Mike Tyson is stepping back in the ring against Floyd Mayweather if a federal judge clears the path Thursday.
The Iron Man’s been medically cleared and ready to go, with promoters eyeing September 26 for what could be the most anticipated exhibition in boxing history. But there’s a legal roadblock standing in the way, and it all came out during a courtroom battle over a contract dispute that’s been brewing for months. CSI Sports, an event production company, filed a lawsuit claiming Mayweather breached an exclusive deal by agreeing to fight Mike Zambidis in Greece this Saturday instead of honoring commitments to face Tyson and Manny Pacquiao. The company alleges that Mayweather took $150,000 from them for the Tyson fight, then posted the next day that he was fighting Zambidis.
CSI is demanding at least $4.65 million in damages and wants the judge to block the Zambidis exhibition entirely. They’re arguing that losing the Mayweather exclusivity would be devastating to their reputation and bottom line. Mayweather’s team is pushing back hard, claiming CSI never actually got their act together on the Tyson fight. His attorneys say there was no locked-in venue, no secured funding, and no real logistics in place, so the whole deal fell apart on its own. Mayweather filed to terminate the CSI contract on June 9, and his legal team is arguing that CSI waited way too long to file this lawsuit, only moving when the fight with Zambidis was about to happen.