Shaquille O’Neal recently recorded a candid interview with Mike Tyson for his podcast. In the introduction of the interview, O’Neal narrates how he got to speak to Mike Tyson for the first time and what happened when they eventually met for the first time in person.
Mike Tyson served some time in prison between 1992 and 1995. During this time, O’Neal went to visit him and spoke to him in person for the first time. However, it was not until Tyson’s sentence was commuted that they met in person for the first time.
Tyson had invited O’Neal to his mansion before his fight back in that time. O’Neal was either playing his final season with the Magic or had just signed with the Lakers in the timeframe of this story (post-1995, after Tyson came out of prison). O’Neal narrated the story of this meeting on his podcast.
“It’s a true story. So, everyone was a Mike Tyson fan. Had a friend of mine, Fresh West, who’s now the executive for the New York Knicks.”
“So West comes to my room with me and D Scott. He said, ‘Hey, man, you want to go see Mike?’ So I’m like, ‘Mike who?’ He said, ‘Mike Tyson.’ So we went, and I was amazed that Mike knew who I was.”
“We had a great conversation and Mike gave me a lot of gems, a lot of tools, and he said, ‘Hey man, when I come home, I want you to come to my first fight.’ He called me, gave me some tickets to his first fight.”
“That was the first time, but this is the real first time. Before his fight, he says, ‘Hey, come to the house.’ So, we come to his house, ring the bell. Dingdong. I hear a ‘Come in!’ So, I open the door, right? There’s nobody in the lobby. So, I’m, you know, I want to make myself at home. I start walking, a f**king tiger comes running down the stairs.”
O’Neal was so much in disbelief of what he saw that he had to repeat himself thrice to clarify the gravity of what he had seen at Mike Tyson’s house.
“A real white tiger came running down the stairs. A white tiger came running down the stairs.”
Lefkoe hilariously questions him, “So how much sh** came out of you’re a**?”
O’Neal responds, “A lot.”
“So I turn around and I’m trying to get to the thing, and then Mike comes and he starts wrestling the tiger. I told my boy, I said, I’m not a gambler man, but I wish I had a million dollars to put in the fight. I just saw this man stop a full-grown f**king tiger. He’s about to kill this dude.”
Tyson and O’Neal have been friends ever since they met and have witnessed each other do some unbelievable things. Shaquille O’Neal once spent $600,000 in front of Mike Tyson just to get back at a car salesman who didn’t believe O’Neal was a serious buyer in a Rolls-Royce showroom and couldn’t match Tyson’s extravagant lifestyle.
While spending excessive amounts of money is no comparison to wrestling a tiger bare-armed, this duo certainly has their share of wild stories with each other.
