Mike Tyson's 'Legacy' Comments to the Girl Was Deeper Than We Knew. Here's The Tea

Tyson’s $20 million payout for the viral boxing match made the whole event seem like a sham.

Ahead of Mike Tyson’s blockbuster fight against influencer Jake Paul, he gave a revelatory quote about his perspective on legacy. When 14-year-old reporter Jazlyn “Jazzy” Guerra asked Tyson what kind of legacy he wants to leave behind, the boxing legend gave an apathetic response that’s either morbid or profound, depending who you ask.

“I don’t know, I don’t believe in the word ‘legacy,’” Tyson said. “I just think that’s another word for ego. Legacy doesn’t mean nothing. It’s just some word everybody grabbed onto. It means absolutely nothing to me. I’m just passing through. I’m going to die and it’s going to be over. Who cares about legacy after that?

“Who the f**k cares about me when I’m gone?” he continued, before his voice trails off. “Maybe my kids, or my grandkids.”

Many of Tyson’s fans waited anxiously last week to see if the former heavyweight champion would give influencer Paul the whooping of a lifetime. However, they were left disappointed at his loss, leaving them to believe the match was just a money grab to keep the boxer’s head above water.

But as Tyson said in the viral quote to Jazzy, he’s not concerned about those fans’ perceptions of him. He’s more focused on making money, and an opportunity to improve his strained relationships with his children.

“Family is everything. To my children, I’m nobody, but that night they’re going to find out their father is very special,” he said in an interview after an open workout. “So the night of the fight they’re gonna realize they better watch it the next time they talk crap to me.”

The 58-year-old champion using the fight with Paul as an easy money grab would make sense considering his previous financial issues. As a young bull, his fights earned him hundreds of millions of dollars. He reached up to $400 million in earnings by 2003, per The New York Times. However, between splurging on flashy clothes, mansions, cars, parties, and his notorious Siberian tigers, he was forced to file bankruptcy.

In other expenses, he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars between jewelry debt, payments to previous employees, divorce settlements, and child support, the report says. To date, Tyson has a total of seven kids, one who had passed away in 2009. In total, his bankruptcy filings displayed $27 million of debt.

“I have been in financial distress since 1998 when I was burdened with substantial debt to Showtime, taxing authorities and parties to litigation. Since that time, although my fight income, various asset sales and litigation recoveries have enabled me to pay a lot of my debt, I am still unable to pay my bills,” Tyson wrote in an affidavit.

Two years after the filing, he retired from professional boxing, making scarce appearances in the ring for as low as $1 million. DraftKings Network estimated Tyson profited $20 million off the widely anticipated fight against Paul. He used to earn an average of $30 million per fight in the late 90s, The Times reported.

Tyson has said in years past that he feared that his money troubles would lead to him taking fights that he couldn’t realistically win. He spoke candidly ahead of his 2006 match with heavyweight Corey Sanders, the first fight of “Mike Tyson’s World Tour,” a series of four-round exhibition bouts.

“If I don’t get out of this financial quagmire there’s a possibility I may have to be a punching bag for somebody,” he said at the media conference in Youngstown, according to ESPN. “The money I make here isn’t going to help any of my bills from a tremendous standpoint, but I’m going to feel better about myself. I’m not going to be depressed.”

Tyson’s health was a big issue before the match with Paul. Doctors recommended in May that he refrain from training after he had an ulcer flareup, which led to fight being postponed from its original July date. In a Netflix docuseries, Tyson says that he threw up blood in the bathroom and fell to the floor. And after the fight ended, he revealed in a post to X that he “had eight blood transfusions, lost half my blood and 25 lbs in the hospital” in June. It led many to question why the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation sanctioned the fight in the first place. Fans also wondered whether the fight was scripted, picking apart footage and conspiring that Tyson avoided a wide-open opportunity to knock Paul out.