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Don King: Only in America (1997)
Rate:
7
Viewed:
9/25
9/25:
I hate Don King.
He's among the worst black Americans ever lived along with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I wonder why the
law enforcement did nothing about Don King for decades. Many have agreed with this assessment, and here are
some of their testimonials:
Randall "Tex" Cobb: "Don King is one of the great humanitarians of our time. He has risen above that great
term prejudice. He has screwed everybody he has ever been around. Hog, dog, or frog, it don't matter to Don.
If you got a quarter, he wants the first twenty-six cents."
Larry Holmes: "King's an equal opportunity dirtbag. He screws everybody. Looks black, lives white, and thinks
green."
Dan Duva: "Don King is a damn sleezebag. King is nothing but a strong-arm man. He has taken his gangsterism
and put it into boxing."
Mike Tyson: "I found out that someone I believed was my surrogate father, my brother, my blood figure turns
out to be the true Uncle Tom, the true nigger, the true sellout. He did more bad to black fighters than any
white promoter ever in the history of boxing."
Michael Spinks: "I don't like Don King, I don't trust Don King, I don't need Don King, I want nothing to do
with Don King."
Larry Holmes again: "Don King can talk a rattlesnake out of biting you."
The biggest mistake Lloyd Price ever made was hooking Don King up with Muhammad Ali. That's how his career as
a boxing promoter got started, leading to the most famous fight ever: Ali-Foreman aka "The Rumble in the
Jungle" which is covered extensively in a documentary called
When We Were Kings. Afterwards, Don King made a living in screwing
just about every boxer he represented, and many went on to sue him.
Don King: Only in America does well recounting many events, pulling back nothing. But there's
so much more missing that you'll have to get the rest in Jack Newfield's book:
Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King. According to the author, Don King "ruined boxers'
lives, careers and spirits, rigged boxing championships, betrayed friends, instigated racial conflicts,
threatened to have Holmes' legs broken, hired Philadelphia mobster Frank (Blinky) Palermo to threaten
Witherspoon, shot one man, stomped another man to death and swindled Ferdinand Marcos." And that's for starters.
As for Ving Rhames, he has done an excellent job, and I have no complaints. That's why he won a bunch of awards.
It's funny when his character disparaged HBO given the fact that it financed the film per se
along with the boxing stuff. I'm impressed with Darius McCrary of Family Matters for his portrayal of
Muhammad Ali. It's pretty close.
All in all, Don King: Only in America is a well-made telefilm but needs better writing to achieve
100% organization.