A knockout artist for the ages has awoken from his slumber. Remember, the impassioned speech directed at Lennox Lewis after ‘Iron Mike’ dismantled Lou Savarese in just 38 seconds in the squared circle at the turn of the twentieth century? “I’m Alexander. He’s no Alexander. I’m the best ever. There’s never been anybody as ruthless. I’m Sonny Liston. I’m Jack Dempsey. There’s no one like me. I’m from their cloth. There’s no one that can match me.” Mike Tyson proclaimed to Showtime’s Jim Gray during the ringside interview. Well, the post-retirement, pot-smoking mellowed down Tyson has switched back to his gladiatorial mode. However, there is a caveat. Tyson is pushing sixty and will be going up against a young up-and-coming star who harbors dreams of becoming a world champion.

‘The Baddest Man on the Planet’ will face Jake Paul at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on November 15, 2024. Initially, the fight was supposed to take place on July 20 but it has been rescheduled due to Tyson’s medical emergency induced by a stomach ulcer flare-up on a flight in May. The 30+ age difference between the fighters along with Tyson’s various health complications raised concerns among the boxing community. It has prompted the former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder to say “he’s too old for this”. But Tyson who is currently in his “I’m Alexander” mode, wouldn’t let the perceived insult slide.

Embodying an emperor’s ego

In his pre-fight press conference, Tyson has expressed in no uncertain terms that the world will be in for a shocker on November 15. He was confident that he would emerge victorious against Jake Paul and prove his naysayers wrong. Lately, responding to Wilder’s comments on him, Tyson gave the 38-year-old boxer a reality check about the extent of the fame he garnered through his impeccable boxing prowess. “He can’t go to Mongolia and have somebody know who the f*ck he is,”  Tyson said in an interview with Esquire.

Tyson’s intimation to Wilder: Mind your own business! “Worried I will get hurt? Then let Mike get hurt. You don’t have to worry about paying my bills. Everyone says this makes no sense, but he’s how old? Wilder is not who I am,” he remarked.

The former heavyweight champion’s hunger for glory was palpable in the interview. In the fight game for the “f*cking status”, he conveyed to the wider public that he enjoyed the chatter around him, whether negative or positive, ahead of the Jake Paul fight. “I’d rather live a short life of glory than a long life of obscurity,” he said confidently.

As for Wilder, he objected to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations’ motive to commission the matchup as a professional bout. Expressing his concern about Tyson potentially getting badly hurt in the fight, ‘The Bronze Bomber’ opined, “At the end of the day, no one gives a f— about Mike. People can get hit in the wrong place and at the wrong time, there’s lots of examples where guys have been hit into a coma. It’s easy to do. He’s too old for this.”

Meanwhile, Tyson has said that he will be taking the help of psychedelics to prepare for the Jake Paul fight.

A date with God!

Tyson has been very candid about using mind-altering drugs. According to the interview he gave to Esquire magazine, Mike plans to ingest 5-MeO-DMT or “The Toad” before his fight against ‘The Problem Child’, to embark on a “one-way trip to meet God”. Reportedly, he has used psychedelics close to over a hundred times, and he wouldn’t mind a divine experience before he steps into the squared circle once again.

In 2020, ‘Iron Mike’ was even spotted consuming four grams of magic mushrooms on Logan Paul’s podcast Impaulsive. He revealed in the podcast that the psychedelic drug made him a better version of himself, and he was even on mushrooms while training for the exhibition fight against Roy Jones Jr in 2020.

“It makes you pretty objective for what’s really going on and mushrooms really tell you that you’re nothing. Even the mushrooms in the daytime, you take in, and the earth starts moving. You look at the ground, it’s moving. You look at the plants and the trees, they’re moving. They’re doing something. It’s absolutely insane,” ‘Iron Mike’ said about the drug’s positive influence on his life.

Nonetheless, can a 58-year-old Mike Tyson get the better of a 27-year-old Jake Paul? More so, do you think taking “The Toad” would help the former heavyweight champion get the edge over Jake Paul? Let us know in the comment section below.