch the fight and feel that crowd experience in
multiple cities as they all roar in cheer as won
after the champion raises his fifths in victory. In nineteen
(14:06):
seventy three, a man named Hank Schwartz and his partners
for the company Video Techniques are positioned as front runners
with this new satellite tech. They know they have a
short window to corner the market, and so they take
a chance on a brash new partner like Don King.
As author Lewis Ehrenberg describes it.
Speaker 8 (14:27):
Schwartz is dealing with the technical aspects and the promotional
aspects and raising the money Initially for the fight, which
was difficult. King is able to really lock down the
fighters gain their respect.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
That's the plan. So Schwartz and his partners invite Don
King to come down to Kingston, Jamaica to join them
for the Frasier Foreman fight on January twenty second, nineteen
seventy three. Don King does go. This is the moment
when he comes in with one champion and he leaves
with a different champion. Remember that finesse move and that
(15:05):
choice is when Don King becomes a fixture in the
boxing world. During the weeks leading up to the rumble
in the Jungle Fight in Zyere, photographer Lynn Goldsmith and
pr man Gary Stromberg both had personal interactions with Don King,
and as they recall, they both came away with strong
(15:27):
opinions of the Cleveland hustler.
Speaker 12 (15:30):
Unfortunately, from the second I met John King, I didn't
like him, and I mean I liked his showmanship, but
I felt he was a sister, you know, in the
same way that I felt the guy that managed Elvis was.
You know, he was a showman, and he was also
a scoundrel. Because the fight game, like other industries, has
(15:54):
a lot of people who take advantage of other people.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Did you have any interaction with King?
Speaker 12 (16:00):
He's always nice to me. I mean, he didn't like
I just thought, oh, it's so job and you not
see this.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Gary, gearing up to promote the festival, did some research
on King.
Speaker 13 (16:11):
I knew him by reputation, being a big boxing fan.
I knew his story and I had actually checked up
on him before because I just want to know as
much about him as I could. And it was a
real character and not to be trusted. That was certain,
And fortunately I didn't have to deal with him very much.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Those who did not deal with don King directly often
felt differently about him.
Speaker 7 (16:32):
Donkey, he's incredible. Oh my god, the way I still understand,
the way he's able to spin his yarns and I
mean incredibly persuasive. But he's also, you know, very forceful.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
That's our pal. Jeffrey Kusama hinte again. He was the
editor of the Academy Award winning film about the Rumble
in the Jungle When We Were Kings, and the director
of the concert film called Soul Power about the music
Festival Zaire seventy four, and for those films he studied
all of the major players for the two events chief
(17:10):
among them, Don King.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
Well, Don King is one of those fascinating people that
you know, they kind of speak in paragraphs and very lyrically.
It doesn't always make sense, but it seems to make sense.
We never saw it on camera. But you don't want
to anger him, you know, you don't want to cross him.
But Ali wasn't afraid of him.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
That's probably because Ali understood that Don King would never
harm his golden goose, not as long as the magical
bird was laying those glittery eggs.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
There's another great scene with him with.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Masls as in Albert Masels, one of the documentary making pair,
the Mazles brothers who were there part of the film
crew in Zaire So, as Jeffrey calls Don King, was you're.
Speaker 7 (17:54):
Sound about diversity, Like, well, look, these crews are white,
you know, and we're never going to be able to
create a better world if we just sort of are
exclusive in this way. And Mazls is sort of trying
to like say, now I hear you, and you know
what can we do?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That opens the floodgates for the verbal deluge that is
Don King.
Speaker 7 (18:16):
Don King goes on this extended monologue about how Masls
and everybody else really needs to mentor and really needs
to engage, and it's incredibly important, or we're never going
to have societal change. And it's such an interesting thing
because it sounds very sincere, and I guess it is,
but also it's somewhat manipulative at the same time, which
(18:36):
is Don King. He's always working an angle.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
It is indeed very don King to use societal change
and the uplift of people to make money.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
I mean, there's a reason why he was so successful.
He's incredibly smart and charismatic. But he had a kind
of menacing quality.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
That menacing quality wasn't affront The menace was all the
way real. Gary Stromberg recalled how we always had to
keep in mind I.
