Don King, the renowned global international icon isknown around the world for staging many of the
greatest professional boxing matches in thehistory of the sport, but today King is the
champion of world peace and women’s rights.King’s career as a promoter spans fourdecades and includes more than 500world-championship  ghts, but it began as a
humble plea to help save a Cleveland hospitalin 1972. Facing a severe shortage of funds,
Forest City Hospital was prepared to shut down.King knew the hospital served a vital function to a poor, working-class community. He sought out heavyweight championMuhammad Ali and asked him to come and support a fundraising bene tto help turn around the hospital. The two men hit it o , and a new erabegan in boxing. King inked a  ght between Ali and George Foreman in1974 that promised both  ghters more than $5 million each, which wasunheard of at the time. When his  nancial backers lost faith and pulledout and everyone else turned their backs on Don, he held the  ghttogether on his own and took it to Zaire. He proved the doubters andcritics wrong by staging one of the greatest  ghts in history with TheRumble in the Jungle. Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s epic 1975 battlewas billed The Thrilla in Manila and has been called by many as “the bestin sports history.” At age 84, King has no plans to slow down. He givesfull credit for his rise from the Cleveland projects to his mother, Hattie,who taught him the di erence between right and wrong. His familyincludes sons Carl and Eric, daughter Debbie and  ve grandchildren.