A young reporter gives Mike Tyson a softball – and gets a reality check

On November 16, 2024By Littum

Mike Tyson, not known for sugarcoating his comments in the media, showed on Wednesday that he will answer any question he sees fit. If that means getting very, very gloomy while dropping a few f-bombs, so be it.

Even if the interviewer happens to be a 14-year-old girl.

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That was the case when Tyson offered his thoughts to Jazlyn “Jazzy” Guerra during a promotional event for his fight against Jake Paul on Friday. After asking Tyson about his longtime love of pigeons, the lessons he learned from enduring childhood adversity, his definition of happiness and his thoughts on Paul, Jazzy lobbed the boxer what would normally be a softball. What type of legacy will he leave behind?

“I don’t know. I don’t believe in the word ‘legacy.’ I think it’s just another word for ego,” replied the 58-year-old ex-heavyweight champion. “Legacy … means absolutely nothing to me. I’m just passing by.

“I’m going to die and it will be over,” Tyson continued, turning to his young interviewer. “Who cares about legacy after that? What a big ego. So I’m going to die—I want people to think I’m this, I’m great? No, we’re nothing. We’re dead. We’re dust. We are absolutely nothing. Our heritage is nothing.”

Jazzy, showing her early polish, honed over dozens of celebrity interviews, barely missed a beat before thanking Tyson for responding with “something that I haven’t heard before.” But he wasn’t done.

“Can you really imagine someone saying, ‘I want my legacy to be like this or like that’? You’re dead,” Tyson said. “You really want them to think about you? What is the audacity to think, ‘I want people to think of me when I’m gone’? Who the f— cares about me when I’m gone? My children, maybe, my grandchildren. But who the hell cares about that.”

“True, and again, thank you so much for sharing,” Jazzy said before quickly moving on to a gift she had for Tyson.

The interaction, shared Thursday on Jazzy’s social media feeds — including on TikTok, where she has 1.5 million followers — quickly went viral. A number of commentators said they were surprised by Tyson’s response to the inheritance question — as was Jazzy herself, she acknowledged Thursday.

“I was pretty surprised because I didn’t expect that response,” Jazzy said when called from Texas, where the game will be held at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. “But at the same time, everyone has different attitudes when it comes to inheritance and what they want to leave behind when they’ve passed. So anyway, I respect his opinion and his point of view.

“As long as he answered the question in the way he felt he needed to answer,” she added, “that’s all that mattered.”

Asked if she has had an opportunity to reflect on Tyson’s discourse on the meaning of life, Jazzy replied: “At the moment I was kind of thinking, ‘Oh, he’s got a pretty good point,’ because when we’re dead, when we pass on , you never really know what’s going to happen. You never know what the legacy is going to be, so it’s something I thought about, but only in the moment. Nothing I really thought about afterwards.”

A Brooklyn native like Tyson, Jazzy has been conducting interviews since 2019 when she was 9 years old. Her father said he lost count of the total but was sure the number passed 250. Regarding the way Tyson’s comments went viral, Jazzy actually stated that she has had “countless videos go viral before,” and pointed to interviews with hip-hop luminaries like Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, and Kendrick Lamar. She also noted that in July she asked questions of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Jazzy had already interviewed “Uncle Mike” in August, and her father said that while Tyson had declined most media inquiries ahead of the Paul fight, he agreed to speak with her because of their “relationship.” She has also interviewed Paul on several occasions and her father said they were invited to Texas by the fight promotion company owned by Paul.

At a news conference Wednesday, Tyson gave brief answers. “I have said all I had to say,” he said. “I’m just looking forward to fighting.”

While Tyson spoke at relatively length to Jazzy, the tone of his response to the old question prompted one Instagram commenter to write, “Mike still hates interviewers.”

“No, he loves doing interviews with me,” Jazzy replied online. “He’s just locked in for the game.”

It is the first sanctioned fight for Tyson (50-6) since 2005, when he stopped mid-fight against journeyman Kevin McBride. He has since participated in a few exhibition bouts, most recently a matchup with another aging boxing star, Roy Jones Jr., in 2020.

Tyson is reportedly set to earn $20 million to fight the 27-year-old Paul (10-1), who has said he wants to earn $40 million. As part of their deal to sanction the fight, the Texas authorities ordered that the bout consist of eight two-minute rounds – making it a shorter bout – and that the contestants wear heavy gloves to reduce their punching power.

“I just really want to see a good game,” Jazzy said when asked for a prediction. “They are both really nice people and I know they both hit really hard. So hey, if we get a KO, we get a KO.”