Daniel Cormier didn’t think boxing could surprise him any more – until last week when it was announced that Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather will fight in an exhibition match.
Tyson and Mayweather are expected to meet in the spring of 2026 at a date and location to be announced. It won’t be the first time that Tyson and Mayweather compete in exhibition bouts, with Tyson most recently facing Roy Jones Jr. in November 2020 and Mayweather taking on John Gotti III in August 2024. Tyson dropped a unanimous decision to Jake Paul last November, which went down as a loss on his professional record.
“When we did Jake Paul fighting Gervonta Davis, I thought we were probably at the limit of what could be done in boxing that’s ridiculous,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “I swear I thought a guy that fights and walks into the ring at over 200 pounds fighting a guy that walks into the ring at 144 pounds was the limit of the ridiculousness that we could get to in boxing. I thought Jake Paul (vs.) Mike Tyson was ridiculous.
“Honestly, Conor McGregor fighting Floyd Mayweather back in the day was about as ridiculous a boxing thing that we could have imagined, and then it went insanely crazy because obviously we see the YouTube fights and celebrity fights and everything else. It’s gotten a lot worse, but I thought we were at the limit with that weight discrepancy. Nope. … Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather are going to fight an exhibition.”
The ages are one thing, but Cormier finds the weight discrepancy between 48-year-old Mayweather and 59-year-old Tyson absurd.
“Again, guys, ridiculous,” Cormier said. “Two hundred pounds (vs.) 140. Floyd Mayweather was fighting at 154, and he was severely undersized at 154. Floyd Mayweather was a guy who fought in the 130s to start his career and fought up to as high as 160 maybe? Floyd Mayweather was a small guy. He’s now going to fight Mike Tyson, who was the heavyweight champion of the world.
“I respect these two men so great a degree that it’s hard for me to almost make negative statements about this, but I think our jobs as talking heads is to tell you the truth. I don’t get this. I don’t get this for the life of me.”
