Donnellon: Trump, King, Douglas, Tyson and the summer of 1990

THE SUMMER of 1990 was a turbulent one in sports. George Steinbrenner was suspended by baseball commissioner Fay Vincent for his involvement with a small-time gambler named Howie Spira. Pete Rose was headed to prison. Bob Clarke had just been fired as the Flyers' general manager. Ron Hextall was holding out for $1 million.

(One million! For a goalie!! The nerve!!)

And . . . Don King was battling it out with Buster Douglas and his manager in a New York courtroom over the boxer's future, with casino owners Steve Wynn and Donald Trump either directly or indirectly involved and millions of dollars at stake.

An analysis by USA Today in June found that Trump has been involved in about 3,500 lawsuits, about 1,900 in which he was the plaintiff. On the campaign trail he claims he's won most of them, and the article in USA Today determined that "Among those cases with a clear resolution, Trump's side was the apparent victor in 451 and the loser in 38" and that "in about 500 other cases, judges dismissed plaintiffs' claims against Trump."

The overwhelming majority of them, though, ended in settlement, the terms not disclosed, a clear winner hard to determine.

So it was in the summer of 1990, when a colorful cast of boxing characters - including some unlikely allies - assembled in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to hash out when and where the next heavyweight championship of the world would be held.

I was the national boxing writer for The National Sports Daily, an acclaimed but short-lived daily sports-only national newspaper headed up by famed sports writer Frank Deford and bankrolled by Emilio Azcárraga Jr., who built his fortune through Univision, Televisa and real estate ventures. It was a cool gig, while it lasted, taking me to several countries including Japan, where I had covered the Douglas-Mike Tyson fight the previous February and spent considerable time beforehand in Tyson's inner circle, hanging out in his hotel room, sharing some ribs and wings.

(There are some images you take to the grave. Watching King devour a plate of ribs at 11 a.m. would be one of them. But I digress . . . )

What I learned from that fight, and from the tumultuous months that followed, is that wins and losses are in the eyes of the beholder and . . . the truth is not always what it seems.

It sure seemed that King tried to overturn the results of that fight in the hours that followed it, arguing that referee Octavio Meyran of Mexico had waited too long to start the count when Douglas was knocked down in the eighth round.

"The first knockout obliterated the second knockout - Buster Douglas was knocked out," King bellowed during a press conference after Douglas' shocking, 10th-round knockout of Tyson, clearly sounding - at least to me - as the promoter of one, but not both fighters.

That was the crucial argument made by the Douglas camp in trying to void a promotional deal King had compelled them to sign before the fight, an argument they used in trying to shake loose from King and partner with Wynn and his Mirage Casino in Las Vegas.

But in the weeks and months that followed, King and his attorneys argued the exact opposite as they sued Douglas and Wynn for $24 million. A tape-recording I had from that postfight press conference, that seemed to clear up any ambiguity, was instead used as evidence from both camps to argue their cases.

Trump sat next to King that night in Tokyo. Before Douglas shocked the world, Trump had made a reported $12.5 million deal with King to hold a much-anticipated fight between Tyson and undefeated Evander Holyfield at Trump Plaza in June. Asked by Douglas' attorney during the trial whether King had openly cheered for Tyson during the fights, Trump said, "I don't recall. He might have done it, but I don't remember."

Technically, Trump was not part of either lawsuit. But he was part of the settlement, receiving an undisclosed sum to step aside and allow Wynn and the Mirage to host Douglas' first (and only) title defense that October against Evander Holyfield. Did Trump win? Well, he got money for nothing, but an argument can be made his casino lost millions in potential revenue from the big gamblers from around the world who habitually attended heavyweight title fights. Indeed, Trump made his deal with King one month prior to the Tokyo fight because of rumblings that high-powered Japanese businessmen were going to make a similar offer to stage Tyson's next defense there.

Trump has cast himself as someone who loathes compromise. "I don't settle cases, I win in court," he has boasted, even if the USA Today analysis casts doubt on that claim. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The fight was ultimately held at Wynn's place in Las Vegas in October of 1990, all those Japanese businessmen spending their yen far from Atlantic City. But Trump got a payoff to step aside, and so he called it a win.

Who was I to argue? I thought my tape-recording was toxic to King's case, not ammunition for it.

The truth, I learned, or relearned that summer, is not always what it seems.

@samdonnellon

Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon