Michael van Gerwen once 'floored' Phil Taylor backstage after darts rival bragged about boxing pal

Michael van Gerwen once 'floored' Phil Taylor backstage after the darts legend bragged about being friends with a boxer.

Taylor dominated darts during his three decade-long career, winning 214 professional tournaments including 85 major titles and 16 World Championships.

The Power shared a rivalry with Dutch star Michael van Gerwen, who established himself as one of the best darts players in the world as Taylor approached the end of his career.

Mighty Mike, 34, is known for his feisty attitude at the oche and backstage, and he lived up to his reputation when he shared the story of how he ended up flooring his rival Taylor.

Van Gerwen had a backstage altercation with Taylor - 30 years his senior -several years ago during the Grand Slam of Darts, then held at the Civic Centre in Wolverhampton.

When Taylor started boasting about his friendships with legendary boxer Ricky Hatton, MVG lost patience with his rival.

Back in December 2023, Van Gerwen revealed: "At the old venue, Phil came backstage and he was talking about his friend Ricky Hatton, blah, blah, blah.

"He was doing these little boxing moves. Shadow boxing. He came up to every player. But I didn’t know what he was doing.

"I took him . . . and before I knew it, he was on the floor next to me. That’s how it happened.

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"I thought, ‘What did I do?’ He was like, ‘What happened here?’.

"Who threw the big Phil Taylor on the floor? Yeah, sorry, that was me. It was quite funny. I was more shocked — ‘Did I really do it?’."

Despite the incident, Van Gerwen shared a "good-natured" relationship on and off stage.

"Me and Phil, of course, we had our little things. But we never had a problem together," Van Gerwen said.

"We had a little rivalry and we had a little saying about each other and we both accepted how much it is. We’ve got respect for each other.

"Of course, sometimes he gave it to me a little bit, I gave back to him, but never in a nasty way."