Mike Tyson talks fantasy matchup vs. Ali, Dana White and more
Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson chats with Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole about his new career as a businessman, positive changes in his life and what he thinks of UFC president Dana White.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
KEVIN IOLE: Hey, folks. I am Kevin Iole with Yahoo Sports. And I have covered fights for many, many years. And I don't get asked questions about anybody more than my next guest, the former heavyweight champion of the world and, I should mention, the World Boxing Super Series, EA Sports "Fight Night" champ of the world, beating Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson. How are you, Mike?
MIKE TYSON: Thank you. I'm doing well. Thank you, Kevin.
KEVIN IOLE: Did you happen to see that the World Boxing Super Series put on that virtual tournament? They did it with EA Sports, video game, and they had you-- and you beat Muhammad Ali in the finals.
MIKE TYSON: Kev, unfortunately, I had no idea what's going on till you just mentioned it. I'm just so far from that kind of stuff. But I know it's a fantasy game. So I-- most likely, I will win the fantasy. I wouldn't win the real fight, but the fantasy fight is good. [LAUGHS]
KEVIN IOLE: So you and Ali, you wouldn't beat Ali?
MIKE TYSON: Ali is the greatest that ever lived.
KEVIN IOLE: I'm with you there. Mike, I was looking at your Instagram the other day, and I wanted to start with this. You got a million things going on. But I thought it was really kind of a cool thing. You're raising some money for charity for people who are affected by the COVID-19 situation. You're selling some T-shirts, Wash Your Damn Hands. Tell me about that. Who's it going to benefit? How'd you come up with that idea?
MIKE TYSON: Well, listen, my wife is really the idealist in the family. And she thought this would be awesome. And I [INAUDIBLE] with her. So it's really her idea, and I'm just supporting it. I thought it was really funny.
KEVIN IOLE: Well, I'm going to get a couple of those to give away to people that I have on, because I thought they were pretty good. I like those. Do you have one? Are you going to be wearing one around.
MIKE TYSON: Absolutely. My wife is going to make me wear one. I'm surprised she didn't make me wear one today.
KEVIN IOLE: Ha, ha. Yeah, that would have been good. That would have been good advertising. What is it like for you, by the way-- your podcast has really taken off. I saw you have over a million subscribers, "Hotboxin' with Mike Tyson." And I wrote down some of the guests, and they're not just fighters, and of course, you know, one of my favorite fighters, Sugar Ray Leonard. But you had Michael Franzese from the mafia on there to Holyfield, of course, Tyson Fury, Mickey Rourke. You just had, I saw, Justin Gaethje. You just interviewed Justin Gaethje--
MIKE TYSON: Yes, I did.
KEVIN IOLE: --Dana White. What is this like being on the other side? You're probably the most interviewed person since Ali died. What is it like being on the other side, being the guy asking the questions?
MIKE TYSON: Being on the other side, you get a opportunity to be able to examine the person that you're interviewing, and you get a perspective that you thought you never would possess if you never did that interview.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: I have people who I went in there with kind of a funny attitude, and I left really respecting them and really wanting to be involved in their life.
KEVIN IOLE: And it's been-- have you enjoyed the whole process of doing this? Because you're creating another business empire almost. You made your money in boxing. You made your fame in boxing. Now you're doing all these different things that are kind of giving your second career, so to speak, going.
MIKE TYSON: Absolutely. But I pay-- I give most of my credit to "Hotboxin'," because doing this situation-- listen, a guy like me, I never had a high school education. So I'm in a position of teaching, so to speak, right?
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: And by no means-- I feel like I'm a idiot, so I'm a idiot teaching, right? And then when I get into perspective, when I think I'm teaching, I realize I start to learn.
KEVIN IOLE: So you're learning yourself from doing it.
MIKE TYSON: Yes, by thinking that I am a teacher. And that's the-- I believe that's the whole idea of being the teacher before you'd be able to learn.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: By believing that you're teaching, you start to learn. And I've learned a lot, so to speak.
KEVIN IOLE: That's fascinating. I want to get into some of the other things you're doing. Obviously, the one-man show's kind of on hold while we got the pandemic going on.
