With his usual penchant for restraint, boxing promoter Don King has sued EPSN for defamtion of character and is asking for damages of $2.5 billion.
According to attorney Willie Gary of Jupiter, the SportsCentury segment was “designed to orchestrate and create an impression that is not there.” He said the network refused to retract parts that offended King.
The lawsuit states that the program accused King (above) of being “a snake-oil salesman, a shameless huckster and worse.” It claimed that he underpaid Muhammad Ali by $1.2 million. It also claimed that in 1967, King was convicted in a beating death and in a 1954 killing saying, “killed not once, but twice.”
Most of the material about King in the program already had been printed or broadcast.
“I just felt that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I can’t take it anymore,” King said in New York. “I’m going to fight back. I seek justice.”