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  • All right.

  • Now, let us say hello to one of the most talked about men in sports today.

  • Why?

  • Because he is returning to action this Saturday on pay per view in a fight that everyone's been talking about for the last few months.

  • He is the one and only the inimitable.

  • The often imitated, never duplicated He is kid dynamite.

  • He is the baddest man on the planet.

  • He is the one area.

  • Thank you.

  • Thank you, Mike.

  • What an honor this is.

  • And here we are, just a few days before your highly anticipated return against Roy Jones on Saturday at the Staples Center.

  • I have to ask you this, Mike, right off the bat.

  • You know, your last fight was 15 years ago.

  • It was, if over 15 years, it's been over 15 years since you were last on a Mike Tyson fight Week.

  • Right approaching.

  • What is going through your body.

  • What is going through your mind as you're approaching weigh ins?

  • Fight night?

  • You haven't been a spot for 15 years.

  • I noticed the difference.

  • It's a difference.

  • I noticed.

  • The energy is totally different.

  • You can't ignore it.

  • Subconsciously, you can't ignore it.

  • Just to be dealt with.

  • What is it?

  • Can you describe that energy like what's What's the difference?

  • Yeah, I don't know if, um equipment to both being, um serene and quiet and but still lit up like a christmas tree.

  • Did you miss that feeling?

  • I don't know.

  • Um, sometimes I do.

  • Sometimes I don't.

  • I'm vibing with it pretty good.

  • Yeah.

  • Okay.

  • You know, throughout the past 15 months or excuse me years, as you've talked about your career at times you said you didn't like the old Mike, right?

  • You didn't want to romanticize.

  • Well, that was all about making me happy.

  • And the new the pretty girl and the roadways and the new house That didn't make me happy anymore.

  • So I had, um I think I could do this and I could help people.

  • We could open up graphic charities and we could do things to improve humanity.

  • So I'm wondering, do you like this version of Mike Tyson?

  • Big time?

  • 100%?

  • Because it's not all about Mike.

  • Before, it was all about me and my feelings, and it had to be me.

  • And sometimes the party's cool without you.

  • Mhm.

  • We have learned a true, actually work on liberating myself from myself when you left the ring that night against Kevin McBride.

  • Over 15 years ago.

  • If I would have told you that in over a decade, you would fight again.

  • Would you have believed me?

  • Not.

  • Not in a million years.

  • Now, who was that guy back then?

  • I don't know.

  • He was He needed to find himself.

  • He was lost.

  • And so how did you find yourself, Mike?

  • Um, a Zai.

  • Tell everybody life just beat me up.

  • You know, um, I was beaten into submission by life.

  • I didn't find God and become humble.

  • I guess.

  • Um, I just lost the fight big time.

  • In my opinion, you're one of the great success stories of the past decade or so because it did seem and correct me if you feel otherwise, it felt like you were going down a path of being, you know, that broken down fighter who had so much money and was left with no money.

  • Now here you are, a businessman.

  • You've got this, uh, this legends only league.

  • You're coming back.

  • All this stuff Is there a person who is responsible for the turnaround?

  • Is there someone, something, something that happened that helped you turn into this.

  • I know this sounds.

  • So, um, the cliche, You know?

  • Yes.

  • That me and my wife and my wife has decided that besides being in love with, we have a professional relationship.

  • We have a relationship with enterprise, and we enjoy our lives, and we won't have.

  • And I'm listening to her and I'm strung out on drugs.

  • I'm listening to her.

  • I'm saying, Sure, sure, sure.

  • And everything she said came to profit.

  • Off came the prospect we did.

  • We were dealing with great corporation.

  • We have great enterprise.

  • And I'm doing This is just This is extra.

  • This is This wasn't even on.

  • Like you said he wasn't on the radar.

  • This is extra.

  • Do you remember when you came up with the idea that you were going to do this this year?

  • Yeah.

  • Um, e was looking at this show about it was about Jerry Rice and it about he was a you know, it was for something.

  • I guess he was five something.

  • So just because I guess he the a second a couple of seconds slower.

  • He can't play football no more, and I thought that was ridiculous, because I know now that we live in the era of Instagram, there's more people on Instagram would like to see him play than the person that plays his position now in the San Francisco for tonight.

  • I believe the last time he played wide receiver on and it's all about numbers now about what the people want to see.

  • You think these people want to stop seeing him just because two or three seconds slower?

  • No.

  • So now he now he doesn't know he doesn't have any kind of outlook for his his entanglement.

  • Also.

  • Now he can't do anything because he's a few seconds slower.

  • So I said, That's ridiculous.

  • We will get involved with this league.

  • Legends only leads and everybody's gonna have a chance to participate.

  • And, you know, it's interesting.

  • Speaking of Instagram, you kind of came out of the darkness at the very beginning of this pandemic, right?

  • We're all starving for sports were nostalgic.

  • You know this Michael Jordan documentaries airing on ESPN, And here's Mike Taison, one of you know the most, you know, known figures in the history of sports coming out and hitting pads and looking the way you do, and the Internet exploded.

  • Were you surprised by the reaction to even like an eight second clip?

  • That thing was passed around viewed by millions of people.

  • Hey, listen, um, 2.5 billion billion and presidents can't be lying.

  • Okay, so I said, this is something that would be really awesome.

  • How many people could benefit from this?

  • And I imagine somebody else.

  • Imagine if other people do this and they said what Mike's doing, I want to do it, too.

  • And they do it from a charity perspective.

  • It is not giving much of your time, either.

  • It's really not giving much.

  • It's just all about cooperating.

  • So you know, we're gonna fight and what we throwing hard punches.

  • But it's all about the bigger picture, so to speak.

  • Sure, and we'll get to that in a second.

  • But I'm just curious.

  • When you initially put out that that first clip, was it already set in your mind that you were gonna come back?

  • Or did you want to see the way that people would react to it?

  • I never thought, I know I wanted to see the way that people react to it.

  • subconsciously.

  • Yes, that's really I probably wouldn't admit it, but yeah, I think that that's really what I wanted Thio here.

  • And were you blown away by the reaction?

  • Um, just really humbled.

  • Mhm.

  • Thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube for live streaming sports and premium content.

  • Subscribe to ESPN, plus.

All right.

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