For better or worse, Mike Tyson’s intergenerational fight with Jake Paul is exposing the former heavyweight champion to younger audiences.
Take this week’s exchange with interviewer Jazzy, 14, who asked Tyson, 58, about his legacy.
‘What do I care about my legacy?’ responded Tyson, whose past is complicated by drug abuse, financial ruin and his 1992 rape conviction, among other things. “I never knew what a legacy was and people started using that word so loosely. A legacy sounds like ego to me. I’m going to be dead soon.’
Tyson wasn’t done with his lesson on existentialism.
‘Who cares what anyone thinks of me when I’m dead?’ asked. ‘We’re not talking about Charles Manson. Nobody cares about anyone when they’re dead and gone.
Mike Tyson gave interviewer Jazzy, 14, a lesson in existentialism this week
“I’m just passing through,” he continued, “I’ll die and it’ll all be over.” Who cares about legacy after that?
‘We are nothing. We are simply dead. We are just dust. We are absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing.’
To her credit, Jazzy remained optimistic after learning that humanity is “nothing.”
“Thank you so much for sharing that,” he said. “That’s something I haven’t heard in response.”
Once again, Tyson wasn’t done.
‘Can you really imagine someone saying, ‘I really want my legacy to be like this when I’m gone’… you’re dead… Who the fuck cares about me when I’m gone?’ -Tyson asked.
The interview, posted on the Jazzys World TV YouTube channel, generated a significant response.
“Mike Tyson talks the same to everyone, regardless of their age,” one person commented, echoing a comment made by many others.
Tyson grabbed the Dagestani social media star and playfully nibbled his ear on Hotboxin
Tyson will face Paul, 27, at AT&T Stadium near Dallas on Saturday night.
Tyson has had difficulty giving age-appropriate answers in the past.
During an interview on Hotboxin with Hasbulla, a twenty-something fight fan who stands just 3-foot-4, the 5-foot-10 Tyson picked up the smaller man and began kissing him on the cheek and nibbling on his ear like if I were a young boy.
As one fan commented on YouTube at the time, “if Mike Tyson says you’re a boy, you’re a boy.”
More than a year later, Tyson admitted that he mistook Hasbulla for a girl, not realizing that she had a form of dwarfism that stunted her growth.
“I thought it was a baby,” Tyson told Andre Ward on The Art Of Ward podcast.
‘I didn’t know. He was hitting me. I don’t know, man. That’s how I am with children. I was hugging this boy. “He’s like 26 years old,” he added. ‘No no. I didn’t know.’
Tyson will face Paul, 27, at AT&T Stadium outside Dallas on Saturday night. The fight is scheduled for eight two-minute rounds, as opposed to the normal three-minute frames. Additionally, the gloves for the fight will be 14 ounces instead of the usual 10.