The Return of Mike Tyson | Ivan Chen

It has been over ten years since we saw Mike Tyson step into a boxing ring. Until now, many believed he put the sport behind him and moved on. Recently, however, “ Iron” Mike Tyson posted a few videos of him hitting some boxing pads at the beginning of 2020 which caused boxing fans to go crazy over the internet. In 2019, he went onto Joe Rogan’s podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” stating that he does not like to workout at the gym or even box because he is afraid it would reignite his ego. In 2008, Mike Tyson physically looked out of shape but in the new video he posted, the former WBC Heavyweight champion looked stronger and faster than ever. In August of 2020, it was announced that he would be boxing in an exhibition match against Roy Jones Jr, another elite heavyweight boxer of his generation.

Both Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. have posted numerous videos of their speed and power on their respective social media platforms.  In the boxing videos, it is evident that Mike Tyson still has the speed he had when he was younger and also the explosive power. However, in Roy Jones Jr’s. videos, he does not appear to have a lot of power due to his age constraints, but instead, he makes up for that with a lot of speed. Many people have mixed feelings of both men returning to boxing. Some people believe they have nothing to prove to the sport and do not want either men to get hurt due to their age. Others believe that they should step in the ring one more time because it draws more eyes to the sport and many boxing fans want to see Mike Tyson deliver another astonishing knockout.  Unlike a typical twelve round fight, this exhibition match will only be 8 rounds long. Many fans doubt the fight will go the distance because both men are knockout artists in the ring. The fear people have with this matchup is someone will end up severely damaged. Every fighter will say “ you can’t box” because it can come with serious, permanent consequences with enough damage done to the brain.

With a good match up, there also comes conflict. The bout was scheduled to happen on September 12, 2020 but got pushed back to November 28, 2020. Mike’s manager and the host of the fight, Thriller, wanted to see how COVID-19 would look like later on this year in order to have a chance of drawing in a crowd to watch the fight. To add on, an event this big would need time to make its money worth by pay per view streams, so they wanted to build the fight up longer. Although it is uncertain whether there will be a crowd watching by November, one thing that is certain is there will be a high demand for pay per views. However, Roy Jones Jr. threatened to pull out of the fight because he said he already agreed on September 12. He told the press that he wanted to do other things the rest of 2020 but now is unable to because the fight got pushed back. We have not heard from him since, but all that is known is that both men are training and dedicating their time for their last boxing match in November.