Speaker 13 (19:03):
Have a big mouth, so I'm leary about you where
my mouth can get me in trouble. So I knew
that I shouldn't be around Don King. That wouldn't go
well for me.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Gary also recalls Don King's rare genius for work in
an angle.
Speaker 13 (19:17):
This was his major hustle. He just did an incredible
job bringing the two of them together.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It's no understatement to say Don King was like no
one else, or that Don King comes first.
Speaker 13 (19:29):
Don King uses people, and it was always you know
what's in it for Don King? He's just really a
good hustler in a con man.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
A Selema Masekela sums it up.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Don King was masterful at creating spectacle.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But he also must point out that Don King.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Was a crook.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
And that's my thoughts on Don King.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
To keep it clear as a freshly cleaned pane of glass,
Sealemma Masekela is no fan of Don King.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
If my father was right now and still alive, he'd
be saying it ten thousand times worse. Asked Don King
where the rest of the money is from? Zaire asked
Don King?
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Way to Checkshaw, that's all to come. But first, who
really is Don King? Born and raised during the Great
Depression in Cleveland, Ohio, Don King was one of six children,
(20:30):
the son of Clarence and Hattie King. He was partially
raised by his older siblings after his father died while
working in one of the city's many steel mills. Donald
was just ten years old. This tragic event split Don
King's childhood into two. The time before the industrial accident,
and then there was the time after.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
My father died. In nineteen forty one on December seventh, ironically,
right at the time the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbook in Cleveland.
He got consumed by hot molten steel in the oldest
steel plant of Jones and Laughlin, where he was a
laborer pulling the plug on the ladles that came down
(21:12):
the line with hot steel in them. The plug stuck
and the ladle exploded, and the hot steel just consumed them.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
King's mother received a payout from the company and moved
her children out of their old neighborhood and into the
new suburban neighborhoods being built outside Cleveland. But at this point,
Don King's family was already deep into street crime. The
numbers game the illegal street version of the lottery. Actually,
this is what became of a system created by marginalized
(21:44):
groups in the early nineteen hundreds. It was their attempt
at participating in the American economy, as they were intentionally
excluded from the stock market and other investment opportunities offered
to white folks. By the time Don King came around,
this game had gone through many iterations, but was still illegal.
It also now went by many other names, like the
(22:07):
numbers racket, the Irish lottery, the Italian lottery, whatever you
want to call it. It's gambling now. Don King's older
brother was a numbers runner for the members of the
Cleveland mafia, and he showed Don King how to make
bank in the street game. So by the time most
men his age were in college, Don King was the
(22:27):
numbers king of Cleveland. Everyone knew it. Cops and criminals alike.
That was the Don King way.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Gangster or not. King had the biggest set of balls,
maybe anyone in boxing not named Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
At one point, Don King had wanted to leave the
street life behind and go off to college.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
If he had been straight, it would have been you know,
Horatio Alitar, but he was crooked.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
His plans for higher education went awry after a huge
bet hit the winning number and Don King had to
personally pay the winner, which drained his college savings. So
Don King quit school and stayed with crime. Lucky for him,
he was good at it. Sportswriter Mark Kriegel calls him fearless,
(23:16):
telling of a time when he stood up against a really.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
Feared guy in Cleveland named Schondor Burns, this old school
Jewish guy, and he had a silk wardrobe. In prison,
he was always taken care of and everyone was scared
to death of Schondor Burns, including the Big four Numbers guys,
and they all paid him tribute after Schondor got out
of prison.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
You see, the Numbers game was like most street crime,
there was only so much room at the top. Don
King was up there. He was close to the top,
one of the so called Big four in Cleveland back
in nineteen fifty seven. But they all still had to
pay their respects to the big boss, Schondor Burns give
(23:59):
him a piece of their action.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
And it's a pretty steep tax, and no one thought
about not paying until in nineteen fifty seven, King said,
fuck this, I'm not paying.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
And Don King knew full well and good that would
invite payback.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
So Schandor fire bombed his home, the whole front porch.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
But Don King he remains unfazed.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
And he gets on the phone. He calls the head
of vice and he says, I'll testify, and he does,
even though in the lead up to that trial they
shoot at him and they hit him shotgun pellates, they
don't kill him, but he still testifies. So I got
to hand it to King for that sense of ambition
(24:45):
and that sense of real nerve.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I was a big man in the numbers racket, a
hustler extraordinarily. To put that in its proper perspective, you
have to first realize that numbers in my community is
like bingo in the white community.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Leaving the numbers game in any flamboyant yet murderous mobsters aside.
