Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Boxing, Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, Jake Paul
Alex Brotherton
Mike Tyson gave a brilliant answer when asked who would win a heavyweight fight between himself and a prime Muhammad Ali.
Boxing legend Mike Tyson was thrust into the spotlight last month when it was announced that he will return to the ring to take on Jake Paul.
Tyson will be 58 years old by the time he takes on the 27-year-old on July 20 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and there has been plenty of discourse about whether two fighters with such a big age gap should face each other.
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There is no denying Tyson's fearsome reputation; that alone is enough to make the match-up a blockbuster affair.
Tyson reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990, having won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round.
He became the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession.
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After being knocked out by underdog Buster Douglas in 1990 and undergoing prison time in 1992, Tyson engaged in a series of comeback fights, regaining the WBA and WBC titles in 1996.
Tyson's last pro fight came in 2005, but he returned to the ring for an exhibition bout against Roy Jones Jr. in 2020.
Iron Mike will of course be backing himself to beat Paul, but when asked how he would fair against prime Muhammad Ali, he was brutally honest.
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Speaking to 'This is 50' in 2012, Iron Mike insisted that no one could have beaten prime Ali.
He said: "There's no man like him. Everything we have, he supersedes it.
"Nobody beats Ali, it's not about the muscle memory it's not about concentration it's just about him doing it.
"I can't beat that man, hell no f**k this (laughs)."
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Ali - widely regarded as the greatest boxer of all time - held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970, was the undisputed champion from 1974 to 1978 and the WBA and Ring heavyweight champion from 1978 to 1979.
Ali's dominance in the ring and activism outside it saw him named in 1999 as Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.