Mike Tyson has always been open about his battles inside and outside the ring, and now the former heavyweight champion is revealing another layer of his past. Speaking on The Katie Miller Podcast, Tyson admitted that during the late 90s he used fentanyl as a way to deal with the toll boxing took on his body.
“That fentanyl stuff, I’ve done fentanyl before in the late 90s when it first came here. It was for painkillers; it was a painkiller. I used to use it to patch on my toe, but it was like heroin, once you take it off, wears off. You take the band aid off, you start withdrawing and throwing up, just like if you were on heroin or something,” Tyson shared.
When asked how he managed not to fall into full blown addiction, Tyson explained it came down to the drug’s legal status in the sport. “Just because you did it once?” Miller asked. Tyson replied, “No, I did it quite a few times, but know what happened? It was illegal if it was caught in my bloodstream, it was a narcotic.”
He went on to explain how he only realized the consequences after consulting with a commissioner friend. “My friend told me cuz it’s brand new. I told my friend ‘Hey can I use this?’ because he was a commissioner. ‘Will I be able to use this?’ You know, no one ever heard of it. Then he looked it up and said, ‘Mike, that’s a narcotic, you couldn’t use it.’ I didn’t know that. I thought of it as a painkiller.”
Tyson’s revelation adds to the long list of stories about the extreme pressures fighters face when dealing with pain and recovery.
In other Tyson news, the boxing icon just confirmed a shocking announcement. At 59, he revealed on socials that he will face none other than Floyd Mayweather Jr. “This fight is something neither the world nor I ever thought would or could happen,” Tyson said. “I still can’t believe Floyd wants to really do this. It’s going to be detrimental to his health, but he wants to do it, so it’s signed and it’s happening!”
If it goes down as Tyson says, the bout will be one of the most talked about showdowns in boxing history.