West Coast Boxers of Times Gone By: Meeting With Don King

Frankie & Tony Baltazar

   By kiki

One cold February day in 1982 I received a phone call from Don King's New York office. The voice on the other end of the line was that of one of King's office secretary's. The voice told me that Don King would like for Frankie, Tony, and I, to fly to New York for a meet. She said that King was interested in signing the boys to, as the voice put it "a Don King contract". I told the voice that I would be interested in hearing his offered.

Arrangements were made for us to fly out of LAX. Don't remember what time we flew out, but we arrived in New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport in the wee hours of the morning in the middle of one of the worst snowstorms the city had seen in decades. The storm was so severe that all transportation to Manhattan was suspended. As we were sitting in the airport terminal waiting for the taxis/buses to resume running an old black guy that looked to be close to ninety years old walked in, said he had a bus and that for 5 dollars a head he would bus us into Manhattan, said he would drop all of us at the same place, none of this “take me here, take me there stuff“ He mumble as he sipped on some coffee, or at least what we though was coffee. We took him up on it. The bus looked somewhat like the ones you see in Tijuana, minus the goats and chickens on the roof. We got into Manhattan while it was still dark. The city was at a standstill because of the storm. I'm not sure where the old man dropped us off, but it wasn't close to where we needed to go. We had rooms waiting for us at a hotel on 8th Avenue off of 42th Street. We were some blocks or maybe a few miles from there, not sure which one it was.

Let me say that we were not the only ones that King invited to meet with him. There were others from LA that made the trip. Three flew with us on the same plane, I can't remember who they were, one might had been boxing manager/trainer Jerry Moore. Anyway, we, with the others from LA, found ourselves standing in a Manhattan street, or was it an avenue? Who knows, all I know was that we were freezing our priceless appendages. As we were standing there freezing we notice a taxicab coming our way. We all run out on the street to flag him down, he stopped and told us that he was off duty, was on his way home. We told him that if he gave a ride to 8th Avenue and 42th Street we would make it worth his while, he said okay, but that it was going to cost us, we asked how much, he said seven dollars, we looked at him and than at each other, than he said "for all of you" Damn! I think we were all willing to give him twenty bucks each just to get out of the cold!

Don King held a big press conference in a big fancy hotel to introduce a number of fighters to the press. Present at the press conference were some entertainment figures, like actress/singer Eartha Kitt, actor/dancer Gregory Hines, singer James Brown and political activist Al Sharpton. It was to say the least an impressive event. In another story I wrote how Jimmy Montoya won eight hundred dollars with my money, he needed it to buy a new suit to wear to the press conference.

THE DEAL

After the press conference some of us were driven to King's office which was located just off Park Avenue. When I was called into a small but elaborate office, King and his sidekick, Duke Durden, were seated there. King in a big chair behind a very expensive looking desk, Duke was sitting off to the side of King. After quick preambles all around; we got to talking turkey. First deal I was offered was this: three fights guaranteed per year, for three years. Sounds good, but here's the kicker: All nine fights had the among of money set up front, no matter who the boys were going to fight, title fights or not. Also they would get to name the opponents. That meant that I couldn’t negotiate anything, money or opponents. With that kind of a deal the boys wouldn’t had needed a manager. I told Duke Duden, who was doing all the talking while Don just chewed on a cigar, that that deal; was not right for us. That bought Don into the talks. He offered me a second deal. He said that I could bring his son Carl in as a co-manager. I could see that in taking that deal I would had been out as co-manager in less than six months. I stood up and shook their hands, told them “thanks but no thanks” I thanked Don for his hospitality and walked out.

That night, our last night in the Big Apple Tony and Frankie partied till the wee hours with Tex Cobb….The boys later told me that Cobb’s was charging food and drinks to Don King…We came home and never again heard from King.