Mike Tyson on the truth behind why he is fighting Jake Paul

Mike Tyson's once-dominant career in the ring was winding down just as YouTube made its debut in February 2005. By June of the same year, Tyson, previously dubbed the 'Baddest Man on the Planet', would find himself defeated by Irish fighter Kevin McBride in Washington DC — a far cry from his heyday of decimating the heavyweight elite in the late 1980s.

The multitude of controversies and scandals that peppered his career both inside and outside the ring seemed to overshadow his early accomplishments and cast doubt on his fiercely earned status as a fearsome world champion.

Undeterred by the criticisms, Tyson is set for a comeback after a 19-year break, ready to enter the ring at 58 years old against the YouTuber Jake Paul, with their bout scheduled for Friday night in Arlington, Texas. In a conversation with Interview Magazine, Tyson expressed his indifference towards the opinions about his return.

"What do I care about my legacy? " he questioned. "I never knew what a legacy was and people started throwing that word around so loosely. A legacy sounds like ego to me. I’m going to be dead soon. Who cares what somebody is going to think about me when I’m dead? ".

With an event as striking as Friday's upcoming showcase, it's somewhat fitting that Tyson has shared so generously with a publication launched back in 1969 by Andy Warhol, who is said to have once remarked that "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes". Since bursting onto the scene from Brownsville's tough streets, leaving Trevor Berbick completely out of his wits and becoming the youngest world heavyweight champion at just 20 years old in 1986, Tyson has lived through an extraordinary number of those prophesied 15 minutes.

The latest instalment of his remarkable journey unfolds this Friday with a bout set over eight two-minute rounds, using 14oz gloves instead of the regular 10oz, signalling yet another twist in a life marked by contrast - from despair to stability as he navigates his later years. After his last fight against McBride, Tyson seemed to embrace celebrity, transforming his blockbuster memoir 'Undisputed Truth' into a one-man stage act, and taking part in pro wrestling gigs portraying an exaggerated version of himself.

Nowadays, Tyson, once on a seemingly unstoppable path to ruin - serving time for a rape charge and squandering around 400million US Dollars in boxing earnings leading to bankruptcy - professes to have found a sense of spiritual awakening through the unconventional means of inhaling toad venom.

"I tried this spiritual medicine called the toad," Tyson revealed. "You see a toad, you bust its puss, you put it on like a mirror, and it gets hard. You rub it down until it become fine sand, and then you smoke it. Then you meet God. And this is what God told me to do."

The majority of the expected multi-million TV audience will be fans whose parents were barely out of their teens when he last wore boxing gloves.

It's telling that Paul – who was born five months before his ‘Bite Fight’ loss to Evander Holyfield in 1997, chose him as the ultimate reality TV adversary. "You’ve got a YouTuber that has 70million fans," Tyson continued.

"No champion has that many fans. And I’m the greatest fighter since the beginning of life, so what does that make? " "That makes an explosion of excitement. And that’s what life is about – making the biggest impact before you die."