Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson returned to the boxing ring on Saturday night in Los Angeles – because toad venom “told him” he should.
Prior to the eight-round draw with fellow former champ Roy Jones Jr., Tyson followed a rigorous return to training that involved a “medicine” – Tyson’s word – generally known as toad venom. We just weren’t aware of the venom’s ability to communicate.
“I took the medicine, and the medicine told me to get into shape,” he said in a USA Today story. “It really blew my mind. It told me to come back and start getting in shape.”
Tyson’s road back, he intimated, involved his losing up to 100 pounds.
The venom is a “trendy new psychedelic” similar to mescaline, according to a report last year from the Addiction Center. It comes from a Sonoran Desert toad that produces 5-MeO-DMT, a venom reportedly about six times more powerful than the hallucinogenic DMT, or N,N-dimethyltryptamine.
“It’s such an intense experience that, in most cases, doing it at a party isn’t safe. It’s not a recreational drug. If people get dosed too high, they can ‘white out’ and disassociate from their mind and body,” said Alan K. Davis, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University’s psychedelic research unit, in the report.
So now the “really blew my mind” part of Tyson’s description perhaps becomes more literal.
Now 54, Tyson exhibited some of the old flair from his title belt–wearing days.
Jones, 51, had trouble with Tyson’s activity and movement, and multiple reports of the fight referenced Jones as the markedly slower fighter.
Maybe it’s time for Jones to find that toad venom “medicine,” too.
The two embraced and smiled at the fight’s conclusion.
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