Mike Tyson's response to 'wealthy friends' trying to get Jake Paul fight cancelled

Mike Tyson delivered a cutting response to rich friends who wanted him to pull out of his fight with Jake Paul.

The former heavyweight champion of the world will finally face YouTuber-turned-boxer Paul at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium next Friday (November 15). The original July date was shelved after Tyson, 58, suffered a medical issue.

However, despite fears about him fighting someone 31 years his junior, Tyson is going ahead with the eight-round bout and has been put through his paces during an intense training camp. Behind-the-scenes footage of the camp has been aired by Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) YouTube channel and Netflix, providing a fascinating insight into his conditioning and mindset ahead of the showdown.

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Between sets, Tyson revealed to trainers that some of his well-off pals had been pleading for him not to fight Paul, only for the Baddest Man of Planet to deliver a robust response. He said: “I have some friends, they’re pretty wealthy. They said, ‘Don’t fight, I give you money’. [I’m like] ‘You f****** crazy?’.”

The fight was postponed in the summer after Tyson suffered an ulcer flare-up which caused him to become nauseous and dizzy during a flight from Miami to Los Angeles. Afterwards, Tyson revealed “too much bad food and stuff” had contributed to the issue.

Addressing the health scare in the pre-fight Netflix documentary series, he said: "I was explaining to my trainer, 'I don't know what's wrong with me'.

"Coming here from Miami on the plane, I went to the bathroom and I threw up blood. The next thing I know I'm on the floor, I was defecating tar. So I came here and they found I had a big ulcer, two-and-a-half inches, and it was bleeding. All my friends were calling me like I was dying.”

Tyson revealed he lost 26lb during the episode and feared he was going to die. He said: "She didn't say no [he wasn’t going to die]. She said we have options though, and that's when I got nervous.

“You wouldn't believe what I endured from my ulcer. I lost 26 pounds, can you imagine that? I was so p***** off because I had peaked. I was good, talking s***, ready."

Paul's immediate reaction to the news that the initial fight date would have to be postponed has also been revealed in the Netflix docuseries. Discussing how he felt when he found out, Paul, who boasts an impressive 10 wins from 11 professional fights after taking up boxing, said: "When I received the news that he was out and not able to fight, I was just numb, I was just like, 'f***...'

"I'm the type of person who likes a schedule and likes to know what I'm doing. This just threw a wrench in all of that, there was nothing I could do, it was out of my control."

"Nobody can tell Mike Tyson what to do and if he wants to fight me, of course I'm going to say yes," he added. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime to fight one of the two most famous boxers to ever live; Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. I look at Mike Tyson as a killer so I never really expected something like this."