Former world heavyweight champ Mike Tyson is 'looking forward' to death

The boxing legend says he never feared the prospect of death in the ring because he thought 'if anybody was going to die, I would do the killing'. [Courtesy]

Former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson says he is "looking forward" to death.

The boxing legend says he never feared the prospect of death in the ring because he thought "if anybody was going to die, I would do the killing".

Tyson, now 53, reigned as the undisputed champion and is still the youngest heavyweight king in history, having first won the title in 1986 aged 20 years and 4 months.

"I knew there was a possibility that I could die during training, during a fight. I knew that," Tyson told The Sportsman.

"But I wasn’t scared because I thought if anybody was going to die, I would do the killing. That self-confidence was a survival mechanism.

"But now, from my experience, from what I believe, the more I know about not existing, the more willing I am to die."

The boxing legend says he never feared the prospect of death in the ring because he thought 'if anybody was going to die, I would do the killing'. [Courtesy]

When asked if he is actually looking forward to death, the knockout king said: "Yeah. I don’t fear it.

"Living might be more complicated than dying to me. The belief of it. I don’t know if it’s true. Because living takes a lot of courage. Without courage, you can’t handle living.

Tyson added: "Living is a journey, living is a struggle. People have everything and they still can’t do it, they struggle. We take ourselves too seriously.

Tyson won his first 19 fights by knockout - 12 of them in the first round.

He was the first heavyweight to hold the WBA, WBC and IBF belts and later became the lineal champion.

He spent three years in prison after being convicted of rape in 1992.

In 1996 Tyson lost to Evander Holyfield, and infamously bit his ear in their rematch a year later.