Don King makes it sound like gambling is his worst crime,
but that's not entirely true. Don King he once killed
a man. In fact, he killed two men. First time
it was ruled self defense. On December second, nineteen fifty four,
a man broke in and robbed a house that Don
(25:25):
King owned, a spot that was long rumored to be
an underground gambling den. When things turned sour and weapons
came out, Don King's aim was better. He shot and
killed the man. The detectives came out, investigated, and ruled
it justifiable homicide, or as we'd call it, self defense.
(25:46):
There are some who'd say Don King literally got away
with murder. Twelve years later, on April twentieth, nineteen sixty six,
there was another incident. This time he wasn't so as
Lewis Ehrenberg puts it.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
Basically, he beats to death a one of his number
runners who he thinks is cheating him.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
On the take, Don King hired a man who'd been
released from prison. The two men got into a scuffle
in front of eyewitnesses. Don King beat the man nearly
to death on a Cleveland sidewalk.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I got into a fight with a friend who expired
several days later. I was neither the provocateur nor the instigator,
but I was arrested anyhow.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Don King again claimed self defense. But you see, Don
King's a big man, and the ex con he'd stomped
to death weighed about one hundred pounds less than King.
As my pops recalled, Don King's defense was laughable.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
At best explanation. But the man fell against the curb
and hit it here repeatedly.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
On February twenty third, nineteen sixty seven, Don King was tried, convicted,
and found guilty of second degree murder with the possibility
of a life sentence, But he slipped out of that somehow.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
So now here I am. I've been convicted of second
degree murder, but my case has been mitigated to manslaughter.
The prosecutor never appealed my lawyers say, man, we got it.
But my fear of the American system of justice was
so strong, I said I can't take the chance. I
had a pretty good record. I didn't want to go
(27:27):
to jail, but I felt if I did go and
was a model citizen, I could get out on parole
in eleven months. But if I appealed and failed, I
might wind up with ten.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Years facing this bleak outcome. Don King leveraged all the
legitimate and underworld connections he had in Cleveland, and then
a judge overruled the murder conviction and downgraded it to manslaughter.
Don King later told The New York Times.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
He did something that really gave me a whole new
insight into America and white people. I had the anger
in the rage in me as all blacks had. This
judge said this was a gross miscarriage of justice. He
said the most of the charge could be was a
manslaughter charge. He said no murder verdict could be substantiated
(28:19):
without intent, So he says, I'm taking this verdict out
of the jury's hands.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
King was sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter,
sent to Marion Correctional Institute, locked up. The former numbers.
King of Cleveland found he had time to do something
he hadn't done much of since school. He read, and
he read and he read some more. Just like George
(28:48):
Foreman out in Oregon, Don King found a whole new
world and new outlook in the pages of books. Don
King was a particular fan of writers who liked to
consider men's paths of power, Shakespeare, Marx, Nietzsche, and he
was a lover of the writings of the ancient Greeks.
King said of his time in prison, I had one.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Of the most delightful times, if I may say, under
desperate conditions, reading about Demosthenes and Perracles, their Socrates, and
speeches by William Jennings Bryant. And the words still stand
today as strong as they was thousands of years ago.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
On March eighth, nineteen seventy one, Don King took a
break from his prison reading to join all the other inmates.
They gathered around a radio to listen to the announcers
call the first Ali Fraser fight that we talked about
in episode four, the Fight of the Century. Don King
watched as his fellow prisoners listened close, hanging on the
(29:54):
announcers every word they picked sides, engaging in the drama
of the fight, rooting for their man. But Don King
he heard the whole fight, the announcers, the crowd, the inmates' reactions,
the whole picture unfolded before him, a cultural event, a
colossal battle, and being a street hustler. He also heard
(30:17):
a cash register. This fight, this was the sound of
his future. He just didn't know it yet. On September thirtieth,
nineteen seventy one, Don King walked out of his prison
cell for the last time. He felt son on his face,
and he knew he was free. He was forty years old.
