US boxer and former heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson addresses a press conference in Hong Kong on September 12, 2012. Tyson is in Hong Kong to attend the annual CLSA investor forum. AFP/ PHILIPPE LOPEZ
HONG KONG, China—Former heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson said Wednesday he wants to “dance and sing” in musicals as his next challenge, after leaving the ring and cleaning up his troubled life.
“I want to dance and sing. I want to do some dancing and singing musicals,” Tyson told reporters during a visit to Hong Kong when asked what he wanted to do with his life next.
The 46-year-old Hall of Fame boxer who served time in jail for rape and infamously bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a fight in 1997, said he now just wanted to “hang out and entertain”.
“I don’t have the desire to be that guy any more,” he said of his previous life as the self-styled “baddest man on the planet” who won 44 of his 58 fights by knockout.
“I was always the bad guy that wanted to be a good guy, but I didn’t know how to be a good guy. I was always so concentrating on being bad.”
Tyson is in Hong Kong to address the CLSA Investors’ Forum about how he overcame his troubled upbringing, the end of his brilliant but turbulent sporting career and his addiction to drugs and alcohol, to become a better man.
He admitted he didn’t have much to offer the high-powered international business audience on the European debt crisis or the direction of Asian markets.
The Brooklyn native, who squandered millions of dollars on drink and drugs, said the business of boxing was, for him, not about the money.
“I didn’t care about my business. I only cared about my glory,” he said.
“You can’t buy that … (I was) the best fighter in the world. Nobody could beat me with money in my prime, you had to be a better fighter and there wasn’t any.”
But he said he had learned a thing or two about business over the years.
“You learn to always trust your decision-making skills, you learn to always have your own fiduciary lawyers with you, and you also learn to always trust your partners, which is my wife,” he said.
Tyson, who has a tattoo of Chairman Mao on his right arm, said he was thrilled to visit Bruce Lee’s home town and paid tribute to the late legend of kung fu cinema.
“Bruce Lee’s concepts and philosophy is totally off the hook. Bruce Lee’s amazing,” he said.
“Bruce Lee was a street fighter, he’s got to fight to the death… I’m not going to fight Bruce Lee.”
Tyson is no stranger to the stage, having appeared in films and television shows. Last year he performed with his wife, Lakiha Spicer, in Argentinian dance show Bailando.
Earlier this year he made his Broadway debut with his one-man show “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth”, directed by Spike Lee.
“I’m just so happy to become this guy, to be a responsible adult. For a guy like me this is very courageous,” he said.