Paying You with Your Money

 There’s a great story in the world of boxing which takes place sometime in 2003. It involved a physical altercation between Mike Tyson, who was at the time one of the most feared boxers on the planet and Don King, the most famous boxing promoter.

The story is simple. Mike Tyson was at the time, in heavy debt. He was financially challenged at the time and when Mr. King called him to talk about some fights, which meant more money, it seemed exciting. However, after doing some cocaine, Mr. Tyson has the realization that Mr. King is screwing him, using money “stolen” from Mr. Tyson to treat Mr. Tyson to luxurious ride on the plane. The story as told by Mr. Tyson can be found below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrmZOWrql7A

 

In a way, the relationship between Mr. King and Mr. Tyson is the parallel of the relationship between ordinary folk and the “elite.” As dominant a force that Mr. Tyson way, the real power in the world of boxing was Mr. King. In fairness to Don King, he did make fighters like Mike Tyson very rich. However, he also exploited them. They had to fight who he told them to fight and more importantly, he had a talent for shortchanging them. One of the saddest examples was in Mr. King’s relationship with Tim Witherspoon, who two heavy weight champions before Mike Tyson. Mr. Witherspoon was promised and won large purses. However, Mr. King had tied him up in so many contracts that obliged him to give most of his purse back to Mr. King.

In a way, you can’t begrudge Don King his money. He’s the guy who takes the risk and comes up with the audacious fights and promotes them to the paying public – just think “Rumble in the Jungle” and “Thrilla in Manilla.” He was the one who brought these classics and made them happen.

If you think of Mr. King as being like the start up founder that proves successful, its hard to begrudge him making more money than the workers. He was the one who came up with the idea and made it happen. He’s the one who took the risk and so should be rewarded for the success because he could have easily bore the brunt of failure.

However, in where Mr. King’s relationship with all his fighters’ turned sour was that he wasn’t just making money from promoting boxing matches. He was exploiting them by making them sign all their rights over to him and using his power over the regulators to ensure that they had to do whatever he told them to do. Take his relationship with Mr. Witherspoon as an example. Mr. King arranged for a fight with British boxer, Frank Bruno, which Mr. Witherspoon won. Whilst Mr. Witherspoon was supposed to have collected in excess of a million dollars, he only received $90,000 because Don King had charged him for all sorts of fees, whereas Mr. Bruno who wasn’t promoted by Don King earned ten times the amount.

So, here’s the point. Whilst nobody denies the “elite” a larger share of the pie, especially if they had a role in creating the said pie, there is a resentment that builds up when the “elite” earn their status by screwing over the ordinary workers or the guys doing the actual work.

In the case of boxing its obvious who is doing the work. It’ the boxers whom people are paying to see. Unfortunately, this isn’t limited to boxing. Take construction as an example. If you look at Singapore’s construction industry as an example, you’ll realise that for many companies, the real money in the construction industry isn’t in building things. It’s in labour exploitation, where you pay third world wages to the construction workers but then charging for things like accommodation and selling them insurance policies. In the meantime, you justify it by saying that you’re paying them more than what they’d dream of back home in the same way that Mr. Don King would always argue that he was making fighters like Mohammad Ali, Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson very rich.

All this is well, as long as the ordinary folk are distracted. However, as in the case of Mr. Tyson’s epiphany moment, the ordinary folk, do, from time to time wake up and do their sums. Its at this moment, where the power elite that its in their interest to share a little more of the pie or lessen the abuses as the ordinary workers have a way of hitting back if they feel they’re being screwed over in the same way that Mr. Tyson lashed out when he realized he was being screwed over.