Mike Tyson has recalled a moment when he attempted to bribe a zookeeper to let him fight a silverback gorilla.
What do you think of when you hear the name Mike Tyson? Boxer? Celebrity? Ear aficionado? Whatever you think of, we’re assuming that the phrase ‘primate pugilist’ doesn’t cross your mind, as a recent admission by the boxer has suggested.
Speaking to The Sun recently, ‘The Baddest Man On The Planet’ shared a story of how he tried putting down cash to throw hands with a gorilla.
Apparently, Tyson had been walking around a New York zoo after hours with then-wife Robin Givens in the late ’80s, only to see one of the creatures asserting his dominance in the worst way possible.
“I paid a worker at New York’s zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin,” Tyson began. “When we got to the gorilla cage there was one big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas.”
“They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback’s snotbox! He declined.”
Of course, while the very notion of Mike Tyson fighting a gorilla is completely mind-boggling, it does raise one question; who would have won?
While folks over on Reddit have been claiming that Mike Tyson would have been absolutely obliterated if he went up against the gorilla, very few have been offering up any scenario in which Tyson would have emerged the winner.
As one user put it, “There’s a guy out there who gets to tell all his friends, ‘I turned down 10 grand to save mike Tyson from a gorilla once’.”
Whatever the potential outcome could have been, it’s pretty clear that there is a zookeeper out there who undeniably saved Mike Tyson’s life, setting him up to be one of the most divisive figures in sporting history.
Check out Mike Tyson’s conversation with Mike Tyson:
