In one of the recent episodes of his popular podcast, Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson, the former world champion shared some unknown facts about his tattoo. It must have left many of his fans startled, for sure. His guests, rappers Blueface and Chrisean Rock, appeared bemused when he told them what he planned to do but that it eventually never turned out that way.

After the infamous ‘Bite Fight,’ when he chewed chunks of Evander Holyfield‘s right ear, Mike Tyson was suspended from boxing. He could rejoin only by 1999 and won a couple of fights for the next three years. However, his last attempt to capture world titles failed against Lennox Lewis in 2002. Then, on February 22, 2003, he met Clifford Etienne at the Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee.

Mike Tyson and the tattoo stories

As far as the bout went, he won it by knocking out Etienne in the first round. It was to be his last professional victory. But before the fight, he got for himself what is now one of his most recognizable features.

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So around the twenty-sixth-minute mark, Blueface asked Tyson, “Yeah, what inspired the tattoo, though, huh, I never forgot about that.”

Tyson shot back, “Oh, nice one to put that through my face…” Soon his co-host, footballer Sebastian Joseph-Day, also asked what it meant. The youngest Heavyweight champion replied, “It means I’ll kick his a**...” And everybody stater laughing. Joseph-Day then checked with the rapper about his face tattoos. The latter shared that his idea was to have something like a natural face instead of an abstract one, like the one on Tyson’s face.

That’s when Tyson revealed that he planned to cover his face with tattoos. Blueface interjected and asked, “Who stopped you? Your wife?” ‘Iron’ Mike responded in the affirmative, adding, “She said; I want to see who I’m loving, some s**t like that…”

Legend has it that Mike Tyson intended to have heart tattoos all over his face so he could call himself ‘The Man of Hearts.’ Fortunately, he was talked out of it by legendary tattooist Victor Whitmill and instead got a tribal design. According to a documentary about him, dubbed ‘Tyson,‘ he discussed the tattoo. The ink, according to him, represents his ‘warrior status.’

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Which is your favorite Mike Tyson fight? Do let us know your views and opinions in the comments section below.