MIKE TYSON has been backed to return to the ring aged 53 by current heavyweight king Anthony Joshua.
Tyson rose up from sickening Brooklyn poverty to earn a £300million fortune but left the sport bankrupt and haunted with unfulfilled potential.
But the veteran has been in training for almost a month, got down to around 16st stone with rippling muscles and is fielding a series of big-money offers.
The return has been rubbished by a string of high-profile critics but AJ feels like his hero has just been on an extended 15-year holiday and will be back with a bang.
The 30-year-old said: “For everyone else it is a ‘comeback’ but for him it is just what he does, he is a fighter.
“He has probably just taken a little break, everyone else is thinking ‘oh my God, Mike Tyson is making a comeback’.
“But Tyson is probably just thinking ‘this is what I do, I am a fighter by nature’.
“If he is back in the ring then I would love to see it, I will definitely be one of the viewers, that’s for sure.
“He was the man when I was growing up, I watched him on YouTube.”
Joshua puts the Baddest Man on the Planet on a pedestal alongside The Greatest, Muhammad Ali.
And Tyson, for all his faults and controversies, remains Joshua’s boxing hero.
AJ said: “No matter what people say about what he went through when he was fighting or what controversies he went through, he took himself from his neighbourhood up to an amateur champion, to the youngest heavyweight world champion and then became one of the two most recognisable faces in boxing.
“In my opinion, the only two boxing faces that are recognised globally on that level are Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson.
“They are the main faces of the sport and he is my ultimate inspiration because he is the closer one to my generation.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