But I want to just talk to you a little bit about fighting. And I mentioned Justin Gaethje. He said, oh, I'll get into that UFC fight in a second. But I want to ask you if you remember something. When you fought Clifford Etienne in 2003, you had a body double show up in Memphis, Tennessee. So everybody was waiting for you to arrive. You had just gotten a tattoo on your face. Everybody wanted to see that tattoo. And another guy comes off the plane that looked like you, that wasn't you, but everybody thought it was you.
MIKE TYSON: That's so crazy.
KEVIN IOLE: Do you remember? And how the hell did that happen?
MIKE TYSON: I don't know. People are crazy. I don't know. I don't even remember that stuff, man. But yeah.
It's interesting, when you're young, and you got the spotlight on yourself, so to speak, and you take yourself serious.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: Then I realized as time went on-- and I'm, what, 54-- and I've realized I was really a joke, and I was taking myself serious. And that's why I was just so reckless in life is taking yourself too serious.
KEVIN IOLE: I thought that was a good one, because you did-- it was really a great misdirection. I think you went into Mississippi to get up to Memphis. And everybody showed up at the Memphis airport, and there was Clifford Couser, who always kind of billed himself as your half-brother. I don't know if he was actually related to you, but--
MIKE TYSON: Kevin, I don't even know Clifford! And Clifford don't know no one in my family.
KEVIN IOLE: [LAUGHS] But I remember back in the day-- you know, he's from Las Vegas. And back in the day, he would say he was your half-brother and all this. And he looked remarkably like you. It was great.
MIKE TYSON: Listen, Kevin, this guy, Clifford, he's got movie deals. He's got so many jobs that I could never get that he got acting like me.
KEVIN IOLE: [LAUGHS]
MIKE TYSON: Isn't that something?
KEVIN IOLE: You are making money for everybody, my friend. That is a great one.
MIKE TYSON: Oh, god.
KEVIN IOLE: Do you ever-- I know your boxing career was kind of turbulent. And it was difficult to be in the spotlight you were in. I can only imagine what that must have been like. But just the boxing itself-- forget all the stuff that goes around it-- do you ever miss the fighting itself?
MIKE TYSON: Absolutely not, because by fighting-- learning that fighting just gave me a platform to do what I want and to be who I want now. And no, I don't think about the fights that much. I don't think about them, because that was all ego, pretty much, infused back then. And I'm at the state of my life now where my ego is in proper perspective, so to speak.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: So it doesn't-- anything associated with my ego, I don't really have a connection with. Does that make sense?
KEVIN IOLE: No, I get you. I get you. So it's like, you've learned-- you talked about before, being a teacher, you learned from your earlier career, and you're applying it to life, what you're doing right now.
MIKE TYSON: Absolutely. I'm trying to-- know what I want so desperately that I never possessed?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
MIKE TYSON: I said, what is that I want so desperately that I never actually possessed in my private, my life? And that is I don't know what is the balance.
KEVIN IOLE: Balance in your life?
MIKE TYSON: Yeah, and standards. I never had those two things, and now I'm possessing them. I look at my past life as almost like a Neanderthal lifestyle.
KEVIN IOLE: Hm. You know, the other night on, what was it, Tuesday night, ESPN2 had Muhammad Ali fights, and then they had a bunch of your fights. Is that something you would even turn on? Like, if you knew it was on, would you sit and watch it, or no?
MIKE TYSON: No, not unless somebody was at my house and say, hey, Mike, check this out, or check this out.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: If somebody who knows me said, hey, look how well you moved your head, and say, look how you're not moving your head, and then you get hit with jabs [INAUDIBLE].
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: Definitely I don't want to watch it with somebody like that, because he's going go pick out all my flaws. [LAUGHS]
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah. I actually tweet-- I tweeted-- I think they were showing your fight with Larry Holmes. And I tweeted during that. I said, the thing about Tyson that made him so great as a fighter, not just that power and your quickness that you had, but you had such good upper body movement. Your head and upper body movement was fantastic in those fights. And Larry wasn't able to land a jab on you so much, because you were moving a lot.
MIKE TYSON: Well, my trainer [INAUDIBLE] was a strong believer in defense. He didn't believe in-- he just thought that smart fighters lived longer.
KEVIN IOLE: Hm. That is ama-- and you did great defensively early. But did you feel like as your career went on that maybe you relied just on that-- you had that ability to knock somebody out with one punch-- that you went away from the defense and more toward offense?
