Evander Holyfield told Lee Haney he doesn’t plan on fighting Mike Tyson… but is it true?

While Lee Haney is best known as a world record holding 8x Mr. Olympia champion, he also spent some time training boxing legend Evander Holyfield. In fact, he still occasionally keeps up with Holyfield to this day. As rumors continue to swirl about Mike Tyson fighting Holyfield in a future bout – we wanted to know if Haney could provide any clarity on the situation. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Lee Haney talks about training Evander Holyfield and the unlikely chance he will fight Mike Tyson.

Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson are two legendary boxers in their own right. So it’s no surprise that excitement grew once rumors released claiming that these two icons of the sport might potentially face off in the ring. As of this writing, there has been no confirmation that this match will happen.

That doesn’t mean that Mike Tyson hasn’t been teasing the fans a bit. In a recent interview on The Dan Patrick Show, Tyson alluded to the rumored fight being still very much a possibility. “[Holyfield is] on the table, but I guess the people wanted Roy,” said Tyson during the interview.

Roy of course is reference to Mike Tyson’s recent national press tour as he promotes his exhibition match versus Roy Jones Jr. on Triller pay per view.

But while Tyson claims that fighting Evander Holyfield is on the table, Lee Haney has words that paint a different picture. Haney was a personal trainer for Evander Holyfield during a period where the boxer was trying to put on more pounds of muscle. Haney has remained in occasional contact with Holyfield ever since.

Once rumors grew about Mike Tyson facing off against Evander Holyfield, Lee Haney reached out to Holyfield in an attempt to get confirmation. Holyfield quickly denied the fight, saying he had nothing to do with it.

Of course, Lee Haney also admits that perhaps Holyfield is working in secret in order to keep an element of surprise. Perhaps this rumored fight is such a high profile occasion that Holyfield is keeping his cards close to the chest until the right moment.

Lee Haney also goes into detail about his time training Evander Holyfield and shares some interesting anecdotes from a very different time in both the sport of boxing and bodybuilding.

You can watch Lee Haney’s full comments on Evander Holyfield in the GI Exclusive interview segment above!

*Image courtesy of John Kloepper and Steve Lott. Changes made to combine header image. CC BY-SA 3.0