Slowly but surely Mike Tyson is positioning himself as one of marijuana’s newest celebrities. While it seems every slightly famous person has a cannabis brand these days, few have entered that rarefied air of cult status, ala Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, or Rihanna. Pitching a reality TV show about the ganjapreneur lifestyle and planning to build a marijuana empire, as Tyson is, will help you reach that level of high-minded celebrities, however.
Tyson has long announced an affinity for smoking weed. But in a recent interview with the Dan Patrick Show, Tyson admitted to smoking before one of his famous boxing matches—the “Showdown in Motown” in 2000, when Tyson took down Andrew Golota. Tyson owned Golota the first two rounds and won by technical knockout when Golota refused to answer the bell for the third round.
When Patrick asked how smoking marijuana before a match affected Tyson, he replied, “It didn’t affect me. It affected Golota.”
Then again, this news doesn’t come as any revelation. Tyson refused to submit a urine drug test prior to the fight. He then failed a post-match drug test when his sample came back positive for…cannabis. The TKO was later changed to a “no-contest” as a result. Tyson blamed his missing “whizzer,” a device that helped him provide clean urine for testing, on the failed drug test.
You can watch the whole interview, where Tyson also details his budding cannabis empire, below.