Hall of Famer and former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson fully supports the cross-sports attractions involving five division world champion Floyd Mayweather.
In what became the second biggest pay-per-view in combat sports history, Mayweather fought UFC superstar Conor McGregor in a boxing match in August 2017 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In the ring, Mayweather would break down and stop McGregor in the tenth round.
On New Year's Eve in 2019, Mayweather flew to Japan and had an exhibition fight with kickboxing superstar Tenshin Nasukawa. Mayweather blew him away in a single round.
Mayweather is now mulling the possibility of a boxing scrap with UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and even a rematch with McGregor.
Tyson loves the idea of these fights.
"I think that’s pretty awesome! He was the first to do that. I like that. It’s going to happen more, absolutely. I don’t know how well we [boxers] would’ve done fighting them [MMA fighters] - it always depends on under which rules you’re fighting," Tyson told The Sportsman.
In the last two years, the popularity of boxing is starting to rise to greater heights - but it's still not at the level of what it was when Tyson was in the prime of his career in the 80s and early 90s.
"Boxing is such an enigma, as a sport. This is what really matters: in two hundred years from now, there will probably only be five fighters that people will remember. That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about having money, about becoming rich. That they won’t stop mentioning your name until the planet’s disintegrated: that’s what this is really about. People are stating their names in the art of pugilist, fisticuff, combat, fighting," Tyson said.
"I like the word 'fighting'. That’s not a politically correct word in this field anymore. Fighting is not cool, now. It can conjure up negative stuff, but not if you use it in a spiritual perspective. Fighting is spiritual, but you just can’t see the spiritual in it because it’s mostly dominated by the physical aspect. We want to be Achilles in our own mind. The king of all the fighters."