Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson had a medical emergency Sunday on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles, his representatives said Monday.
Tyson “became nauseous and dizzy due to an ulcer flare-up 30 minutes before landing,” his representative said in a statement to The Times. “He is appreciative to the medical staff that were there to help him.”
Tyson is now “doing great,” according to the representative.
Tyson, 57, has been preparing to fight 27-year-old YouTube influencer Jake Paul on July 20 in Arlington, Texas. Tyson reigned as a world champion from 1987 to 1990, but retired from professional boxing in 2005 — when Paul was a child.
The fight will be televised live on Netflix; the streaming giant has expanded its push into live entertainment in recent months with “The Roast of Tom Brady” and the multipart “John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A.” They also signed a deal with World Wrestling Entertainment to move the WWE’s flagship weekly wrestling series “Monday Night Raw” to the streamer starting next year.
Tyson — who was once boxing’s youngest-ever heavyweight world champion — will be 58 when he faces off against Paul at AT&T Stadium this summer.
The boxer’s long saga in and out of the sport has included heavyweight titles, prison time, a memoir, a well-known cameo in “The Hangover” and, perhaps most infamously, biting off a small chunk of fellow boxer Evander Holyfield’s ear during a 1997 fight.
On Monday morning, Paul appeared to respond to Tyson’s medical incident and subsequent questions about the upcoming fight on the social platform X, writing that people make things up “before knowing the facts for clicks / likes. Nothing changed #PaulTyson.”
Tyson, who is considered one of boxing’s all-time greats, has praised the brash Youtuber and former Disney Channel star in the past, saying last year that Paul’s embrace of the sport was helping put bodies in seats.
Like Tyson, the influencer-turned-fighter has also courted controversy in the past: He threw a massive house party during the summer 2020 height of the COVID-19 pandemic that sparked ire from Calabasas’ mayor, among other issues.