Mike Tyson Next Fight: ‘Iron’ Mike targets 2026 return that’s about ‘Money’ not cash

Mike Tyson is returning to the ring once again. The youngest heavyweight champion of all-time, the most-feared fighter of the 1980s and the most controversial boxer of the 1990s. The decades since have not been kind and yet ‘Iron’ Mike persists. 

Read on to find out everything you need to know about Mike Tyson’s next fight.

2004. 2005. 2006. 2020. 2025. What do these years have in common? They are all dates where we thought we had seen the last of heavyweight great ‘Iron Mike Tyson in a boxing ring.

In 2002, WBC, IBF and lineal champion Lennox Lewis skewered the Catskills man so severely that it would have been an appropriate point for the challenger to retire. ‘The Lion’ dominating the king of the previous heavyweight era felt like a sensible time for Tyson to exit stage left.

But a brutal first-round knockout of fringe lump Clifford Etienne in 2003 had fans believing again. Lewis’ brilliance was blamed for Mike’s downfall, rather than the sapped skills of a boxer who had been competing at elite level since his teens. 

Former British champion Danny Williams knocked Tyson out in four rounds in 2004. It became apparent that financial woes, rather than a burning desire to fight, drove the once-feared legend to keep gloving up. 

Kevin McBride finally punctured the fistic delusion, making Mike quit on his stool after six completed rounds in 2005. Tyson retired from the ring. It felt like common sense had prevailed, given that McBride could not have even laced the gloves of the 2002 Mike that Lewis eradicated.

The following year, the Mike Tyson World Tour was announced. Purported to be a global jaunt featuring exhibitions against various opponents, the tour never made it out of America. Just one instalment took place, which saw a t-shirted Tyson appear to accidentally knock ‘opponent’ Corey Sanders out. Mike held the rotund heavyweight up while he cleared his head before completing the remainder of an uninspired four-rounder.

For 14 years that was the last we saw of Mike Tyson in a boxing ring. He popped up in films like Rocky Balboa and The Hangover, fun appearances that played with his public reputation. Tyson relaxed, releasing a well-received autobiography and documentary before embarking on a series of speaking engagements. 

But the fire still burned in Tyson, perhaps more than it had when Williams and McBride picked over the scraps. When the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to professional sport, Tyson and those backing him saw an opportunity. The ‘Iron’ one took on Roy Jones Jr. in an exhibition behind closed doors.

The good-natured, half-speed scrap was engaging. A fun distraction during a grim time for humanity. The draw scored by a panel of celebrity judges looked charitable. While Jones had fought as a pro in 2018 (and would do so again in 2023), the former ‘Kid Dynamite’ looked sharper. The movement was slower but still technically brilliant. The jab was still a ramrod on the rare times the middle-aged heavyweight threw it.

The exhibition was harmless fun between two old pros of a similar age. Nobody was there to take liberties. The public bought in. A reported $80 million was banked with 1.6 million pay-per-view buys. A fine place for the Tyson story to end as an in-ring force.

But if the Jones outing was the epitome of a feelgood boxing event, Tyson’s 2025 return was diametrically opposed to such niceties. YouTuber-turned-pseudo-boxer Jake Paul was the opponent in a fight that, despite the 8x2s structure, was a sanctioned professional fight. The bout would appear not only on Jake’s spurious record, but the same ledger that contains the wins that brought Tyson the undisputed heavyweight championship.

This nonsense had been hiding in plain sight back in 2020. On the undercard of Tyson’s move-around with Jones, Paul knocked out basketball player Nate Robinson in spectacular fashion. Well, spectacular considering he was hitting a New York Knicks point guard.

There was a moment for common sense to prevail. After the fight had been announced, Tyson received medical care after boarding a flight due to a stomach ulcer flare-up. The aging icon was kept in hospital where it was reported he was passing blood. Emergency surgery was a real possibility. Tyson would later tell reporters that doctors had refused to rule out him dying from the illness. But then suddenly, the fight was rescheduled. 

That is boxing logic manifest. There is money to be made. Who cares about the fighters? A tale older than the use of gloves, sadly. 

The fight was pretty much what you’d expect. A legendary 58-year-old former boxer who almost heard the Last Rites a couple of months earlier faced a muscular novice who lost the only proper fight he ever had, against Tommy Fury. Tyson shuffled around, looking far from even the 2020 version of himself. 

Once or twice the Hall of Famer reared back to unload the sort of shot that took out Larry Holmes or Frank Bruno. But the timing wasn’t there any more. Paul chipped away with the occasional punch, looking to keep Tyson off him and do just enough to win the rounds. 

A sound strategy. But it is hard to applaud Paul for devising a the correct way to win a unanimous decision over a man pushing 60 who was s**ting blood two months before.

That should have been that. The happy ending of 2020 had been bungled but Tyson could return to life as a feted ex-athlete with a reported extra £15-20 million in the bank. Tyson said before fighting Paul that his motivation was not money. Few believed the veteran, especially given his previous financial woes and bankruptcy. 

However, while Tyson remains wealthy having stabilised his financial life, it appears that the competitive fire still burns. That same flame whose absence, Mike told the world, had ebbed his desire when the Kevin McBrides of the world stood in the opposite corner. But why else, with his bank balance back firmly in the black by several million dollars, would Tyson sign up to fight Floyd Mayweather?

If you have been living under a rock, let me assure you that you read that correctly. Career heavyweight Michael Gerard Tyson has signed on to fight former super featherweight champion of the world Floyd Joy Mayweather Jr. A fight almost as surprising as the fact ‘Money’ Mayweather’s middle name is ‘Joy’.

The bout was announced by both men on social media as a co-promotion of their respective companies. The graphic was short on details. ‘Legend vs Legend’ read the banner, with 2026 the vague date and no broadcast partners named. Just non-committal wording at the base of the poster saying,  ‘Special Exhibition. Live. Worldwide Broadcast.’

While naming Floyd as a former super featherweight champion was facetious, it was not irrelevant. Charitably, you could point out that Mayweather has fought as high as 151 lbs, annexing the WBA super welterweight championship from Miguel Cotto in 2012. So just the 76 lbs less than Tyson’s weight for the Paul fight, then. 

Somehow, this daft-as-a-brush event has like-for-like company on the boxing calendar. Tyson’s old mate Paul is having an exhibition with current WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis on Netflix in November. These exhibitions have been on trend for a few years now, but it feels like we are reaching a tipping point. 

I often wonder if I am just being a grumpy old boxing traditionalist. I am only 36 but I am still from the school that sees undisputed title thrillers like Usyk-Fury and Bivol-Beterbiev as the pinnacle of boxing. Performances like Terence Crawford’s elegant asset-stripping of Canelo Alvarez as the reason I started watching the gloved game. 

To quote Principal Skinner, “Am I so out of touch?” But I must reach the same conclusion as dear old Seymour. Because if people crave fights like Tyson-Mayweather and Davis-Paul, then it really is the children who are wrong. 

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