MIKE TYSON: [INAUDIBLE] because at that time I-- when you want a easy life, you have to work hard.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: When you want a easy life, you don't have to work hard, but-- you know what I mean?
KEVIN IOLE: Mm-hm.
MIKE TYSON: But that's what I used to do in the beginning. I wanted to have a easy life, so I worked hard. So then I got where I wanted to accomplish my goals, so to speak. I became champion. I defended my title 10, 11 times. The world knew who I was. And then I searched for other goals. I wanted to be seen in other kinds of lights and other perspective. My ego was just overwhelming me, and I was being consumed with it.
KEVIN IOLE: You know, Mike, you're obviously a smart guy, and you've read a ton of books, and you've done things. You just weren't educated, right? If you had been come up in, say, in the suburbs and had gone to-- you know, gone to college, got a high school education, gone to college, you know, and weren't a fighter, like, what do you think you would have done? Like, what were the things that you were interested in that you look back on that you might have missed out on that would have been different than the path you chose?
MIKE TYSON: Well, I didn't choose this path. Somebody else choose this path. I'm not one of the people in my life that believe I'm controlling my ship, that I'm driving this car, and I'm-- and it's going where I'm telling it to go, because I'm not that sophisticated.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: It's happening [INAUDIBLE] grace of the universe.
KEVIN IOLE: Ah!
MIKE TYSON: And I'm not being spooky. I'm not being religious. I'm not being spiritual. It is what it is.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. It just kind of-- you fell into that, and that's--
MIKE TYSON: Yes.
KEVIN IOLE: --that's what it was. Interesting. I know you love-- I see you at a lot of the UFC fights. You love MMA. You just-- as I mentioned, you interviewed Justin Gaethje on "Hotboxin'." He's going to fight Tony Ferguson. Would you have loved to fight MMA if it was available then? Did you like MMA? And would you do it yourself if you could have?
MIKE TYSON: You know, anybody-- listen, everybody today from a perspective of fame and fortune and this, of course, you would want to get in that, because it's very popular. [INAUDIBLE] as far as popularity and stuff like that. But when you want to go into boxing, it just has such a big profitable-- you know, it's just-- when you're a great fighter-- I don't care what the weight division-- you demand the people. And when you demand the people, you can price anything you want, and they'll pay for it.
KEVIN IOLE: I know you're friends with Dana White. And he has been tremendously successful running the UFC. What do you-- what is it about Dana, from what you know of him, that has made him so successful and able to build the UFC up from something-- hey, look, it was about to die, it was going to go under, and now it's worth billions of dollars? You know Dana very well. Why do you think he's so successful? What does he does-- do that makes him successful in your opinion?
MIKE TYSON: He has a iota of humanitarian skills. That's what-- he's very good with people. He has very good human skills.
KEVIN IOLE: So people relate to him, and so he can get people to do what he wants?
MIKE TYSON: No, he gets them to do the right thing, because Dana does the right thing. He gets people to do the right thing.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: He don't get them to do what he wants.
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah.
MIKE TYSON: But what he wants [INAUDIBLE] the right thing.
KEVIN IOLE: He's--
MIKE TYSON: No, and I'm not kissing no butt. That's a quality that I know of. He may have some sucky qualities, but I don't know of them.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. Understood. Dana is like-- he loves the fight game, right? I mean, I've never known a person who's not a fighter that loves the fights as much as Dana does, both boxing and MMA. And he's met every celebrity around the world, everybody. And he said to me-- it wasn't that long ago, we were talking about you, and he said, I still get chills when I meet Mike Tyson. When you hear that, somebody, like, as accomplished as Dana White says that, what does that mean to you, if anything?
MIKE TYSON: Hey, listen, Dana's just a very kind and decent human being, and he says very kind things to people. And I feel that way about him. He's a very kind guy to be kind, you know? You have to know-- you have to be a kind person to know a kind person.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. If you don't mind, let me ask you a couple of things about the UFC. First of all, what's your thought about UFC 249 going on? I mean, if you're fighting today or you're managing a fighter-- I know you used to promote fighters. Erickson Lubin was one of your star fighters, who I really--
MIKE TYSON: [INAUDIBLE]
KEVIN IOLE: I love Lubin.
MIKE TYSON: Good kid. I really respect that young man.
