He said it!
The former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Mike Tyson, affirmed that he would have tried MMA if he could have. BOOM! That’s all we needed to hear in Tyson’s interview on UFC Tonight.
“That would’ve been awesome,” reveals Tyson about fighting MMA. “I think I would have. My ego would have told me, ‘you’re the best fighter in all the world in all particular fighting aspects’ and I would have tried it.”
MMA fans are not complicated. When the subject of a former or current famous athlete is brought up in the cagefighting world, the one and only thing that fight fans really need to know, would they have considered lacing up the 4 ounce gloves and entering the Octagon? And, if the answer is “yes” then God bless them and they’re accepted into loving embrace of UFC fans everywhere. Whether it is Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown or the excellence of execution Bret “The Hitman” Hart, if a time machine were available to make it happen, would they have considered trying it?
Besides that, “Iron Mike” tackled a few other questions from Chael Sonnen and Kenny Florian. First, the most important thing legendary boxing trainer Cus D’Amato taught Tyson was determination. Second, the face of the greatest Nintendo sports game of all time said he couldn’t weigh-in on whether Junior dos Santos could beat a Klitschko brother in a boxing match because Tyson’s never seen dos Santos in a boxing match. Third, Tyson mentions, “Everything that happens has been ordained by God”, which was prompted by a Florian query about time travel and making changes to his life.
Lastly, once known as “Kid Dynamite” explains what a fighter needs most to be any good at it.
“To be the best fighter, I believe you have to have fear,” asserts Tyson. “Without fear, you have basically no way of challenging yourself. There always needs to be that fear factor to make you go to the next level. Because if you don’t have any fear in losing that position then you’re going to lose that position.”
