By Keith Idec

Mike Tyson enjoyed the Mayweather-McGregor press tour, but the former heavyweight champion can’t see their fight being remotely competitive.

Tyson said during an interview for the “Pardon My Take” podcast released Monday on barstoolsports.com that Conor McGregor made an enormous mistake by agreeing to strictly a boxing match against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“McGregor’s gonna get killed,” Tyson said. “I got mad because I thought they were gonna use MMA rules, against boxing. Because that’s what it’s all about – can the boxer beat the MMA guy? So McConor put his dumb ass in a position where he’s gonna get knocked out because [Mayweather] has been doing this all his life, since he was a little baby, and McConor can’t kick or grab or stuff. He’s not gonna stand much of a chance.”

The 51-year-old Tyson isn’t concerned about the possibility of McGregor catching Mayweather with a lucky punch and how much damage that type of upset would do to boxing’s image. He has been focused more on the incredible interest Mayweather and McGregor have generated while promoting their August 26 fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“No way! No way! It’s gonna be exciting,” Tyson said. “The whole thing’s exciting because it’s got a circus kind of atmosphere. But I love the fact that Conor’s a character. Floyd never met a character like this.”

That said, Tyson also expects that there will be millions of disgruntled customers once Mayweather dominates McGregor in a 154-pound boxing match scheduled for 12 rounds. It’s inevitable, according to Tyson, because a boxing novice like McGregor (21-3, 18 KOs in MMA) can’t possibly compete with Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) in his boxing debut. 

“There’s no doubt it’s gonna put a bad taste in people’s mouths, but it’s gonna happen,” Tyson said. “I never thought it was gonna happen. Then I heard about the rules and I said, ‘The rules are just sucker rules for McGregor.’ McGregor took the biggest sucker rules in the history of boxing, of mixed fighting.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.