KEVIN IOLE: So if you were promoting, would you do what Dana's doing now in trying to put the fights on, even though this-- the pandemic is going on?
MIKE TYSON: Absolutely. For the safety of the fighters, we have to make sure everybody's safe and protected, and have to make sure [INAUDIBLE] a safe environment. And by being in a crowdless environment, I don't think nobody's being jeopardized of getting sick. My experience of the disease so far-- I'm not a professional. Like you said, I'm not that educated in these matters. But if there's no people, they can't spread the disease. So that's what it comes to-- that's what Dana comes down to really saying.
KEVIN IOLE: The one thing that I mentioned the other day in my story, and I want to see-- you know this as a fighter. It costs fighters money for training camp. So if you train for two months to get ready for a fight, and then they tell you, well, we're not going to fight because there's a virus pandemic, you're not only not making a paycheck, you're also out the money, right, that it costs you to get that training.
MIKE TYSON: No, no. Well, that's true, too. But listen, say this happened, say you're fighting, we're fighting, you give me the checks [INAUDIBLE] my expenses, a million dollars. All right, it's going to come out of the purse regardless. But then you gave me the million dollars, we started training, and then this happens, the promoter's out a million bucks.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: If we don't fight, I'm not paying you anything.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: All right, so he's out of the money. But we have to work together as a team to make sure he gets his money back.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: That's why we're fighting in these crowdless arenas.
KEVIN IOLE: So who-- let's talk about UFC 249. It was supposed to be Khabib Nurmagomedov-- and I know you're a fan of his-- defending his title against Tony Ferguson. Justin Gaethje has stepped in, because Khabib is in Russia. How do you see that fight going? And who do you like to win, Ferguson or Justin?
MIKE TYSON: Hey, listen, the fight is going to be a barn burner regardless. Somebody's going to get knocked out, is not going the distance--
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: --and it's a possibility, because Justin is not going down, is not laying down for anybody. You got to kill him to beat him.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: And Ferguson, he administrates a lot of punishment.
KEVIN IOLE: Does it concern you-- I watched your interview with him. And he said something to you that kind of put my antenna up. He said, I would rather get knocked out in the second round than win a decision. If you win the decision, you're the world champion. Like, how do you not want to win the-- win? So does that concern you, if you're supporting him?
MIKE TYSON: Kevin, know what happens sometimes? We're fighters. We believe that we're gladiators, Kevin, and we're not.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: But we believe that. And we have the gladiator mentality. His opinion is not to win, really, but it's to win dying.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: So that's how that mentality is. It doesn't necessarily make it true.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: It could be. But I don't like that mentality.
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah. Yeah, I heard that, and I was kind of like, eh, I'm not sure, Justin. That was a tough one.
MIKE TYSON: Name of the game is that this is not a tough man's sport.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: A tough man's going to get really hurt in this game.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: This is a thinking man's sport. Only the smartest win. That's the truth.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: And this is a game of fighting. The game of fighting-- I don't care how you're fighting, wrestling, boxing, karate, jujitsu, in fighting, only the smartest win. Not the strongest, not the biggest, the smartest.
KEVIN IOLE: I know you're not a big fan of Floyd Mayweather personally. But his-- wasn't he a smart fighter in the ring?
MIKE TYSON: Magnificently.
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah.
MIKE TYSON: Absolutely.
KEVIN IOLE: And that was the kind of thing that made him such [INAUDIBLE].
MIKE TYSON: There's nobody that can match him in that perspective, no way. Yeah.
KEVIN IOLE: You were a peer of Sugar Ray Leonard's. How do you think Sugar Ray Leonard would have done against Mayweather had they fought?
MIKE TYSON: That would have been a beautiful fight. I would have loved to seen that fight.
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah.
MIKE TYSON: He wouldn't have to worry about somebody not throwing punches at him.
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah. No, he would have them coming, yeah, that's for sure.
MIKE TYSON: And he would have been pitching them. He would have been [INAUDIBLE]. He would have been pitching them beautifully.
KEVIN IOLE: Ray was a tough guy, no doubt. Hey, Mike, listen, I want to ask you a couple other things. First, about your one-man show, you're in its second season. Do you change it? Like, how does it go as you pick up, you know, going that successful first year to now go to the second campaign? How did it change?
