I remember watching Mike Tyson calling out Bob Sapp (*Editor’s note: How the hell is Bob Sapp only 35?) after "The Beast" beat Kimo Leopoldo at K-1 World Grand Prix event in Las Vegas in 2003 and thinking, "Man, I wish Tyson would fight somebody good in MMA."
Well, it turns out that in 2003 "Iron" Mike had a contract with PRIDE and was supposed to fight two of the Japanese promotion’s best heavyweights: Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic and Fedor Emelianenko.
The bouts never came to fruition for several different reasons, but if they had, Dana White likely wouldn’t have had any interest in bringing James Toney into the UFC to solve the, "Who would win between a boxer and a mixed martial artist?" question.
Imagine how differently each man’s career would have turned out if Tyson had knocked Emelianenko and Filipovic out in the 2004 PRIDE Heavyweight Grand Prix.
The translation of the story from PRIDE: Secret Files courtesy of MMA-Japan.com is after the jump: