Mike Tyson sobbed as he described how Muhammad Ali was a “bad motherf***er” who encouraged him to become a boxer. The 56-year-old Tyson has never hidden his affection for Ali. Both Ali and Tyson are largely regarded as the best ever in history.
Muhammad Ali passed away in 2016 at the age of 74. He was well-known for his amazing boxing skills and self-assured demeanor.
But when they each made an appearance on a US talk show in 1989, Tyson and Ali paid tribute to one another.
On the Arsenio Hall program, Tyson and Ali each picked the other as the winner if they were in a hypothetical boxing match.
Rapper Cordae was Tyson’s guest on an episode of his podcast Hotboxin’. He brought up the experience by saying:
“It was like some talk show and you were like, still even to this day I like it, you were in the middle of your prime, it’s safe to assume.”
“And they was like, who would win between you two and you was like ‘man every head must bow, every tongue must profess, this man is the greatest of all time’.”
Tyson started to cry after hearing this reminder as he thought about Ali’s impact on his own boxing career.
Tyson replied:
“Ali is a bad motherf***er… How can you see a motherf***er and the motherf**ker inspires you like this. Don’t even touch you, don’t even say a f***ing word to you. F**k man! To this day, I can’t figure it out, motherf***er!”
Tyson then added:
“Just think about who I am. I don’t want to go back there anymore. I don’t want to be in that poverty state of mind anymore. Not from a physical perspective, I don’t want to be poverty-stricken here [pointing to his own head].”
“The more you hurt them, the higher you go in life. That’s just my mentality, the more you hurt them, the more people love you.”