(30:39):
A year later, back in Cleveland, Don King returns to
small time crime. He becomes the owner operator of a
club called The Corner Tavern. The Aging R and B
frontman Lloyd Price is booked as the house band, and coincidentally,
Lloyd Price is friends with Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Lloyd Price was a popular singer and songwriter at He
had met Ali when Ali was just a kid in Louisville.
Ali had actually come up to Lloyd Price after one
of his shows at a club in Louisville and asked him, like,
you know how to become a star, and I think
Lloyd Price took an interest in the kit that he
showed a lot of ambition, and he had a lot
of charisma, and probably just assumed that he was never
going to hear from the kid again.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
But of course Lloyd Price would see Ali again on
the world stage. And then one day Don King asked
Price to invite Muhammad Ali and see if he'll come
out to Cleveland to box at a benefit.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I sponsored a benefit for a black hospital in Cleveland
and called on Muhammad to help me. He boxed ten
rounds with four different guys. We raised eighty two thousand,
five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
The charity bout took place on August twenty eighth, nineteen
seventy two. It's a spectacular event. Not only was Muhammad
Ali in the ring boxing against local boxers, there's also
a runway fashion show and to cap it off, there's
a concert. The show is headlined by a list stars
Marvin Gay, Wilson Pickett, and Lou Rawls. It's Don King's
(32:08):
first attempt at creating a cultural event and it's a
huge success, but mostly for Don King. He pocketed twice
as much money from this benefit as the hospital did,
which sadly still closed a few years later. Meanwhile, the
boxing match, the concert at the Runway Fashion Show, they
(32:29):
all gave Don King ideas, many ideas, stupendous, magnificent, splendiferous ideas.
As Lewis Ehrenberg sums it up, Don King.
Speaker 8 (32:39):
Comes out of prison a person who wants to do better,
and boxing seems a place where a black businessman could
maybe gain a foothold. And at the same time, this
is when most of the heavyweight champions and some at
the lesser divisions are more and more African American, and
(32:59):
to do bissiness with them, you need somebody who can
speak their language and who can be taken seriously by them.
And there's some doubt that white businessman and promoters can
do that.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
The famous line about King don talks black lives, white
thinks green.
Speaker 8 (33:20):
He's a symbol of black success. I mean a lot
of people criticized Don King, and I would say rightfully so,
because he could be exploitative as any white promoter. But
in the early days, he is a symbol of the
African American success story, somebody who was in the board
room and the back stage of the boxing business in
(33:45):
a way that if any African Americans had ever been
able to enter, and so he's really critical.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Don King is a mover, a shaker, a promoter, a producer,
a super connector, and, as he'd say, a hustle of supreme.
Bad as he may be, he's also the guy that
makes things happen.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
However, larcenous King was this fight, the Rumbling the Jungle
does not get made without his immense ego and ambition.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Despite Don King's tenacity, it was actually Muhammad al Lee
who first reached out to Don King about working together,
thanks to their mutual connection Lloyd Price. On December fourteenth,
nineteen seventy three, one of Don King's fighters, a heavyweight
named Ernie Shavers, lost to a fellow contender, Jerry Quarry,
and Muhammad al Li saw the result of the fight.
(34:46):
The very next day, Ali calls Don King to commiserate,
and Don King hears his moment of opportunity. He says
about that champ, and then King lays out his proposal
of a Foreman fight.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
To So we were talking along and I said, hey,
why don't you let me promote your next fight? So
we talked about it.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Ali listens to his new friend but he's reluctant because
Ali he wants a rematch with Joe Fraser.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Man, I gotta fight that Fraser again. I can't make
any plans.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Because his match against Fraser, the Fight of the Century,
was his first loss, the first humiliating loss Ali ever
experienced in the ring. As a pro. Ali's enormous ego
won't let him forget or move on. Ali knows he'll
have to fight Foreman, but first, Ali wants his revenge
on Joe Fraser. But Don King just keeps talking. He
(35:42):
plays on Ali's faith, the strength of his convictions.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Remember the Kuran said the black man will lead the
world out of darkness. Elijah says, we are at the
turning point of history. Man, you can't run from this.
