British police chased Mike Tyson 'out of town' before the final fights of his heavyweight boxing career, according to Frank Warren
- Mike Tyson was once chased out of London by British police.
- That's according to the boxing promoter Frank Warren, who helped organize two fights for Tyson in the UK in the year 2000.
- Speaking on a podcast, Warren said that during his time in the UK, Tyson built up a $2 million debt with Graff jewelers because he was trying to impress a woman who worked at the store.
- Tyson, Warren said, tried to attack him, because he kept telling Tyson to pay the invoice, "went berserk," and then headed straight to Gatwick airport because "police ran him out of town."
- Tyson returns to the ring next month as he takes part in an eight round charity exhibition involving Roy Jones Jr.
British police chased Mike Tyson "out of town" before one of the final fights of his heavyweight boxing career.
That's according to the boxing promoter Frank Warren, who helped organize a number of fights involving British athletes competing against Tyson.
In 2000, Tyson embarked on two fights in the UK, first knocking out Julius Francis in the second round of a bout in Manchester in January.
In the second fight, held in Glasgow in June, Tyson beat fellow American Lou Savarese in just 38 seconds, one of the fastest victories of his career.
During his trips to the UK, Warren told British ex-newspaper editor Andy Coulson on his "Crisis What Crisis" podcast, Tyson built a debt of approximately $2 million at high end jeweler Graff because he wanted to impress a woman who worked there.
He never paid the debt though, much to Warren's chagrin, especially as the promoter got repeated calls from the owner demanding payment.
Warren relayed this to Tyson who had returned to America before the fighter eventually returned to Britain angry — angry at Warren.
'He went berserk'
"First time he came over, no problems, he was great," said Warren. "And then he went into a jewelers and walked out with an invoice for … £1.5 million, £2 million [$2 million, $2.5 million] something like that.
"They never paid the bill and the jewellers, quite rightly, wanted to get paid and they kept ringing me. And I was ringing the States. They're telling me, 'Don't worry, we're going to do another fight here let's pay it out of that'.
"When he came back the second time he was just awful. Beyond awful. He was petulant, aggressive, totally different scenario.
"The bill hadn't been paid still and he'd gone into the jewellers because there was a girl in there that he had met and he was basically showing off to her. To cut a long story short, he got pissed about it.
"I get a call. Someone tells me, 'Mike's not happy.' I go up to the hotel. Next minute, you stand there talking and he's taken a swing at me. He actually caught me. There's a lot of commotion. I didn't expect it.
"It was a cheap shot. I got up and it's pandemonium, madness in the room. When I say it's my fault, I should have known. I should have pulled out of that situation from the start."
"I was fuming. The lawyer at Showtime wanted to call the police, I told them not to.
"All the newspapers said my jaw was broken, ribs were broken, it was all b-------, nothing was broken. My eye had a burst blood vessel, that was it.
"I made sure that he paid for what he did, hit him where it hurt. And he went berserk after the fight, the police actually ran him out of town. After the fight he went straight to Gatwick and left the country."
Tyson fought a further six times after his two-bout UK tour, including a fight against another Warren fighter called Danny Williams. Williams, a London journeyman, beat Tyson in 2004 in his penultimate pro fight.
Tyson fought, and lost, one more time — a sixth round retirement to Kevin McBride in 2005 — before retiring from professional sport altogether.
The American returns to the ring on November 28 to take part in an unofficial bout, an eight-round charity exhibition, involving fellow all-time great Roy Jones Jr.
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