Donald King (born August 20, 1931) is an American boxing promoter, known for his flamboyant and charismatic style, who was involved in some of the most famous boxing matches in history.
King's 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: Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Tomasz Adamek, Roberto Duran, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Chris Byrd, John Ruiz, Julio César Chávez, Ricardo Mayorga, Bernard Hopkins, Félix Trinidad, Roy Jones Jr., Azumah Nelson, Chris Eubank, Gerald McClellan, Marco Antonio Barrera, Salvador Sanchez, Wilfred Benitez, Wilfredo Gomez and Christy Martin.
King is not without controversy as many of these same boxers sued him for allegedly defrauding them. Mike Tyson was quoted as saying, "He did more bad to black fighters than any white promoter ever in the history of boxing."
King has been charged with killing two people in incidents that were 13 years apart. In 1954, King shot a man in the back after spotting him trying to rob one of his gambling houses; this incident was ruled a justifiable homicide. Then, in 1967 King was convicted of second-degree murder for stomping one of his employees to death because he owed him $600. For this, he served three years and eleven months in prison, being released after the conviction was reduced on appeal to voluntary manslaughter.
King was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the fifth of six children to Clarence and Hattie King. Clarence worked at the Otis Steel plant owned by the Jones & Laughlin company and was killed in a workplace accident on December 7, 1941, when a ladle exploded and engulfed him in molten steel. Hattie received $10,000 (equivalent to $218,891 in 2025) in compensation and relocated the family to the middle-class Mount Pleasant neighborhood.
His mother made a living selling peanuts and homemade pies, helped by King and his younger sister, and sold the wares at a local "policy house" that used the guise of a concession stand to run a numbers game. King and his older brothers eventually became involved in the betting scheme, with King later stating "So now what we did is we capitalized off of this here, and we hustled. It was statutorily illegal, but who knew about the statutes?" King graduated from John Adams High in 1951 and briefly attended Kent State University before dropping out.
Beginning in 1951, King ran an illegal bookmaking operation out of the basement of a record store on Kinsman Road, earning the byname "The Kid", as well as the nicknames "Kingpin" and "the Numbers Czar". During this time, King was charged with killing two men.
One of the incidents involved King killing an employee, 34-year-old Sam Garrett, in an open street in front of several witnesses, for owing $600 in debt. King beat and kicked Garrett and held a .357 magnum revolver to his head; Garrett never regained consciousness and died of severe head trauma on April 24. King claimed self-defense, while the prosecution, supported by witness testimony, including that of arresting police officer Bob Tonne, arguing that Garrett was attacked by King, with Garrett's last words being quoted as "Don, I'll pay you the money."
He was convicted of second-degree murder for the killing and sentenced to one-to-twenty years imprisonment. While he served his term at the Marion Correctional Institution, he began self-education; he read everything in the prison library he could get his hands on.
I learned this here, in the penitentiary, in reading everything that I can find my hands on, and then living the life that I live before I got to the penitentiary. That gave me an enlightenment on life that "don't get mad, get smart." That's why I want other kids to educate themselves, put it in their brain, they can't take that away.
In 1972, after serving three years and eleven months, King was released when his attorney got the conviction reduced to manslaughter. King was pardoned in 1983 by Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes, with letters written in support from Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, George Voinovich, Art Modell, and Gabe Paul.
King entered the boxing world after persuading Muhammad Ali to box in a charity exhibition for a local hospital in Cleveland with the help of singer Lloyd Price. Early on, he formed a partnership with a local promoter named Don Elbaum, who already had a stable of fighters in Cleveland and years of experience in boxing.
In 1974, King negotiated to promote a heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire, popularly known as "The Rumble in the Jungle". The fight between Ali and Foreman was a much-anticipated event. King's rivals all sought to promote the bout, but King was able to secure the then-record $10 million purse through an arrangement with the government of Zaire.
King then went on to arrange Ali's 1975 fight against journeyman Chuck Wepner. It is widely believed that this fight inspired Sylvester Stallone to write the screenplay for Rocky (1976).
King solidified his position as one of boxing's preeminent promoters later that year by promoting the third fight between Ali and Joe Frazier in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, which King deemed the "Thrilla in Manila". Aside from promoting the premier heavyweight fights of the 1970s, King was also busy expanding his boxing empire.
Throughout the decade, he compiled an impressive roster of fighters, many of whom would finish their career with Hall of Fame credentials. Fighters like Larry Holmes, Wilfred Benítez, Roberto Durán, Salvador Sánchez, Wilfredo Gómez, and Alexis Argüello would all fight under the Don King Productions promotional banner in the 1970s.
For the next two decades, King continued to be among boxing's most successful promoters. King would go on to promote boxing matches for Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Julio César Chávez, Aaron Pryor, Bernard Hopkins, Ricardo López, Félix Trinidad, Terry Norris, Carlos Zárate, Azumah Nelson, Andrew Gołota, Mike McCallum, Gerald McClellan, Meldrick Taylor, Marco Antonio Barrera, Tomasz Adamek, John Ruiz, and Ricardo Mayorga among others.
King's promoting and interest was not confined to just boxing. He was the concert promoter for The Jacksons' 1984 Victory Tour. In 1998, King purchased a Cleveland-based weekly newspaper serving the African American community in Ohio, the Call and Post, and continues to serve as its publisher in 2026.