By John Phillips
LAS VEGAS: Don King appears to be making progress in wooing Mike Tyson ‘with the Heavy Weight champion saying on Thursday that he and the garrulous promoter are partners in staging the Chavez-Ramirez title fight here this weekend.
King, who has been trying to wrest control of Tyson from his manager, Bill Cayton, arrived with Tyson and hovered over the champion for most of the news conference promoting the Julio Cesar ChaverJose Luis Ramicrez Lightweight title fight.
“Meand Don King have mad ideal and we’re partners in promotion,” said Tyson, who seemed to enjoy helping publicize a fight over than his own,
At one point the Champion scooped up the beautiful, scantily-clad young sister of ‘Chavez for a publicity shot and readily gave in to calls for him to kiss her.
The Champion, scheduled to fight Briton Frank Bruno in January refused to discuss his partnership with King, whom Tyson said just a few months ago he did not trust.
But Tyson recently stayed with King at his training camp in Ohio and has made several public appearances with the promoter as the Chamion’s relationship with Cayton appeared to be deteriorating once again.
King is still the only promoter of record for the Chavez-Ramirez fight, but calling Tyson a co-promoter may be a shrewd move in his pursuit of the Tyson money ‘machine,
King refused to discuss details of the Co-promotion with Tyson, but at one point took the microphone from the champion ‘and said: “Thank you partner.”
Article extracted from this publication >> November 4, 1988
