Mike Tyson Announces Return To Ring In PPV Exhibition Fight Against Roy Jones, Jr. For His Legends Only League

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After flirting with fight fans in a series of teases and workout videos, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is set to make his highly anticipated return to the ring. Tyson, 54, will face former four-division world champion and onetime best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, Roy Jones Jr.

The exhibition will take place on September 12, 2020 at 9:00 p.m. ET on pay-per-view as well as on multi-media platform Triller, which Relativity Media founder Ryan Kavanaugh helped fund. Triller has also obtained exclusive streaming rights to the soon-to-be-released, ten-part docuseries featuring behind-the-scenes, pre-fight footage. Two episodes will be released each week leading up to the match.

A three-hour live event, the Tyson vs. Jones bout is set for eight rounds and will be part of a multiple fight card. The program will also include significant undercard matches as well as musical performances to be announced in the coming weeks.

The fight, titled “Frontline Battle,” is the first event of a series produced under Mike Tyson’s Legends Only League, a sports venture owned by Tyson and founding STX president Sophie Watts’ Eros Innovations. The venture has partnered with Triller on all future boxing events. As part of their deal with the Legends Only League and Mike Tyson, all rights for the “Frontline Battle” are controlled by Triller. Halogen Networks, which was recently acquired by Triller, will power the streaming version of the PPV and other live streaming components of the event.

Tyson says the League is “not only for fighters [but for] baseball players, basketball players, soccer players…everybody who society says is over the hill, but they still have it in them.” A cursory scan of Tyson’s Instagram page is intriguing. He’s posted photos of himself with Jimmy Connors, Sugar Ray Leonard and, most notably, several photos with former foe Evander Holyfield, with whom Tyson had two epic battles.

Tyson has a number of business ventures in addition to the League. He hosts the Hotboxin’ Podcast. His licensing & branding company, Tyson Ranch Entertainment, runs his cannabis venture, Tyson Ranch.

Watch him introduce the Legends Only League below.

Mike Tyson was 20 years old when he became the youngest boxer to win the heavyweight title, a record he still holds to this day. Tyson held the rarified title of Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion from 1987 to 1990 and was also the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles. In his heyday, he was known as “the baddest man on the planet.”

Roy Jones Jr., 51, is a versatile boxer who won numerous championships in the middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight divisions. In 1999, he became the undisputed light heavyweight champion. In 2003 Jones won the WBA heavyweight title, becoming the only former junior middleweight fighter ever to win a heavyweight title. Later in his career, Jones became a fight commentator for HBO. His last fight was in 2018.

The exhibition fight has been sanctioned by the California State Athletic Commission. Producers include Mike Tyson, Sophie Watts, Johnny Ryan Jr., Azim Spicer, Bobby Sarnevesht, Tyson’s wife Kiki Tyson and Ryan Kavanaugh.

Triller is an AI-powered music video app that allows users to create professional-looking videos in a matter of seconds. Pick a song, select the portion of the song you want to use, snap a few takes and with the tap of a button you have a celebrity-quality music video starring you and your friends. Triller relies solely on organic growth and has more than 140 million downloads, with celebrities like Alicia Keys, Cardi B, Marshmello, Roddy Ricch and Eminem regularly using the app to create their own music videos. Triller recently was acquired by Proxima Media.

Eros Innovations is a global venture creation group led by Sophie Watts that invests in and creates globally recognized businesses for celebrities across premium content, consumer products and live experiences. Mike Tyson’s Legends Only League is a sports league venture created as a partnership between Mike Tyson and Eros Innovations. Owners of Eros Innovations include Eros Investments, a media and tech investment holding company whose affiliate companies include Eros Now, India’s leading OTT platform with 186 million registered users.

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