Heavyweight legend Mike Tyson appeared on Good Morning Britain a short while ago today, speaking with Piers Morgan via remote interview from Los Angeles, and fans have expressed their concern over the 54-year-old’s slurred speech and apparent drowsiness. Tyson didn’t say too much, in fact he didn’t look as though he really wanted to be talking to anyone, and already social media is being filled with comments from fans.
Tyson is of course getting ready to return to the ring for his hugely hyped exhibition bout with fellow great Roy Jones, and Morgan asked the former two-time heavyweight king about the November bout. But Tyson appeared listless, even struggling to stay awake it seemed.
https://youtu.be/qD-BUdPDYm8
“I am just ready to do this, I feel really good. I am just ready to do this,” Tyson said, often with a slur to his words, when asked about the kind of shape he’s in for the Jones bout. “I think it’s very wonderful that we’re fighting together. It’s a fight that we should have had sooner, but unfortunately, we’re having it now and that’s going to be awesome.”
So, was Tyson’s jaded, worrying appearance down to fatigue and nothing more than that? Maybe Tyson had a hard session in the gym yesterday, before appearing on the show. Tyson, though, has a history of odd, even surreal TV interview appearances – his infamous 1980’s appearance on The Barbara Walters Show, for example, when his then-wife Robin Givens accused Tyson of all manner of horrible things, this while a near comatose-looking Tyson just sat there, looking as though he had been drugged.
Tyson was in a pretty bad place back then, let’s hope he’s okay right now. Fans have tweeted how Tyson looked “confused,” and “vacant,” that he “should in no way be allowed to fight again.”
While others wrote how they hoped Tyson was just “suffering from sleep deprivation.” Let’s all hope Tyson is in far better mental shape than seemed to be the case just a couple of hours ago today.
