Don King, the boxing promoter, was reportedly injured in a fall and needs “extensive surgery,” a celebrity gossip website is saying.
A family source told RadarOnline.com that King, 83, was taken to clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, late last month after he fell down in a hotel.
King, known best for his tenure as Mike Tyson’s promoter, will require “extensive reconstructive surgery and months of rehab,” the family source said, adding that the fall was “face-smashing.”
“The injuries are very serious,” the insider continued.
The National Enquirer reported that in recent years, King is trying to make amends with people he allegedly hurt.
“Don’s trying to make peace with as many people as he can,” a source told the tabloid. “He’s a different ‘Don King’ than the one the world thinks it knows.
King was in Cleveland for the funeral of Constance Harper, a newspaper publisher and friend of his.
King is known as a promoter for Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson.
In 1959, King was shot in the head when he was a numbers runner in Cleveland. Fragments of the bullet apparently remain in his skull.
It’s worth noting that King is the promoter of Bermane Stiverne, the WBC heavyweight champion. In an interview after Stiverne’s last fight, King was asked if his fighter would seek to unify the belt with WBA, WBO and IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko.
“We'll talk about unifying the championships, but this all takes its time,” King said, according to a report in May. “We’ve got a big fight ahead of us here with this young lady, Michelle Patterson, for women’s rights.”
“I understand, that’s a big fight,” King said of the potential fight. “Women are half the population and when you talk about a fight, that’s a fight. It’s been 400, 500 years and they still ain’t got their rights. That’s a real fight.”
