Mike Tyson has said he’s willing to fight Olympic boxer Imane Khelif with proceeds going to a women’s charity.
A spokesperson for Mr Tyson said this is “absolutely false” and there’s no mention of any such fight on his social media platforms.
According to posts on social media, US boxer Mike Tyson has said he’s willing to fight Algerian boxer Imane Khelif amid a debate over gender eligibility in boxing. But a spokesperson for Mr Tyson confirmed he said no such thing.
One post with more than 1,200 shares claims: “Mike Tyson says he's willing to Box Olympic DUDE with all Proceeds to go to a Battered Women's Charity” alongside photos of the two boxers. Many other posts on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Threads and Instagram share almost identical text and images.
But we could find no evidence Mr Tyson actually said this and there’s no mention of a fight against Ms Khelif on Mr Tyson’s social media platforms.
A spokesperson for Mr Tyson told reporters at Reuters: “It’s absolutely false. Mr Tyson has yet to publicly comment about that situation”. Full Fact has contacted Mr Tyson for comment and will update this article if we receive a response.
Ms Khelif won a gold medal in women’s 66kg boxing at this year’s Paris Olympics. A debate over gender eligibility featured prominently in coverage of the Olympic event after she was disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships for a breach in the eligibility criteria—the nature of which has not been specified by the International Boxing Association (IBA).
After winning the gold medal, Ms Khelif said: “I am fully qualified to take part in this competition, I am a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman. I have lived as a woman. I compete as a woman—there is no doubt about that”.
Mr Tyson became the world’s youngest heavyweight champion in history at the age of 20, but he’s not had an official fight since 2005. He is due to compete in an exhibition fight against YouTuber Jake Paul on 15 November 2024, which has been widely publicised.
We’ve seen other misinformation relating to the Paris Olympics in recent weeks, including false claims that Israel’s artistic swimmers used their bodies to spell out ‘Bring them home now’, that a video shows Iranian broadcasts censoring coverage of the games, and that another video shows Christians protesting against the opening ceremony.
It can be difficult to know what claims to believe on social media—our guides offer some tips on how to verify potentially misleading images and videos before sharing them.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because a spokesperson for Mike Tyson has confirmed the claim is absolutely false.
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