Did Mike Tyson announce he wants to box against "Olympic Dude," a derogatory reference to female boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria's team? No, that's not true: Tyson's representative told Lead Stories: "This is absolutely false." Lead Stories could find no news reports about Tyson making such a statement. Social media posts about the announcement offered no evidence that Tyson ever said he wanted to box Khelif, who was falsely accused during the Paris 2024 Olympics of being born a man and transitioning to a woman.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on August 2, 2024. It said:
Mike Tyson says he's willing to Box Olympic DUDE with all Proceeds to go to a Battered Women's Charity...
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Aug 6 16:58:59 2024 UTC)
The post included side-by-side pictures of Tyson and Khelif.
"This is absolutely false," a representative for Tyson told Lead Stories via email on August 6, 2024. "Mr. Tyson has yet to publicly comment about that situation."
A Google News search (archived here) for keywords returned zero credible news reports about Tyson making such an offer. Had he done so, that would likely have been national and international news.
Lead Stories previously debunked the claim that Khelif of Algeria used to be a man. The controversy began after the August 1, 2024, Olympic fight between Khelif and Angela Carini of Italy. Carini quit the fight after the first 46 seconds (archived here).
Though she refused to shake hands while being visibly upset, Carini did not allege that Khelif once was a man. As cited in the Reuters story, Carini referred to Khelif using a female pronoun:
I wish her to carry on until the end and that she can be happy.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach publicly said (archived here) that Khelif's situation is that of somebody "being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman," which is the Olympic standard for determination of gender. According to the athlete's own words, she has always been a woman and continues to be one.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Khelif can be found here and about the 2024 Summer Olympics can be found here.
