Mike Tyson is ready to go toe-to-toe with Jake Paul.
In fact, the boxing legend said the reason he slapped the YouTuber in the face during a weigh-in for their Nov. 15 fight, streaming live on Netflix, was because Jake had stepped on his foot.
“I was in my socks and he had on shoes,” Tyson told the New York Post Nov. 14, shortly after the incident. “He stepped on my toe because he is a f–king a–hole. I wanted to think it happened by accident, but now I think it may have happened on purpose.”
The 58-year-old added that he was “in a lot of pain” during the confrontation, so he “had to reciprocate.”
But for Paul, the attack was harmless. After all, he taunted Tyson on stage following the slap, saying, “I didn’t even feel it.”
“He’s an angry little elf,” the 27-year-old—who pivoted from YouTube to professional boxing in 2018—continued. “Mike Tyson, I thought that was a cute slap, buddy.”
However, he did consider Tyson’s stunt to be a “personal” attack.
“It’s personal now,” Paul yelled during the weigh-in. “He must die.”
Paul’s mother Pam Stepnick also had heated words for Tyson following the slap.
In an Instagram Story video, the matriarch—who is also mom to YouTuber-turned-professional wrestler Logan Paul, 29—was heard calling Tyson a “f–king little b—h.”
Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images“I’m going to kill Mike Tyson for you,” she quipped to her younger son, prompting him to joke back, “You slap harder than him.”
Tyson’s match against the influencer is his first professional bout in almost two decades—meaning that the results will be entered in his and Paul’s official boxing records. He retired from the sport in 2005, but did take part in an exhibition match against Roy Jones Jr. in 2020.
At the weigh-in, Tyson—a former world heavyweight champion—came in at 227 lbs. Meanwhile, Paul weighed 228 lbs.
The Paul vs. Tyson fight airs live on Netflix Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.
