Don King posts $1 million in two duffel bags to stop Mayorga fight
How badly did Don King want to stop Ricardo Mayorga from fighting at “Shine Fights Worlds Collide” against Din Thomas? Enough to post one million dollars for the injunction.
After winning an emergency injunction Saturday afternoon over a rival promoter and one of his fighters that was attempting to participate on Saturday night in a M.M.A. match in Fayetteville, N.C., Don King had one last hurdle to clear: Florida state law required him to post a bond that Broward County Circuit Court Judge Marc H. Gold determined at $1 million. And he had to do it within two hours.
With most businesses that would help him conduct a transaction of this magnitude not operating on a Saturday, King departed the Ft. Lauderdale courthouse and returned prior to the deadline to present the judge with two duffel bags containing $1 million in cash to fulfill his obligation to the court.
“I felt like I was Clint Eastwood in a movie, speeding down the highway with a fistful of dollars,” the 78-year-old King said after successfully posting the bond.
King’s attorneys, Robert Zarco and Alex Brito of the Miami-based law firm Zarco, Einhorn, Salkowski & Brito, argued the case successfully.
“Pursuant to the Judge’s Order issued this afternoon, the M.M.A. promoter in question and Ricardo Mayorga are specifically ordered by the court from proceeding with tonight’s previously announced main event appearance by Mayorga in Fayetteville, North Carolina,” Zarco said.
The M.M.A. promoters would be wise to heed the words spoken by Judge Gold from his bench when told that the event in Fayetteville may go on regardless of his decision.
“If my orders are disobeyed, there will be serious sanctions from this court,” Gold said.
In the end it looks like Shine Fights would have been in more trouble then a civil lawsuit from Don King and his production company, they also could have risked defying the judge and possibly lost their license to fight in Florida as well.