This is destiny. Baby.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
King convinces Ali to look beyond Joe Frasier, to expand
his thinking, to focus on the championship and George Foreman.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Ali pucket up his nose and smiled, Okay, Judge, you've
got me, Now go get George.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Ali had one other requirement. King would have to come
to terms with Ali's manager, Herbert Muhammad. Ali promises he'll
set up a time to speak with Don King. If
the nation of Islam wants to do business with Don King,
then Ali's down. Now. All Don King has to do
(36:36):
is smooth talk. The son of Elijah Muhammad, a man
who's also famously cunningly manipulative himself.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Went to Herbert Muhammad and I appealed to Herbert Muhammed.
Herbert told me you must deliver. You can't just say
this thing and where you go get this money? And
I say that part lee to me. I say, I
believe his destiny, and I believe that God has put
(37:05):
me here to do it. And I said, you must
give me the chance because your father said and his
holy words, that you find a black man comparable to
a white man and doing his duties. If you don't
give the black man a chance, how will he ever
get the chance.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Don King alludes to Ali's fight promoter at the time,
Bob Aram, the man who runs Madison Square Garden, the
home to heavyweight boxing's biggest fight nights. Don King's trying
to peel Ali away from Bob Aram and do it
with Herbert Muhammad's blessing as his manager. This is when
(37:44):
things really get dramatic. The story goes Don King is
at Herbert Mohammad's apartment in New York, the same apartment
that Bob Aram paid for, So Herbert Muhammad always had
a nice pot of his own. When he was in Manhattan,
Don King's there. He's working his angle, trying to get
(38:05):
a contract signed to promote the Ali Foreman fight. But
before Don King can get it done, Bob Aram and
his partner Teddy Brenner, the other main fight promoter from
Madison Square Garden, show up at Herbert Mohammad's apartment.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
When they're trying to make forman ALI At some point,
Teddy Brenner and Bob Aarm go to Herbert Muhammad's apartment
in the city in Manhattan, and they wanted to fight
Jerry Quarry at the Garden.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
When King hears they're downstairs and coming up, he knows
if they find him there, all his finagling and finessing
will likely come to nothing. So what does Don King do?
He hides in the bathroom, but fellow fight promoters Teddy
Brenner and Bob Aerm aren't stupid. Mark Kriegel gives us
the backstory.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
So reportedly Renner says, Hey, don I know you're hiding
in here, somewhere, your son of a bitch, come out now.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Don King knows he's technically not caught until he comes
out of the bathroom. Until then, it's all supposition, but
he was definitely in there hiding. The other two fight promoters,
Bob Aerm and Teddy Brenner, eventually lose their patience. Teddy
Brenner pipes up and he.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
Says, hey, if you can get the five million dollars,
god bless you.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Like this is crazy, but if you.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Can actually get these guys five million dollars, god bless you.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
After he and Bob Aram leave, Don King emerges from
the bathroom, he gets right back to business. The two
men seal the deal. He uses the promise of five
million dollars to hold Herbert Mohammad's full interest.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
He said, I'm gonna give you some time, and if
you deliver, you've got it. If you don't, I got
to know where the money is because I have to
protect my fighter. My fighter is the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
And then Don King triumphantly tells the New York Times.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
It happens because I have faith. I have faith in
the American people that that people are my most important asset.
I feel in life, there are only guys that are
endowed with the talent by their creator that can do
things that will really make people respect what is being done.
(40:21):
So I might say there's only been three really giant
promoters in our lifetime. There's Michael Todd and PT Bonham
and yours.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Truly.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Now, Don King has Ali and that's all he needs.
He can hustle the rest. Still, it is not a
simple task to get the two fighters in the same ring.
Don King has to fly out to California to see
Foreman and make the same in person five million dollar offer,
(40:52):
but Foreman avoids them, so Don King camps out in
the lobby of Foreman's hotel. His plan basically is to Foreman.
When he passes through, Don King waits, and he waits
with the patience of a sniper for three days. On
the third day, he spots Foreman returning from a workout.
Don King approaches. Foreman is friendly, Hello.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Don what are you doing here? I gotta talk to you?
What about a fight with our lead for five million?
