“Little Regard for Boxing”: Al Haymon’s “Radical” Move Destroyed Mike Tyson’s Run as Promoter, Reveals Former Business Partner

Mike Tyson retired from the world of professional boxing in 2005. After his last fight against Kevin Mcbride, Tyson’s parting words were, “As soon as I was getting beat on I realized I don’t think I have it anymore. I got the ability to stay in shape, but I don’t got the fighting guts, I don’t think anymore….I’m not an animal anymore. Yeah, most likely I’m not going to fight again.” After stepping away from the ring in 2005, barring occasional visits to witness notable boxing events, Tyson was not associated with the business side of the sport by any stretch of the imagination. Still recovering from a bankruptcy that happened in 2003, ‘Iron Mike’ looked to other avenues like acting in movies and TV shows, to regain his financial footing. Also, who could forget Tyson’s very own one-man stage show: “The Undisputed Truth” which played in several cities around the world?

But it wasn’t until 2013 that Tyson was tempted to step back into the sport of boxing when his former business partner Garry Jonas floated the idea of heading a promotional company called “Iron Mike Productions”. Having been ripped off millions of dollars in fight earnings by his own promoter Don King, Tyson’s company’s motto was to always keep the fighters’ best interest as their first priority. However, it had to abruptly cease operations. But why? In a recent interview on Thaboxingvoice, the owner of Probox TV, a streaming service dedicated to boxing, revealed that Al Haymon and his promotional company, PBC, engaged in shady business dealings that led to the shutdown of his and Tyson’s pet project.

Garry Jonas was the CEO of Iron Mike Productions. Together with Tyson, he looked after the day-to-day functions and business operations of the company. IMP boasted an impressive stable of fighters who were willing to put their careers in the hands of a man who had a decade of experience in the brutal world of boxing. Tyson’s treasure trove of fight knowledge must have attracted the new generation of fighters who wanted to see their professional careers set off in the right direction. But, what went wrong? Well, let’s begin from the start.

Jonas started off the interview by giving a brief synopsis of how the company started and then providing a list of fighters who were associated with the now-defunct company. “I just decided, you know what, let me go to Mike Tyson and see if he wants to be my partner…. maybe he’ll join forces with me and we’ll open up doors at Showtime and HBO….um I worked to a degree we had a good run. Signed Ericson Lubin the day he turned 18.. um Sammy Vasquez Jr, we had champions in [Juan Carlos] Payano and [Argenis] Mendez. .uh…Felix Diaz, a gold medalist, we had quite a stable and a bunch of guys ranked at the top five,” recalled Garry Jonas.

But, things started to go south when all the major broadcast companies back in the day like Showtime, and ESPN called Jonas to inform him that they didn’t want to do business with him anymore. Upon further inquiry, Tyson’s former business partner found out that Al Haymon’s PBC had bought “out all the TV time.”

Mike Tyson and the straw that broke the camel’s back!

“What happened was (investment firm) Waddell and Reed and PBC-Al Haymon got together and they bought out all the TV time. They bought it! Normally they pay us. Now they were paying them. So that’s a radical move. We had no more TV time,” he revealed on the podcast.

With the lack of media exposure for their fighters, and frustrated by such a predatory business tactic, Jonas got on a call with his then-business partner Tyson and decided to wind up operations. “I called Mike….I said Mike, ‘We’ve got 10 guys in the top five and we don’t have TV for them.’ So he said ‘All right’. I said I don’t want to be in this business if that’s what can happen. So TV has that little regard for the industry of boxing and would do such a thing. Let’s get out of here,” he lamented. And that was the end of Tyson’s promotional stint.

But what about the company’s fighters? They decided to eventually move their stable of pugilists under the care of the man who had bought out the television time – Al Haymon, and the PBC. He said, “I said I’ll bring them to Haymon, follow the money, let them…let them prosper over at Haymon’s. And we took 12 fighters on one day to Al Haymon’s side of the fence and um let them operate there and they all did very well.”

Such tactics have brought Al Haymon’s PBC into conflict with other promotional companies as well including Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions. In 2015, Top Rank even fined a $100 million antitrust lawsuit against Al Haymon’s PBC which then had to be later settled out of court. With such predatory tactics existing, no wonder, Mike Tyson was initially hesitant to enter the business of boxing once he left it in 2005. What do you think about Al Haymon’s business moves? Or, do you think it was a fair move considering the highly competitive world of professional boxing? Let us know in the comment section below.