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22nd Apr 2022

Dana White posts video showing how to ‘stay alive’ after bumping into Mike Tyson on plane

Steve Hopkins

When you bump into The Baddest Man on the Planet, there’s only really one way to respond

Dana White has issued a “dummies” guide on how to “stay alive” if you happen to bump into Mike Tyson on an airplane after footage emerged of the former heavyweight boxing champion punching a fellow passenger.

The UFC president posted a video of him and the fighter known as ‘The Baddest Man on the Planet’ on Friday swapping seats after Tyson spoke out about Wednesday’s altercation saying that he had been provoked by an “extremely intoxicated” man.

 

Footage showed the 55-year-old repeatedly punching a passenger on a flight that was set to take off from San Francisco. Witnesses said Tyson appeared to be friendly and pose for photos at first, but lost his cool after a passenger behind him continued to speak to him.

White’s video opens with him being slapped on the shoulder by Tyson who asks him to move out of his seat. White responds by saying he likes the seat, but gets up as Tyson retorts, “I like it better”. He then adds, “Oh, this is nice”, as he shuts his eyes and gets comfortable. The camera then pans across the plane to show White sitting in a different seat.

Tyson’s team has since responded to the footage, with a representative telling TMZ that Tyson had a water bottle thrown at him in the build-up to the bust-up.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Tyson had an incident on a flight with an aggressive passenger who began harassing him and threw a water bottle at him while he was in his sea,” they said.

San Francisco police responded to the incident and detained two people.

They also confirmed that one of the people involved, who was also treated for minor injuries, had “provided minimal details of the incident and refused to cooperate further with the police investigation”.

Tyson was defended by YouTube and boxing star Jake Paul, who claimed that the passenger who provoked Iron Mike deserved to be attacked.

 

“If you’re being heckled in public like Mike Tyson was you should legally get a hall pass to beat someone’s ass. This generation thinks they can get away with anything,” he tweeted.

Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 but made a return to the ring in 2018 for an exhibition fight against Roy Jones Jr, which ended in a draw.

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