Two legends is salty that Mike Tyson chose to Fight Roy Jones Jr over Cannon and Holyfield.
Holyfield Opens Up On Fallout For Missing Mike Tyson Exhibition Opportunity
“Mike may have wanted another exhibition before fighting me,” Holyfield told BoxingScene.com in an interview. “By him doing this, it may mess up a future one [against me]. We’d talked about it, but there was nothing solid on paper. We knew we wanted to do it first. When you do it second, people are going to judge how the first one is. Fans may not want to see it again once you stink up the place. It comes down to, ‘does he really want to fight me?’ Everybody wants to see me and him do it, so what is he doing?”
Holyfield couldn’t say for sure if Team Tyson ultimately dodged him for a trilogy to instead take an eight-round exhibition with Jones Jr. on Triller pay per view, but he emphasized there are no hard feelings between the two.
“I can’t speculate. Whatever happened has happened. I was only dealing with one person. I’ll call my guy and see what we choose to do,” said Holyfield. “It’s not like [a Tyson bout] was a guarantee. People do what they choose to do. I don't have a problem with people choosing and making a decision based on what direction they want to go in. That’s fine with me. We just have to move on. I have no problems. We’re OK with it. I’m not upset. There is no reason to be upset. I wish him well.”
Holyfield said he isn’t closing the door quite yet on a tussle with Tyson.
“I don’t know. It just all depends,” said Holyfield. “He looked good [in the training videos]. Right now, everything is OK with me. No problem. I’ll do it because I want to do it. That’s just the way it is. I’ll do what I have to do.”
Holyfield (44-10-2, 29 KOs) scored a career-defining victory over Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs) in 1996 via 11th round TKO and did so again in a rematch the next year, only this time via disqualification when Tyson deliberately bit off a chunk of Holyfield’s right ear.
Tyson retired at the age of 39 in 2005; Holyfield retired at age of 48 in 2011.
Iron Mike or not, The Warrior said he’s still moving forward with his own planned exhibition match.
“I’m still going to do mine and get the practice, too,” said Holyfield. “I have quite a few opponents that we’re looking at. I don’t want anyone holding me to something that may not come through.
“I’ve been training [before they reached out about a potential Tyson fight]. I’m not training because of Mike. I train because that’s what I do. I try to maintain good health and physique. I’m not going to burn myself out thinking ‘when is it going to happen?’”
Back in (May), Shannon Briggs reportedly discussed surprise phone call from Iron Mike for a match-up "obviously" that [fell through] Tyson has decided to take on four-weight champ Jones Jr on September 12 in an eight-round affair in California.
Shannon Briggs also had something to say picking Roy Jones Jr over him "via IG account he captioned", with hashtag #NeverRanNeverWill reacting to Roy Jones and Mike Tyson contract signing.
In response to Post, read screenshots below.
