The Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield boxing match appears to be dead and buried.
That’s according to Holyfield’s manager Kris Lawrence, who claims Tyson walked away from a guaranteed $25 million purse after “Iron” dropped the curtain on all incoming offers, including a “Real Deal” trilogy on May 29 at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
“We thought this was a done deal but it quickly fell apart when Tyson’s people declined all offers,” Lawrence said in a prepared statement. “We were negotiating in good faith all along and it appears we just ended up wasting our time… Team Tyson’s demands recently became untenable, and not what Mike Tyson had originally agreed on in direct conversations with Holyfield.”
Holyfield won their 1996 showdown by way of eleventh-round technical knockout, then captured a disqualification victory the following June when the erratic Tyson treated “Real Deal” like a chocolate Easter bunny.
It should be noted that “Iron” has previously slammed Holyfield’s handlers for keeping him broke.
“Maybe Evander needs to talk to me because every time my business associates talk to his business associates, it doesn’t turn out well,” Tyson said back in Nov. 2020. “If these guys really care about the welfare of Evander they would have had this fight with Evander. Maybe we’ll do another but whoever’s he’s with who’s handling him is totally wrong.”
Tyson returned to the squared circle last November to battle fellow aging pugilist Roy Jones Jr., a pay-per-view (PPV) spectacle that drew enough money to warrant a resurrection of old timers, including the 58 year-old Holyfield.
Whether or not a Tyson trilogy ever comes to fruition remains to be seen.