Watch: Boxing Hall of Fame event goes awry after Mike Tyson hurls water in Don King's face
Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson and boxing promoter Don King made a lot of money together during Tyson’s heyday, but their relationship turned ugly in the years that followed.
Tyson filed a $100 million lawsuit against King in 1998 claiming the promoter had cheated him out of tens of millions of dollars.
The boxer claimed he had been subjected to a “pattern of fraudulent conduct” by King that had been “financially devastating” to him.
They reached a settlement in 2014 under which King agreed to pay Tyson $14 million, but that didn’t smooth things over.
In the 2008 documentary “Tyson,” the boxer called King “a wretched, slimy, reptilian motherf—er. This is supposed to be my ‘black brother’, right? He’s just a bad man, a real bad man. He would kill his own mother for a dollar. He’s ruthless, he’s deplorable, he’s greedy … and he doesn’t know how to love anybody.”
Ten years later, Tyson still apparently holds a grudge against the promoter.
The two men appeared together during the International Boxing Hall of Fame induction Saturday in Canastota, New York.
When King walked past Tyson, he gave the former champ a friendly tap on the shoulder. Tyson responded by tossing water at King.
Afterward, the 51-year-old Tyson said he let his emotions get the best of him.
“That was me being immature,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done that. But, you know, he touched me, he tapped me on my shoulder. It’s just, I don’t know.
“He talked in there like he was my friend and that was just bullcrap.”
Tyson said he regretted doing it “because I’m getting rid of my bitterness today. I let all of that go. Today’s the day I let all of that go.”
King, 86, hasn’t commented on the incident.
The two men were on hand for the Hall of Fame enshrinement of boxers Vitali Klitschko, Erik Morales, Winky Wright and Sid Terris, ring announcer Johnny Addie, promoters Lorraine Chargin and Klaus-Peter Kohl and broadcasters Steve Albert and Jim Gray.
Tyson was inducted in 2011, and King was enshrined in 1997.
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