Boxing’s royal promoter Don King has thrown a devastating flurry of punches at our local UFC owners and fighters. The 76-year-old outspoken maverick also reigned blows on billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the Mixed Martial Arts league.

“It’s barbarism,” he lashed out. “If people are thinking quality is blood and guts and seeing guys get knocked out of the building, this is no different than feeding Christians to the lions.”

Don spoke to my London Fleet Street journo-pals while unveiling his new video game, “Don King Presents: Prizefighter” available on Xbox, Nintendo, and Wii this Spring.

He added, “It might be original, but it’s a step backwards compared to the beauty of boxing. Once there were gladiators, then there were fighters who’d go 50-rounds until there was a knockout. When people became more civilized and more sophisticated, that’s how we got the beauty of boxing. This is what the Marquess of Queensbury came to uplift by making rules and regulations. Boxing is about pride, integrity and honor of competition–not barbarism.”

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 10:10 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.