Tyson Fury has joked that he would pay to be punched by Mike Tyson to be able to say that he had been struck in the face by a “legend”.
Fury, who is named after the former American heavyweight, has confirmed his own retirement from professional boxing after defeating Dillian Whyte at Wembley Stadium last weekend.
Tyson, meanwhile, has been in the news after a video was shared showing the 55-year-old repeatedly striking a fellow plane passenger.
It is as yet unclear if any legal charges will be brought, with Tyson’s representatives accusing the man, in a statement to TMZ, of “harassing” Tyson and throwing a water bottle at him.
Fury defended Tyson, suggesting that his fellow former heavyweight is not the man to “prod with a stick”.
“Mike Tyson is a real OG,” Fury told TalkTV . “You can’t mess with Mike because you don’t know what he’s going to do.
“How can you go around prodding a lion with a stick? How long can you prod a guy for before he does something about it?
“Mike is Mike. Mike don’t get the name for the Baddest Man on the Planet for nothing. So he’s not the guy you want to prod with a stick on the back of a plane until you get chinned and that’s exactly what happened to the guy – and then he wants to cry about it!
“If he’s man enough to prod Mike Tyson and touch him and call him names and abuse him on the plane, then man up and take a punch on the face! So what?”
Fury even suggested that receiving a strike from Tyson was something that he would pay for.
The 33-year-old opined: “You should be paying Mike. Now you can say you’ve been punched in the face by a legend, a world heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson. I’d pay for that myself!”
