Don King

Don King is one of those figures everyone in boxing knows on sight. The Cleveland-born promoter engineered The Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila, spectacles that turned the sport into global theater. The electric hair and the bombastic patter are unforgettable, but underneath sits a genuinely formidable commercial mind that knew how to make a fight happen. His 1997 induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame is on the record. He remains a deeply divisive man, and honestly I cannot pretend otherwise, yet his sheer ability to elevate boxing into worldwide event-making is something I have to acknowledge.

Name (English)

Don King

Name (Japanese)

ドン・キング

Reading

どん・きんぐ

Born

August 20, 1931 (age 94)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Leo / Goat

Origin

Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Occupation

entrepreneur / actor / record producer / real estate developer / boxing promoter

High school

John Adams High School

Awards & achievements

• nickel
• 1997 International Boxing Hall of Fame

• Official sitehttps://donking.com
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%20King
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%89%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q344977

Tags

• Ohio
• entrepreneur
• actor
• record producer

Last updated

2026-06-17

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.