Mike Tyson believes one man has thoroughly earned the right of being classed as the current face of boxing.
Tyson had that distinct honour for many years himself, becoming the youngest world heavyweight champion in history before ruling the division as the biggest name in the sport.
While defeats may have come as his career progressed, there was still arguably nobody that generated as much interest as Tyson, with that even proving to be the case when he returned for a controversial fight against Jake Paul in November 2024.
When speaking to FightHype, Tyson acknowledged that Terence Crawford was his pick as the face of boxing, but after ‘Bud’ retired last year, he now believes Oleksandr Usyk is deserving of that acknowledgement.
“The heavyweight champion is always the face of boxing. Usyk is the man, Uysk is the f**king man. It’s biblical that his country is going through war and he’s the heavyweight champion of the world. Isn’t that incredible, the heavyweight champion of the world and he’s in a crisis right now.”
Tyson also shared his thoughts on how he thinks a bout with Usyk would have gone.
“It would have looked pretty good. I would have liked that fight.”
Usyk has had a career to dream of, becoming undisputed at cruiserweight before stepping up to the banner division and claiming undisputed honours at heavyweight twice after beating Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois all on two occasions.
The Ukrainian returns to action in May, defending his WBC heavyweight title against kickboxer Rico Verhoeven at the Pyramids of Giza in a bout that has divided the boxing world.