MIKE TYSON: My wife does it. She starts picking up things out of life, things that happen. Like the coronavirus. I'm sure we're going to have a couple of stuff that happened in between the days that happen within our life during the coronavirus, and this and that, and we're losing people doing the coronavirus. And this is something that's going to be talked about till the end of time. Every time they talk about an era or a generation, we're going to talk about the coronavirus.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: And I'm sorry things happen. It's just-- I just can't explain it. This is just-- it's a tragedy and a marvel at one-- all at the same time.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. You haven't fought for close to 20 years, right, or 15 years, anyways, it's been since you've been fighting. Do you marvel, Mike, that people still care about you, and they want to hear your story, and they want to talk to you? I mean, does that get you sometimes, when you look back on it and say, my god, after-- it was 30 years since you won the title, and people are still fascinated by what you do and what you stood for.
MIKE TYSON: Hey, listen, it's hard for me to even answer that question, because every time a year go by or time goes by, I find myself being a different person. I change as-- as time goes by, I find myself changing.
KEVIN IOLE: Right
MIKE TYSON: Unwillingly sometimes, but I find myself changing. It doesn't-- I can't stop it.
KEVIN IOLE: For the better, mostly, or not?
MIKE TYSON: I don't know what's better or what's worse. I'm not where I was before.
KEVIN IOLE: So you're happier.
MIKE TYSON: Yes. Happy? I don't know if that [INAUDIBLE] happier. I'm in better-- I'm in a better emotional position than I am-- than I was before.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. And--
MIKE TYSON: [INAUDIBLE] with our emotion pretty much.
KEVIN IOLE: Sure, sure, sure.
MIKE TYSON: [INAUDIBLE] slave to our feelings, and our feelings are slaves to our emotions.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. A couple other things. I think people are fascinated-- you've been doing a ton of media about Tyson Ranch and the business out there. Tell me--
MIKE TYSON: Tyson Ranch is awesome. Yes, yes, yes, I love Tyson Ranch. It's my baby. It's a high-tech, state-of-the-art, around 500-acre, cannabis-friendly resort. And man, we have the longest lazy river in the world. We have amusement parks. We have spinning wheels. We have travel huts. We have the golfing. We have everything for the children, the family. We have university to talk about agriculture and all the marijuana distractions from the plants and all that stuff. And we also have a wellness center. And man, we just have so much stuff, man.
KEVIN IOLE: Is that another Kiki thing? Is that where-- Kiki gave you the go-ahead on that?
MIKE TYSON: No, that's just something that me and my-- our partners, we all put it together. We wanted to have an oasis in the deserts of high--
KEVIN IOLE: High desert.
MIKE TYSON: --high springs, hot springs.
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah.
MIKE TYSON: And it was just awesome. And that's what it pretty much is is oasis in the desert.
KEVIN IOLE: So now--
MIKE TYSON: Right off the freeway, too. You can see it off the freeway. So it will always be something to see, and it's always eye-catching.
KEVIN IOLE: That is awesome. So now, that's the best kind of money, right? You just have the checks coming in. You don't have to go out and punch a time clock, and the checks come in every day, right?
MIKE TYSON: Yeah, the checks come in. But the whole purpose of the checks coming in is for the checks can go for people who need it more than we do, like the homeless and the addictive and all that stuff. Man, there's a whole bunch of people that need money so much more than we do.
KEVIN IOLE: So you're benefiting a lot of people that way?
MIKE TYSON: Absolutely, man, absolutely.
- Standing United.
KEVIN IOLE: Wow. Good for you.
MIKE TYSON: Standing United is one of the biggest organizations that we sponsor. And we're fighting for them to be able to be in the position to help the homeless and the inflicted with drugs and abuse. And listen, man, we're fighting to keep people alive. I've never been so entrenched in helping people as much as I am with these people in Standing United.
KEVIN IOLE: That is awesome. I'm glad to hear that, Mike. Congratulations for you. That's really admirable that--
MIKE TYSON: [INAUDIBLE]
KEVIN IOLE: --that you're doing that, and you're using your fame and your popularity and your name to do good. That is awesome.
Let me wrap it up with this, then. I want to ask you, you picked-- I believe you thought Tyson Fury was going to beat Deontay Wilder in that fight. But what was your take on Wilder's performance? You know, he's getting a little-- Fury, I thought, of course, was awesome. Were you surprised that Wilder wasn't more successful in that fight than he was?
