Don King Productions has announced that WBA heavyweight champion Manuel Charr (31-4, 17 KOs) is facing WBA interim heavyweight champion Trevor Bryan (20-0, 14 KOs) on January 29 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. That is deadline ordered by the WBA. Charr hasn’t fought since November 2017 and Bryan hasn’t fought since August 2018. The bout will apparently be a $39.99 pay-per-view stream.
Charr clearly isn’t happy with the arrangement. “What a mean, nasty game by Don King,” Charr posted on his Facebook page. “Research has shown that the specified venue in Florida on January 29, 2021, was neither booked nor confirmed by Don King. The fight was announced in BoxRec, but the alleged venue has not been confirmed.
“You don’t want to fight me. Don King tries to force me to sign with him, which I definitely won’t do! I have a boxing promoter myself: Erol Ceylan. We have already put our lawyers on all points. Don King won’t get away like this!!!
“No matter what happens: I’m 200% fit and ready to fight. The title stays with us in Germany.
I filled out all of the WBA’s forms, adhered to the legal guidelines and signed all of the WBA’s contracts several times. I also signed the DKP contract under protest!
“The game with Don King has been going on for 2 years. We boxers are neither promoters nor organizers. I would like to defend my title every three months! It’s all up to Don King that I haven’t been able to fight for 2 years. Allah is the greatest he will give me the power and passion!! I will be ready for you and every challenge #allahuakbar”
Don King must have 9 toes in the grave- what’s he doing still promoting fights?!!! Sounds like he’s going out the same crooked bastard he was coming in! Tim Witherspoon said it best about him -“He’d rather earn a crooked quarter than an honest dollar”. God bless Don King though- he’s an American icon!
Don King is the Donald Trump of boxing. No surprises here. Both are self centered evil pricks.
Right? There’s a reason no one works with don king anymore. He’s a total scumbag.
Except DK actually gets stuff done
Maybe a few decades ago.
He is the Donald Trump of boxing, I was thinking exactly that when I read the article. At least he never tried to run for president.
Hes the Joe Biden of boxing
There is a reason no one works with Don King anymore. The guy has been sued more times than years he’s been alive. He’s scum.
$40 ppv? Talk about total lack of self awareness. They might make $400 from the family members of the fighters, but it won’t even cover the production costs.
Dk did me and my team right in the 90’s, I have no complaints.
Is that Paz?
I think Don King is one of the reasons boxing took a huge dive in popularity in the late 80’s and early 90’s. As evidenced by this fight, he made boxing less accessible to the public by making all big fights PPV or Showtime. Boxing pretty much dissapeared from network television. Before that, there were big name fights every weekend on ABC, NBC and CBS. All the top contenders were household names to the casual fan. Once everything went PPV, only the big name fighters were recognizeable and they were often matched up against complete nobodies because nobody knew the difference anyway. USA Network’s Tuesday Night Fights was the saving grace during that period.
Biggest reason for boxing decline in popularity is too many weight divisions and champions. Casual fan stopped trying to keep track of them all and decided it wasn’t worth it.
@St. John-that too-it’s gotten really stupid!
Cant blame a man for working his influence. If you put so much weight on one promotor for decline in the sport then you need to blame the other promotors, networks, and fighters for allowing King so much power.
We have no idea about the hard work and elbow grease to build his brand and bring us the fights he promoted.
Lets not blame King for the rest of the Boxing promotors doing PPV shows and making lots of money.
Uh of course you can if he does so unethically and/or illegally. What we do know is he’s been sued over 100 times and has been forced to settle or lost a good number of those suits because of his questionable practices. We also know that fighters have abandoned Don King in droves while Arum (a guy of a similar age and who started at a similar time) is in much better standing.
He has one of the worst reputations for a good reason.
Let’s also not forget he’s been in jail for killing someone.
You were one of the few who he was afraid to piss off.
Only in America…..
I really will be surprised if this double bill does take place. In the 90’s King was the man. So that is why these man have not been able to box. I remember somethings this with that Nicaraguan boxer, can’t think of his name at the moment, but King really is a horrible man.
There are too many examples of corruption from DK to even begin to list, but this kind of thing has been going on since the 70’s with him, and everybody knows it, yet nothing has ever been done about it. Easy to see why public interest in this sport isn’t what it used to be. Not sure why any boxer would sign with this man at this point.
From the article “Charr hasn’t fought since November 2017 and Bryan hasn’t fought since August 2018. The bout will apparently be a $39.99 pay-per-view stream.” How did Bryan become the WBA Interim Champion? By beating BJ Flores. Also, what could they possibly be thinking by putting this on PPV? Even by boxing’s already low standards, this is an absolute joke all around…
People will actually spend 40 dollars on this?
3 years to defend a title? Crazy. He should be stripped
How can you as a fighter who hasn’t fought since 2017 say your the wba heavyweight champ of the world? It’s embarrassing for the sport. But then again the WBA and the rest of the alphabet organizations are all an embarrassment to the sport.
The best thing about all of this is that absolutely nobody cares. Literally. A fight that no one wants to see between fighters nobody is interested in for a belt that means nothing.