After the positive reception to his legends’ exhibition vs. Roy Jones Jr., Iron Mike says “it will be better this time”.
Boxer’s story of the situation with the 2020 pandemic was perhaps the return of 54-year-old Mike Tyson and 51-year-old Roy Jones Jr. against each other in a unique exhibition struggle. I’ll be back in 2021 to do it again, says Iron Mike.
Tyson and Jones went at it for eight two-minute rounds that were far more interesting and far less uncomfortable than many anticipated on Nov. 28 in California.
Before the bout, Mike — who along with Jones got back into tremendous shape for the project — had repeatedly claimed the bout would hopefully be the catalyst for a “legends league” of famous ex-sports stars to return to their respective trades in various capacities.
“The Baddest Man On The Planet” on an Instagram Live with Patrick Mouratoglou claimed that not only is interest high in his plans, but he will be at the thick of it all to box at least one more time.
“We started Legends Only League and it’s really interesting,” said Mike. “Once I announced that I was going to do my exhibition, everybody, all these other athletes all wanted to get involved in some way”.
“Our first show was a record breaker. Now everybody’s interested in being involved with our whole organisation.”
Given boxing’s unsavoury history of broke ageing fighters returning to fight out of necessity, the initial announcement of Mike vs. Jones was met with a prevailing sense of dread — particularly as Jones only spent a cup of coffee at Mike’s career division of heavyweight.
Nonetheless, the two produced an entertaining and relatively safe battle, and though no official winner was permitted by the licencing entities, the WBC brought in three other former pro boxers to ultimately score it an unofficial draw.
“It was interesting,” Mike Tyson added. “I felt really good, I felt confident. I felt that I could do it again.”
This led to the following question: would he repeat all that in 2021?
“Yeah, absolutely,” answered Mike. “It’ll be better this time.”
The choice for his opponent, should Mike Tyson partake in another exhibition, is old friend and former nemesis Evander Holyfield. Holyfield won a controversial battle between the two in their primes on Nov. 9, 1996 due to Holyfield’s tendency to make repeated head-to-head contact. And their rematch on Jun. 27, 1997 descended into flat-out farce when Mike chose to bite a chunk out of Holyfield’s ear, seemingly in retaliation for the head-butts.
Both have expressed an interest in an unofficial trilogy fight, though the two are now on good terms.
