Floyd Mayweather and Mike Tyson have very different views on what’s wrong with modern boxing.
The 50-0 former pound-for-pound king spoke out after his retirement about the proliferation of ‘world title’ belts in the sport.
Speaking in late 2020 Mayweather said: “There’s too many champions in the sport of boxing right now.
“Too many champions. There’s no such thing as a ‘super’ champion, not at all. And I’m not taking anything away from no fighter. It’s too many belts.
“And the reason why it’s too [many], let me tell people what’s going on in the sport of boxing, why there are so many different titles and so many different belts.
“People don’t know you have to pay, for every belt you win, there’s a sanctioning fee.
“If a fighter has just the ‘regular’ belt, he has to pay a sanctioning fee. If a fighter is a ‘super’ champion, he has to pay a sanctioning fee. This is not good for the sport of boxing.
“Every fighter is a champion now. Belts now is like a fighter winning an amateur trophy.
“We gotta clean this sport of boxing up. This s***, this doesn’t look good.”
When asked about this, Tyson disagreed.
He replied: “Boxing can never have too many belts because every time there’s a championship fight, that’s more money for the fighter. There’s never enough belts.
“Say there’s one champion and there’s ten guys [contenders], how long’s it gonna take to go through these ten guys? Plus they gotta go through each other.
“It’s good to have three champions because every time there’s a fight, everybody can get paid. Everybody makes money.
“That’s what this business is about. Money.”
Tyson knows that better than most as he is set to face Jake Paul in his next fight on July 20. There has been no confirmation yet of whether a ceremonial belt will be on the line.
It is unknown how Tyson and Mayweather’s relationship stands in the present day.
In the past the pair were not on good terms, supposedly stemming from a police raid back in 2001 – a time when they were both two of the biggest names in the boxing world, with Tyson more prominent than Mayweather.
A former assistant of ‘Iron Mike’, Darryl Francis, told USA Today that Tyson’s dislike for Mayweather originated from the fact that he believed Floyd called for the raid.
Police raided Tyson’s Las Vegas home in September of that year after a woman accused Tyson of sexually assaulting her on two occasions.
In his book, Tyson said a friend told him the alleged victim had also been dating ‘another prominent boxer.’
Tyson always insisted he could not prove anything and later said: “I’m good with it now. You can forgive, but you have to remember.”
13 years later when they met on stage, Tyson charged over to Mayweather and faked a punch in his direction.
Floyd didn’t flinch and they embraced, somewhat awkwardly.
Although the incident appeared jovial, comments made just a year later appeared to suggest this was not the case.
In a 2015 interview, Mayweather claimed that he was the greatest boxer of all time, over Muhammad Ali and Tyson.
Tyson took exception to the comments, not about himself, but his idol Ali.
“He’s very delusional,” Tyson responded.
“Listen, if he was anywhere near that realm of great as Muhammad Ali, he’d be able to take his kids to school by himself.
“OK, he can’t take his kids to school by himself, and he’s talking about he’s great?
“Greatness is not guarding yourself from the people. It’s being accepted by the people. He can’t take his kids alone to school by himself. He’s a little scared man. He’s a very small, scared man.”
