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In some ways, Mike Tyson is a new man. He’s out there singing songs and working with birds since appearing in The Hangover. Or, perhaps with how random and crazy those things are, he’s kind of just the same old guy. Trust me: Read on and scratch your head at some of the things he says here. Among them, Tyson says that he would pick Floyd Mayweather if a fight with Manny Pacquiao would ever finally happen. But he only finally makes a pick when he convinces the host to give him a pretend $500,000 to bet on it and says his thinking would be more rational if and when the fight got closer. Yeah, that’d be the day. Mike Tyson joined ESPN Las Vegas with The Gridlockto discuss what he’s been up to, his singing, his new fanbase, Michael Buffer being elected to the Hall of Fame, a potential Pacquiao-Mayweather fight and the passing of Joe Frazier.
What have you been up to?:
“I’ve been traveling. I’ve been getting paid to sing songs.”
More on his singing, after they play a clip of him singing Girl From Ipanema:
“Teddy Pendergrass has been singing for 20 years and he did all-women concerts. He’s been doing it for 20 years, I did it for three songs and I got an all-woman concert. I’m Teddy Pendergrass reincarnated.”
Who is your favorite artist?:
“Whitney Houston. She’s a good singer.”
How many new fans do you think you have just based on your singing and The Hangover and things like that?:
“Hey, listen, this new Mike Tyson guy, I don’t know him that well, but he’s got a whole big fanbase of new people, people that never even saw him participate in any kind of fisticuffs and stuff. That’s what takes him to a whole different variation, as far as a fanbase and Twitter. It’s just totally different. I could just never dream of being able to talk to a billion people at one instant of a second.”
Michael Buffer has been elected to the Hall of Fame. What are your feelings on that?:
“Hey, listen, there’s a bunch of guys that are in the Hall … that from the beginning of fighting, in the 20s and 1910, all these guys, these guys are in the Hall of Fame, too. If these guys never went to the Hall of Fame, then Michael Buffer shouldn’t. But these guys are in the Hall of Fame and his voice is more sensational. We had never heard that voice before. These are guys are people that we just heard because they were in the ring. … He entertained us. … He’s a part of the two men in the ring. The referee should be in there, the announcer should be in there.”
If Pacquiao-Mayweather ever happens, who would win?:
“Well, you have to look at the situation like this: Manny’s getting a lot of slack because of Marquez, mostly in the Latino and African-American community. He’s getting a lot of slack because everybody believes that he lost that fight. They really thought that Marquez won. Marquez is on a big high right now. … It’s very close. I’m the kind of guy, I can go with my heart, but I like to bet concerning the odds of the fight.”
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