(JULY 6) SUNRISE, Fla.—Promoter Don
King announced today he will pay tribute to Michael Jackson at a
world championship boxing event King has slated for July 11 at
BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla.
King plans to give Jackson boxing’s traditional ringside10-bell
count honoring those who have passed and to play Jackson’s music and
videos at King’s previously announced fight card highlighted by an
International Boxing Federation bantamweight championship between
titleholder Joseph King Kong Agbeko and world champion Vic “Raging
Bull” Darchinyan, who is moving up in weight to face Agbeko. This
match will be televised live on SHOWTIME beginning at 9 p.m. ET/PT
(delayed on the West Coast).
King promoted the historic Jacksons Victory Tour in 1984 that
reunited the Jackson 5, and he brokered a colossal endorsement deal
between Michael Jackson and Pepsi.
“I was shocked and saddened when I learned of Michael’s passing, and
I shared the pain of Joseph and Katherine Jackson—without whom there
never would have been a Michael Jackson—and their sons and
daughters,” King said.
“One never knows how they will react to something like this, and I
found it hard to do media interviews or even issue a statement. Like
so many other people around the world, I have been trying to find a
way to remember this musical genius, who I loved and was a good
friend of mine. My next boxing event is on July 11, so I have
decided to pay tribute to him there in any way we can think of.”
King is searching through his photo and film archives and has found
some rare, behind-the-scenes video clips of him with Michael Jackson
and the Jackson family from the time in which they worked together.
King plans to play these clips at his boxing event in tribute to
Michael Jackson.
“The Jackson 5 was black America’s first family when they arrived on
the scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s,” King said. “Then
everyone in America came to embrace them as their own. They were
groundbreaking in that regard. America’s first family today, the
Obama family, is part of a transformation in America that began with
the Jackson family.
“Family is the most important thing of all and something black
people were stripped of when our country was ruled by that peculiar
institution. That’s why we say, REMEMBER IOWA where the baby was
born: hope, change, freedom.”
Photo courtesy of Don King Productions, Inc.
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without permission in writing from Don King Productions, Inc. All
inquiries should be addressed to Don King Productions, Inc., 501
Fairway Drive, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33441.
