There is hardly anyone in the sports world who hasn’t heard of the legendary “Iron” Mike Tyson who resigned as a boxing heavyweight champion of the world. Mike Tyson to this day still holds the record of the youngest world heavyweight boxing title winner. An interesting story from his career days was when he once exchanged some of his expensive luxury cars just to get pet tigers.
Legendary Boxer, Mike Tyson once swapped his expensive cars for pet tigers
Many people do not know about this story because Mike Tyson used to be one of the world’s richest sportsman before he was declared bankrupt in the year 2003 despite earning more than ₦122billion ($330million) in the course of his career.
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At the prime of Mike Tyson’s career, he spent a huge amount of his wealth on partying, houses, luxury cars and many more. Apart from his collection of expensive cars, he also kept some expensive personal pets like his Bengal Tigers. He had three of these tigers for more than 16 years before he was finally forced to release them after a horrible accident that also cost him a lot of money.
In one of his interviews about the incident at that time, Mike Tyson said;
“Somebody jumped over my fence where the tiger was and started playing with the tiger.
“The tiger didn’t know the lady so it was a bad accident. She jumped into the property where the tiger was.
“They tried to [sue] until they found out she jumped over the fence and she trespassed with the tiger.
“When I saw what the tiger did to her hand, I had a lot of money back then, so I gave her $250,000 whatever it was because she was just f***** up.”
“You can’t believe what they can do to human flesh – I had no idea.
“I was foolish then, there is no way you’re going to domesticate these cats 100 per cent, there’s no way that’s going to happen.
“I loved them – I used to sleep with them. I’m just happy I educated myself that I was doing the wrong s***.
“I shouldn’t have had them in my house, I shouldn’t have had them domesticated. I believed they were domesticated.
“They kill you by accident, they don’t even mean to kill you, they do it by accident.”
Among all popular boxers in the past, Mike Tyson was well known for spending huge money on luxury cars
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Some of the notable expensive cars in Mike Tyson’s collection from back in the days include;
- Mercedes Benz 500 SL
- Rolls-Royce Stretch Limousine
- Rolls-Royce Corniche
- Rolls-Royce Silver Spur
- Cadillac Seville
- Ferrari F50
- Ferrari 456 GT Spyder
- Aston-Martin Lagonda
- Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster
- 1997 Bentley Continental T
See this video below where Mike Tyson revealed how got the pet tigers back in his career days:
Mike Tyson reveals how he got his white tiger and discusses life after boxing | Now or Never
Many sources claim that after getting out of debt, Mike Tyson as of today earns approximately ₦226billion (£500,000) monthly from his business of selling premium cannabis products.
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