By Stewart Perrie
Mike Tyson's former chauffeur has come out of the woodwork to make a pretty startling claim about the boxer's pre-fight ritual.
While some athletes will listen to a specific type of music or eat a particular type of food before stepping into the ring, Tyson would reportedly sleep with women.
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Rudy Gonzalez, who was the boxer's driver in the 1980s, revealed in an interview with The Sun that he would regularly have 'groupies' ready for the now-55-year-old before a match.
These escapades weren't designed to satisfy a sexual urge, but were instead meant to bring his aggression down a peg or two.
"One of the greatest secrets with Mike was that he needed to have sex in the dressing room before fights," Gonzalez explained to the UK newspaper.
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"He had to get laid to disengage some of the strength he had. So I had girls tucked away in bathrooms and changing rooms."
"Mike would say, 'If I do not get laid, I will kill this guy right now.' Sometimes he'd go in with them [the women] for a minute, bang the s**t out of them, snap his neck and say: 'OK, this guy is going to live tonight.'
"His biggest fear was that he would kill someone in that ring. He knew he could do it."
You'd think most boxers would want 100 per cent of their hitting power going into each punch, however Gonzalez said Tyson knew he had to give less than that.
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Those pre-fight sex engagements were a way of 'disengaging that power and loosening up a bit'.
Tyson's former chauffeur also explained how intense the dressing room would be before he would fight an opponent (and this time he wasn't talking about sex).
Rudy said Mike was filled with anxiety over fears that if he lost then his life would come crumbling down and he wouldn't have the lifestyle he worked so hard to build.
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Tyson would reportedly burst into tears when his emotions were running particularly high and his team would have to get him psyched into the moment.
It seems like, now that his main boxing career is done and dusted, Mike Tyson is in a much better mental state.
He recently revealed he has done loads of hallucinogenic trips using toad venom and it's helped him focus, become more creative and a better businessman.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Mike Tyson, Boxing News, Boxing, Australia