EAR WE GO AGAIN!
Tyson-holyfield III would be knockout, as Benn tells Iron Mike: Forget age... go for it
BOXING
MIKE TYSON is absolutely right to return to the ring at the age of 53 if he has an itch that needs scratching.
That’s the view of the 56-year-old ‘Dark Destroyer’ Nigel Benn, who was himself close to a comeback late last year before a shoulder injury put paid to his hopes of fighting Sakio Bika.
Tyson has looked in fine fettle in videos which have surfaced online of him doing pad work with trainer Rafael Cordeiro during lockdown.
And that’s come at a time when his nemesis from the Nineties, Evander Holyfield, 57, has also revealed his plans to come out of retirement.
Holyfield has fanned the flames of a trilogy fight, if Tyson is open to it, saying he’d be happy to share a ring again if it were for charity.
The prospect of the contest has split opinion within the sport, with many fearing for Tyson’s health if he does try to come back.
But Benn empathises completely with a fighter once known as “the baddest man on the planet”.
Benn (above) said: “My advice to Mike is that he has got to do what he believes in.
“He looked absolutely sharp on the pads, but that is only for 20 seconds – what’s it going to be like for 10 rounds? “I know he likes to have a cigarette now and then, but, you know what, if he wants to do it, I back him 100 per cent. “Because nobody knows what a fighter goes through, nobody knows what Mike Tyson has been through. “I can relate to him because of a lot of the madness that we had in our lives. “Now he’s away from it, he probably thinks he’s a better person. “He was invincible, but all of a sudden it all went wrong for him. “He had this problem, he had that problem, he had the rape case, he had panic issues, he had a lot of things to live up to. “So he’s now probably rid of all of that. He must be thinking he’s in the right state of mind. “I can’t knock him because I was actually in the same boat. I don’t think the return is about success, it’s just about sometimes we want to get it out of our system.
“We never know the full picture until he actually steps out there.”
Tyson – who was convicted of rape in 1992 and served less than three years of a six-year sentence – lost his WBA World heavyweight title to Holyfield when the pair first met in Las Vegas in 1996.
They returned to the same MGM Grand arena the following year and Holyfield successfully defended his title.
Meanwhile, Benn has also hailed Iron Mike’s namesake, Tyson Fury, for exposing who Deontay Wilder really is as a fighter.
Benn said: “Tyson Fury exposed Wilder and showed how mediocre he really was and that he really only has a big punch.
“Wilder has no boxing skill whatsoever, he needs to go back to the drawing board.
“You can’t just rely on a big punch – and he got exposed so easily by Fury.”
He had problems and issues, but Mike is probably rid of all that