MIKE TYSON

Mike Tyson is facing legal action from a 49-year-old retired boxer, alleging that former heavyweight champion stole his “Iron Mike” nickname 25 years ago.

In his first years of successful career, Mike Tyson’s nickname was “Kid Dynamite”, after he won his first nineteen professional fights by knockout, with twelve of them occurring in the 1st round. He was the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, when he was only 21 years old and he became “Iron Mike”.

He was very proud for this, but now he is in danger to pay $115 million because former professional fighter Mike Landrum claims he coined this nickname in 1983 and he has filed a lawsuit in Federal Court in Los Angeles.

Many observers told anecdotically that this is a result of too many unemployed lawyers, asking why Landrum waited almost 25 years for his action. In their opinion Tyson deserves this nickname as long as he was one of the most prolific boxers in the history and the first heavyweight boxer to hold the three titles simultaneously, while Mike Landrum ended his professional career winning 6 fights and loosing 4.

However Mike Landrum, who’s representing himself in the case, considers that this is not a matter of records, but a legal issue. He owns the trademark to the nickname “Iron Mike”, but Mike Tyson used the nickname throughout his career and this hindered Landrum from getting any major title fights or sponsorships because of the name confusion.

On the other hand, Tammy Brook, who is Tyson’s representative, told that his legal team considers that this case holds no merit. Even so Mike Tyson will have to fight again with the older boxer after he declared bankruptcy in 2003, despite receiving over $300 million during his career.

Read more about Mike Tyson’s changing life.
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