MIKE TYSON: No. It's like, [INAUDIBLE] suffer a lot of energy that I once had. We have to be able to accept our mistakes, you know what I mean? And stand up and say, hey, I messed up, the best man won. We can't be consumed with our ego. Nobody was more consumed with their ego than me.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: And so that's what it is. We always look for excuses when we lose. So I couldn't have lose. There must have been a mistake. Somebody had to cheat me.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: I wasn't meant to lose. God didn't ordain me to lose. It's-- listen, so we have to perspect-- look at the perspective that a loss or defeat is a form of education.
KEVIN IOLE: Do you think he can learn enough from that to cover the distance it's going to take him to beat Fury in their third fight?
MIKE TYSON: Well, listen, I don't know anything about beating Fury in their third fight. In order for him to do that, he's going to have to beat himself in life.
KEVIN IOLE: Hm.
MIKE TYSON: He's his biggest opponent at this moment in life. He's not going to stand a chance with Fury if he doesn't beat himself.
KEVIN IOLE: Interesting. Hey, Mike, and one other thing I wanted to mention to you that I thought-- I don't know if you remember this, but it was funny. I wrote a column about you about 20 years ago, and I said, hey, Mike Tyson's doing all these good things, and I'm glad to see this, and I praised you and everything. And I get a phone call one day. And I answer the phone, and a guy says, Kevin? I said, yeah. He goes, this is Mike Tyson. And I'm listening, and I said, this is the worst Mike Tyson accent I have ever heard in my life, and I hung up the phone. And then I came over to the gym to see you working out, and you said, you hung up on me! And it was actually you! And I didn't know it was you! Do you remember that?
MIKE TYSON: Listen, man, now, thanks, Kevin. What article-- where was that? And was that in "Sports"-- what article was that in?
KEVIN IOLE: That was-- I wrote-- I was doing a freelance piece for Max Boxing at the time. And I wrote this article in Max Boxing, and I think Shelly Finkel sent it to you. And you called me to thank me for it, and I thought it was somebody imitating you.
MIKE TYSON: You said that I had street cred up the ying-yang back then.
KEVIN IOLE: I think I did.
MIKE TYSON: Yeah, and that blew my mind, because I never thought about that.
KEVIN IOLE: [LAUGHS]
MIKE TYSON: When you live your life, you're living your life. You never looked at in the perspective, you're living that life. It's just who you live your life. I hang out in Browns, I hang out in poverty-stricken areas, and I'm champ of the world. And that's all I really related to back then--
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: --you know? My friends-- you know, listen, when I'm champ of the world, you see, I'm 20 years old, I have friends that are 15 years old.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
MIKE TYSON: But I'm hanging out with 15-year-old kids, 17-year-old kids. It's just a bunch of kids hanging out with a lot of [BLEEP]-ing money, that never happened before.
KEVIN IOLE: Exactly. That was crazy. Hey, Mike, I know you're busy, and you've been really gracious with your time. I'm going to let you roll. I really--
MIKE TYSON: Thank you, Kevin.
KEVIN IOLE: --appreciate you, love it. I wish you success in everything you're doing. You can get T-shirts. You can go to Tyson Ranch. You can-- after the coronavirus is over, we can see him on the one-man tour. Once again, Mike Tyson.
MIKE TYSON: Hey, Kevin, Kevin, that was the best article I ever had written about me.
KEVIN IOLE: Thank you! That means a lot to me, my friend.
MIKE TYSON: Thank you.
KEVIN IOLE: I appreciate it. Hey, it was good to see you, Mike. All the best.
MIKE TYSON: I forgot about it. You brought it up. I forgot about it. You brought it up.
KEVIN IOLE: Do you remember when you-- when you told me that-- this is the last story, because people will get a kick out of this. You probably don't remember this. But the day in the gym, you, me, Freddie Roach, and there was a woman in the gym, Meg Ryan, who-- the actress.
MIKE TYSON: Yeah.
KEVIN IOLE: And she was taking photos. You remember when she was there?
MIKE TYSON: Yes.
KEVIN IOLE: That was crazy. So anyways, Mike, it was great talking to you. Thank you so much.
MIKE TYSON: Thank you, brother.
