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Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Set to Fight in April

It’s the megafight every boxing fan has cooked up in their video game dreams.

If Ali vs.Foreman was the “Rumble in the Jungle,” this fight could be called “Knuckle Up at the Nursing Home.”

Floyd “Money” Mayweather and “Iron” Mike Tyson reportedly have a deal to fight each other on April 25 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The news was first reported by The Ring Magazine’s Mike Coppinger.


It’s unclear whether the fight will follow traditional rules such as three-minute rounds, standing eight-counts after knockdowns, or the number of rounds. The fight will reportedly be streamed by multimedia events company CSI Sports. The company announced last September that a fight had been signed, but had no date or venue attached.

Assuming it proceeds, the April fight would pit two of boxing’s most iconic living fighters against each other in what would have been one of the biggest fights in history, if it were possible during their primes.

The fight is an unofficial exhibition that won’t count against either fighter’s record. Both men have been retired from their active careers for years, although they’ve participated in exhibition bouts that brought them nice paydays more recently. Mayweather officially retired as an active boxer in 2017 with a 50-0 record, while Tyson walked away from sanctioned bouts in 2005 with a 50-6 mark.

Mayweather, 48, and Tyson, 59, have fought most of their careers, and all of their primes, in different eras: Mayweather turned pro in 1996 after winning a bronze medal at that year’s summer Olympics in Atlanta. He was 19 at the time. That same year, a 29-year-old Tyson was making a comeback to the top of the heavyweight division, knocking out Frank Bruno that February to retake a slice of the undisputed heavyweight championship that he lost in 1990 to Buster Douglas. Tyson had recently returned to the ring after serving three years in prison on a 1992 rape conviction.

Besides the age and era differences, there’s weight class. Styles, they say, make fights, and Tyson and Mayweather couldn’t be more distant on that score. Mayweather won championships in five weight classes, but he never officially clocked in above 151 pounds for any of his 50 sanctioned fights, not even when he fought as the champion in the 154-pound division. For most of his career, Mayweather used speed, pinpoint punching accuracy, and a defensive style that bordered on sorcery to dominate his opponents, often winning bouts by wide margins after 12 rounds.

Tyson, on the other hand, fought his whole career as a 200-plus-pound heavyweight. He was also fast and used underappreciated footwork and defense, but his hallmark was crushing knockouts from the so-called “peekaboo” style that relied on head movement to set up murderous hooks that flattened opponents.

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