Michael Jai White doesn’t mind Mike Tyson trashing the biopic in which he played the former heavyweight champion. The Hollywood mega-star played Tyson in a 1995 made-for-TV HBO biopic, which was described as “garbage” by ‘Iron Mike’. However, the New Yorker was more charitable about White’s performance and has spoken highly of it.

The Hollywood superstar recently spoke about his mindset and experience of playing Tyson in the film and how he had to fight to play the version of ‘Iron Mike’ that has been praised by the man himself.

‘MJW’ explains why he identified with Mike Tyson before playing him

Speaking to Zab Judah about the biopic starring White, Mike Tyson had praised the ‘Spawn’ star for his performance, saying: “Well he [White] did a good job, I think the film was garbage, you know.” And speaking to ‘Vlad TV’ on YouTube for an interview, White revealed that he felt it “was a tremendous compliment” coming from the champ, especially because “it’s hard to pull it [playing someone so famous] off.”

White was sympathetic to Tyson not liking the film, observing that watching someone else play him on screen “must be weird, right.” The actor feels a particular affinity to Mike Tyson, given their martial arts background (White holds black belts in seven martial arts), shared experiences, and similar life paths, to the point that he was called ‘Mike Tyson’ by many when he was a teenager. This is why the ‘Never Back Down’ star ‘fought’ to play a realistic and authentic version of Tyson.

“Yeah but when I was doing it, I fought for his side because I felt like I understood and I identified, you know, there’s like so many things that were so parallel in our lives, yeah. You know, so it’s like you know my thing was I’m going to do it the best way I can, you know, but yeah, it was great to hear from him that he dug it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tyson has even more reasons to like White since he is one of the few people who think Jake Paul is in serious trouble going into his boxing match with the legendary boxer despite ‘The Problem Child’ being three decades younger than the cultural icon.

Michael Jai White thinks Jake Paul will lose to Tyson

Asked about the upcoming controversial boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, White, a veritable martial artist, had a surprising take. ‘Iron Mike’, 57 will face ‘The Problem Child’, 27 in eight two-minute rounds professional boxing match on July 20 in Arlington, Texas. The event will be live-streamed on Netflix and may become the most-viewed combat sports event of all time given Netflix’s global reach and massive audience size.

Tyson’s advanced age and bevy of health issues have many concerned that the bout will be a mismatch in Paul’s favor, who looks to be in his athletic prime and is coming off three victories last year alone. White, however, thinks that the former heavyweight champion’s natural size and strength will prove too much for Paul, whose body would be an obvious target for Tyson.

“I don’t see how Jake pulls this off. I see Mike Tyson punching him in the body, and I don’t see how Jake stops that. I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to stop [Mike]. Mike hits him in the body; the body [doesn’t] move that much; I don’t see how Jake survives a body attack personally. Are you kidding me? He’s only 200! Oh gee, it’s worse than I thought!” ‘MJW’ told DJ Vlad.

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