Don King (boxing promoter)

Donald Don King is an American boxing promoter whose flamboyant personality, and public and professional involvement in some of boxings most historic matchups, have seen him leave an indelible mark in boxing history. Kings career highlights include, among multiple other enterprises, promoting The Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila. King has promoted some of the most prominent names in boxing, including Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Julio Csar Chvez, Ricardo Mayorga, Andrew Golota, Bernard Hopkins, Flix Trinidad, Roy Jones, Jr. and Marco Antonio Barrera. Almost all of them sued him for defrauding them King settled most lawsuits for six to eightdigit payoffs while managing to avoid a conviction of felony fraud or time in jail.

King was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended school and graduated from John Adams High in 1951. After dropping out of Kent State University, he ran an illegal bookmaking operation out of the basement of a record store on Kinsman Road, and was charged for killing two men in incidentsyears apart. The first was determined to be justifiable homicide after it was found that King shot Hillary Brown in the back and killed him while he was attempting to rob one of Kings gambling houses. King was convicted of second degree murder for the second killing in 1966 after he was found guilty of stomping to death an employee, Sam Garrett, who owed him 600. The judge reduced Kings conviction to nonnegligent manslaughter for which King served just under four years in prison. King was later pardoned for the crime in 1983 by Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes, with letters from Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, George Voinovich, Art Modell, and Gabe Paul, among others, being written in support of King.

Source: Wikipedia