Daily Inspiration Quote by Dick Schaap

The sting here is in the casual arithmetic: “on balance.” Schaap, a journalist who covered boxing when it was both pop spectacle and organized chaos, weighs Don King the way a bookie sizes up odds. It’s not moral grandstanding; it’s a ledger. King isn’t branded a villain outright. He’s conceded “some very good things” and even praised for “a heck of a job” with Ali. Then Schaap twists the knife with a deceptively plain follow-up: “but I think I could have promoted Ali.”

That line is doing double duty. On its face, it’s a reporter’s ego flex. Underneath, it’s a demystification of King’s mythology. Ali was a once-in-a-century engine of charisma, controversy, and narrative momentum. Schaap implies that Ali didn’t need King’s genius so much as he needed any competent megaphone. By suggesting the job was easy, Schaap strips King of his signature claim: that he “made” events rather than opportunistically attaching himself to forces already in motion.

Context matters: the King era professionalized hype and monetized chaos, but it also sharpened boxing’s reputation for exploitation, crooked deals, and fighters getting the short end. Schaap’s measured phrasing mirrors the sport’s own ambiguity - boxing can’t fully quit its carnival barkers because they sell the dream, yet it pays for them in credibility. The subtext is a warning about gatekeepers: when the promoter becomes the story, the sport starts to look less like competition and more like extraction dressed up as entertainment.