There are a strict set of retirements to join Mike Tyson’s exclusive and closed-off entourage.
Tyson, who is making his return to boxing on July 20 in a bout against Jake Paul, opened up to ex-NFL star Terrell Owens about having “leeches” in his circle back in 2020.
He insisted that people in his entourage need to have “purpose”.
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He said on his podcast: “If people in your life and they don’t have a purpose, what the f*** are they in your life for?
"Anybody can be on the corner and say, 'Hey Mike, do this, do that'. But who's gonna suffer? Who's going to make this a better situation?
"I'm champ and I got money, what are you going to do to make this situation better?
"I'm a champ and I got all this money. I got 50million, say 50million, and I'm a young guy, 19 years old, what are you going to do to make this clan better?
"This situation I'm in, young [guy] with a bunch of millions. How are you going to make it better? What are you going to do?
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"That's my thing, when I'm in somewhere and I see a room and the room's dirty, I start cleaning the room. I want to do whatever I can to make this a better situation."
Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion of all time in 1986 at the age of just 20, while he was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles.
The sporting icon does not appear concerned by his time away from the ring and insisted that billions of people would tune in to see him face Paul, with the bout being streamed on Netflix.
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“I'm 58, and what? I'm getting billions of views from just talking about fighting,” he told Reuters.
“Everybody, even most of the athletes, they're jealous… You couldn't sell out an arena. Who at 58 can sell out an 80,000-seat arena? Why do you think he wants to fight me and not anybody else?
“All the boxers want to fight him. But if he fought them, the only people that will come are the people that like him. Their parents might not even come to watch them.”
Topics: Mike Tyson, Boxing, Jake Paul, NFL
Chris Byfield