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May 24, 2004 JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — Flamboyant American boxing promotor Don King met South African
former president Nelson Mandela, whom he called a "great man" who was a great pugilist in his youth.
"We are gathered here to pay tribute to a great, great man," King said standing next to Mandela, who returned to South Africa earlier Monday after attending the wedding of Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz of Spain.
"As you know Madiba (Mandela's clan name) was a great boxer," King said as he briefly met the Nobel peace laureate at his foundation's offices in Johannesburg.
King is in South Africa on a week-long visit at the invitation of local boxing promotors and attended a five-bout match at a casino east of Johannesburg over the weekend.
He wore a T-shirt with the number 46664, Mandela's prison number which has become the symbol for a fund-raising campaign in the fight against AIDS, and waved two miniature South African and American flags.
Mandela said the United States had an important role to play in world politics.
"The United States, the most powerful state in the world, has an important role to play in promoting peace in the world," he told reporters.
Mandela joined a boxing club at the Donaldson Orlando Community Centre in Soweto township southwest of Johannesburg in 1950, but never rated himself as an outstanding boxer.
"I was in the heavyweight division," Mandela recalls in his autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom".
"I had neither enough power to compensate for my lack of speed, nor enough speed to make up for my lack of power," he said.
© 2004 AFP
