Combat sports personalities spend their entire career training, sparring, and staying in shape. However, once they retire, these strenuous activities take a backseat. After a while, they realize that they have become overweight. Hence, they return to training and eventually compete once more. Mike Tyson followed this template and credited his boxing return to a suggestion his wife gave him.
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‘Iron Mike’ said, “I was discussing something with my wife about me being overweight…”
Tyson’s wife Lakiha Spicer stayed with him through thick and thin and helped him rebuild his life post-retirement. She was the catalyst for his blockbuster return to training, which led to a charity exhibition bout.
Tyson said, “So she said, ‘why don’t you get on the treadmill for 15 minutes a day’. I said, ‘ah, she said just 15 minutes’. It went from 15 minutes a day to two hours a day.”
“I was complaining about my weight and so, I don’t know. I guess I tried on some clothing. It was disastrous, so I was worried about my weight.”
Mike Tyson claims he got a fight offer as soon as he lost weight
Once the exercise bug had bitten Tyson, there was no turning back. One can safely say that the clothes he tried to wear fit him beautifully after all the time he has spent in the gym.
As ‘The Baddest Man on the Planet’ shed the pounds, he realized that one more match was possible. He said, “I just started losing weight and then… somebody said, ‘Hey Mike, would you fight this guy for $30-$40 million bucks.”
One thing led to another, and all the big names made their pitch to share the squared circle with the former heavyweight champion.
The former champion was to fight Roy Jones Jr. in September. However, the fight got pushed back as the organizers wanted to have every chance of making more money.
The wait to see Mike Tyson box after 14 years carried on, but fans know that they owe a word of thanks to Spicer for motivating her husband to train. She kick-started the return no one would have dreamed of as 2020 rolled in.
