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A “crazy” demand by retired boxing champion Mike Tyson sunk any hopes “The Baddest Man on the Planet” had of facing boxing’s current heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. According to “The Gypsy King”, the sum of money Tyson wanted to compete in an exhibition bout between boxing’s past and present heavyweight greats was more than half a billion dollars.
“Mike was talking about £500 million ($620 million) figures but what came back to us on paper was a joke,” Fury said per iFL.tv. “It was crazy.”
‘Everyone Has Moved on Now’
Fury did confirm a legitimate offer from ESPN came to him for a much more reasonable sum of money, especially because Fury vs. Tyson would have been an exhibition bout for charity and not a real prizefight.
“I did have a $10 million offer from ESPN to do the fight as an exhibition, but I think everyone has moved on now,” Fury said.
On top of that, Fury reaffirmed the Mike Tyson vs. Tyson Fury superfight was a serious possibility at one point, and that the fighters even talked to each other about the fight by phone.
“There was talk of it,” Fury said. “His people contacted me. Mike and I had a…phone call, it was definitely real but nothing ever materialized out of it.”
‘Lose-Lose Situation’
Fury, who was actually named after Tyson, revealed that he’d have loved the chance to be in the ring with his namesake but that the reality of the situation was that it would be a fight he couldn’t win.
“I would have just loved to share the ring with him and move around,” Fury said. “But if he had won then people would have said I was rubbish because a 53-year-old beat me. If I had beaten him then I would have been a bully.”
So Fury seems content to let the Fury vs. Tyson superfight be something that only lives inside boxing fans’ minds the way other mythical matchups between heavyweight greats from different eras do.
“It was a lose-lose situation for me,” Fury said. “It was money I didn’t need to fight a man past his best.”
Fury Is Best Fighter He’s Ever Been Right Now
Tyson turns 54 next week. While he’s released several video clips of him looking impressive hitting the mitts, he’s nowhere near the fighter he was at the peak of his powers.
On the other hand, Fury, 31, is in his prime. The lineal and WBC heavyweight champion remains undefeated and is coming off the single biggest win of his impressive fighting career in February.
Fury stopped previously unbeaten American Deontay Wilder earlier this year in the seventh round. It was a dominant win over one of the most terrifying punchers in boxing history.
Fury and Wilder could be headed for a third fight later this year or early next, and Fury then said he hopes to face the only other fighter in boxing who hold title belts in the division Anthony Joshua.
Fury might not be getting Tyson in a cross-generational superfight, but he still has plenty of big fights ahead of him.
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