‘Oh crap’ – I was the king of wrestling until this Mike Tyson moment terrified me

Mike Tyson will finally take on Jake Paul on Friday night after decades of striking fear into the hearts of opponents.

Tyson, 58, meets YouTuber Paulthirty years his senior, in an epic battle for AT&T Arena in Texas as the great boxer fights professionally for the first time in two decades.

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The meeting has been a long time in the making after one postponement, and Tyson remains confident he will do so be the decisive victorbacked by a stellar, if sometimes controversial, career that included 44 wins via knockout.

Iron Mike remains one of the most feared performers in history, but outside the ring, Tyson is known for his love of professional wrestling. WWE fan and featured in one of the most iconic storylines of the Attitude Era.

WWE Lost £2.5 million before him, he headlined the main event as a special enforcer for the world championship match between Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steve Austin in Boston.

The fighter himself later admitted this barely seen a cent of that money due to his crippling debts at the time.

AustinOf course, he went on to defeat Michaels to claim the WWE Championship and, for good measure, Tyson then laid out a dejected HBK with a right hand in the middle of the ring.

The fighter was a WWE favorite and had wrestling fans, although Eric Bischoff shook a man in his boots in Tyson’s wrestling cameo.

As head of WCW, Bischoff led the ultimate competition against Vince McMahon’s WWE and after defeating the likes of Hulk HoganRandy Savage, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash come over to his empire McMahon‘s regularly beat them in the ratings.

In that phase, a key measure of success or failure, came the ratings war as WWE’s Monday Night Raw went head-to-head with WCW Monday Nitro – with the latter at one point coming on top for 83 consecutive weeks.

Bischoff was coasting and readily admitted that nothing WWE did on their weekly television fazed him until, that is, Tyson came on the scene.

The fact that they had The Baddest Man on the Planet in their corner was a huge boost for McMahon, and Bischoff knew it: the writing was on the wall.

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Asked for his thoughts on the rise of the WWE Attitude Era, which saw the Tyson run from the beginning, Bischoff said said: “The seminal moment, the point where I said, ‘Oh crap, we’ve got something to worry about here,’ is the whole Mike Tyson, Vince McMahon, and Stone Cold Steve Austin angle.

“Everything leading up to that, I kind of let it slide, chuckled a little bit and didn’t worry too much about it.

“I wasn’t too concerned until it was so clear to me that Vince had made a clear decision to leave the pre-teen market and put all his eggs in that 18-49 year old male market because that’s what I want to.” d dominated the last (few years).”

The rest was history. WWE soon turned the tide in the ratings battle and shortly after the turn of the millennium, WCW was bankrupt and bought by McMahon.

Bischoff famously went to work for his rival and joined WWE as an on-screen authority figure, while Tyson back for future cameos on Monday Night Raw and later appearing for new rival company AEW in 2020.