Forget it? Come on, George, Let's take a walk along
the beach.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Together along with Foreman's Doberman pincher. The two men stroll
along the beach, and Don King continues his pitch.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
This fight will make an impact on the world. It's symbolic,
we can show the world that blacks can stage a
big event with sophistication and dignity.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
That angle doesn't really matter to Foreman, so Don King
tries a new angle. The two men walk and talk
for two more hours, and Don King finally persuades Foreman
that he can trust him. When they reach the hotel
parking lot, Foreman tells him, you got me. As Don
(42:11):
King later summarized the experience, it was all.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Done with a handshake, no involved contracts, no lawyers, no
men with black satchels getting into the act. It was
man against man, blacks and blacks trust, just trust.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
But true to Form, that's not the full story. There
is also, quite famously a blank contract involved, which certainly
speaks to the trust between Don King and Foreman.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
They're walking around in a parking lot and King is
trying to convince George Form to agree to this fight
with Alidy and says, trust me, I'll work out the details.
He hands them a bunch of pages of blank paper.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
On one sheet of blank paper, he has Foreman signed
real low on the page, on another, say, three quarters
of the way down, and on another around, say in
the middle of the blank piece of paper. Don King
tells Forman, He'll have his lawyers draw up the final contract.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
And depending on how long the contract comes out, I'll
use the signature that fits best on the page.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Don King is asking Foreman to sign a blank contract.
In the wildest part.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
At George Foreman goes for it. He just signs all
of these blank sheets of paper. And that tells me
something about the power of persuasion that Don King had.
Speaker 5 (43:29):
Only Don King can get a fighter to sign seven
blank sheets of paper, But that, by King's own acknowledgment,
is what enabled him to make the fightings I hear.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
The rumble in the Jungle was never going to be
easy to pull off. There was the challenge of getting
the money together. There was dealing with Mabutu, a corrupt
dictator who clearly had an agenda of his own. And
then there were all the other immense egos involved Muhammad Ali,
George Foreman, Don King. These are all egos that rank
(44:06):
off the charts. And this is all before the unforeseen
circumstances that are bound to arise even for the smooth talking,
ever confident Don King.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
It was Cliffhanger. At the Cliffhanger, there were so many
crisis and they haven't quit yet.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
And as if all of that wasn't hard enough, Don King,
with the help of Lloyd Price, decides to throw more razzle,
more spectacle, and more egos into the mix by coordinating
a colossal three day music festival that would accompany his
stupendous fight.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Don King, of course, sees an opportunity here to expand
his power and to bring in even more money and
to try to make this into an even bigger global event.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
The first lineup that was announced featured Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder,
sly Stone, Gladys Night and the Pips. But Don King's
cash and his cultural cachet only went so far. None
of these acts actually made it to Zaire. King did, however,
manage to secure quite a pair of other Kings, namely
(45:16):
blues Man BB King and the King of Soul James Brown.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
It's like you know, Woodstock for Africa.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
On the next episode of Rumble.
Speaker 8 (45:29):
They once were slaves and now look they trod the
earth as giants of culture, music, sport.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
He recognizes that these dictators would love the opportunity to
host a heavyweight fight.
Speaker 13 (45:43):
Stewart and Hewitt came up with the idea for Zayre
for the festival. I signed up right away.
Speaker 11 (45:49):
He worked with musicians from all over the continent, and
each different country had a different sound.
Speaker 14 (45:59):
Rumble is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Rumbl is written and hosted by Zarren Burnett. The third
produced and directed by Julia Chriscau. Sound design and scoring
by Jesse Niswanger. Original music composed by Jordan Manley and t. J. Merritt.
Series concept by Gary Stromberg. Executive producers are Jason English,
(46:22):
Sean Titone, Gary Stromberg, Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, and
Brandon barr Our. Senior producer is Amelia Brock, Production manager
Daisy Church, fact checker Savannah Hugley. Legal services provided by
Canoell Hanley PC. Additional production by Claire Keating and John Washington.
Casting director Julia Christcau. Casting support services provided by Breakdown Express.
Speaker 15 (46:47):
Episode six cast Abraham Amka as Muhammad Ali, Terence Flint
as Don King, John Washington as news reporter, Julia Chriscau
as news Reporter Special thanks to Lewis Ehrenberg.
Speaker 16 (47:02):
Check out his book Rumble in the Jungle. It's a
great resource. Also thanks to Jonathan I for his book
Ali a Life. And finally thanks to Zarenz pops Zeke
who grounds this material like no one else. If you
like the show, let us know, like subscribe, leave five
star reviews. It really helps. Also check out our show
(47:23):
notes for a full list of reference materials.