CUBA: BOXER MIKE TYSON INVOLVED IN HEATED CONFRONTATION WITH JOURNALISTS IN HOTEL LOBBY IN HAVANA

Record ID: 371614

  • Title: CUBA: BOXER MIKE TYSON INVOLVED IN HEATED CONFRONTATION WITH JOURNALISTS IN HOTEL LOBBY IN HAVANA
  • Date: 1st January 2002
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (JANUARY 1, 2002)(REUTERS) 1. STILL OF BOXER MIKE TYSON, SHOWING HIS CHE GUEVARA TATOO, TAKEN ON THE EVENING OF THE ARGUMENT WITH REPORTERS Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 16th January 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HAVANA, CUBA
  • Country: Cuba
  • Reuters ID: LVA29UL07LL5MDEA540UEQ8GKEFY
  • Story Text: Boxer Mike Tyson was involved in a heated confrontation
    with journalists in his Cuban hotel lobby, shouting and
    tossing crystal balls at them and lightly punching one
    cameraman on the head, witnesses said.


    Tyson, on a tourism trip to the Caribbean island,
    looked furious to see five journalists waiting for him when he
    emerged from a lift in one of Havana's premier sea-front
    hotels on Tuesday (January 1).

    The American heavyweight fighter, wearing jeans but no top
    and sporting a tattoo of Latin American guerrilla hero Ernesto
    "Che" Guevara on his stomach, raised his fists in a
    threatening gesture and yelled insults in English and Spanish,
    according to witnesses and Reuters journalists at the scene.

    Tyson, 35, picked up three crystal balls, each about the
    size of a grapefruit, from a decoration in the hotel lobby,
    which smashed on the floor after he threw them at the
    journalists. He also lightly hit a Reuters cameraman twice on
    the back of the head with his fist.

    "He just went crazy," said the cameraman, Felipe Borrego.

    "I was planning to ask him for an interview but he never let
    me speak, he just turned on us."
    Cuban staff at the hotel said Tyson had appeared to become
    steadily more irritated at unwelcome attention from tourists
    and others since his arrival on Monday night.


  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register