Don King, who modestly compares his 30-year journey through boxing with Mao Tse-tung’s Long March, plans to promote the first heavyweight title fight in China.
“Mao really taught me how to survive in this jungle,” King said Wednesday in announcing a match in Beijing featuring the winner of Evander Holyfield’s WBA title defense against John Ruiz on March 3 at Las Vegas.
An opponent will be named later. The tentative date is June 30.
“It’s a major announcement just to be able to whet the appetite of all Americans and one billion, 300 million Chinese,” King bellowed. “This is not just a prize fight, this is an adventure.”
King will co-promote the fight with The Great Wall International Sports Media Co. of China.
Niu Lixin, chairman of the board of The Great Wall International, said a contract was signed last week with King.
A television deal is yet to be made. It is possible the fight will be shown by Showtime, which will carry the Holyfield-Ruiz bout on pay-per-view.
Showtime also did a delayed telecast of a heavyweight match last April 22 between Andrew Golota and Marcus Rhode at Guangzhou, China, when Golota stopped Rhode in the third round.
– Robert Lee, the International Boxing Federation founder, was sentenced to almost two years in prison for money laundering and tax evasion.
Lee also was fined $25,000 and settled a related government lawsuit by agreeing to a lifetime ban from boxing and to pay the IBF $50,000 in compensation.
– U.S. Army officials have charged Spc. Enriques Flores, a light heavyweight on Puerto Rico’s Olympic team in 1996, with battering his 7-year-old son, Angel Villalongos-Rodriguez, to death on Aug. 21 because the boy wet his pants.
