Mike Tyson punches passenger on commercial flight

Video footage shared on social media appears to show former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson assaulting a fellow passenger on a flight from San Francisco International Airport to Florida.

Footage obtained by TMZ shows a man attempting to speak with on the flight, leaning over the 55-year-old and appearing to mock him while a friend recorded his actions. Later in the recording Tyson turns around and can be seen landing numerous punches on victim’s head.

The unidentified man is then shown with cuts on his forehead after the altercation. The person filming can then be heard saying: “JetBlue flight. My boy just got beat up by Mike Tyson.”

“Yeah, he got f***ed up. Just trying to ask for an autograph, man. I don’t know what happened.”

Boxer’s representative claim Tyson was being harassed

The footage of the self-proclaimed ‘Baddest Man on the Planet’ laying into a passenger on a commercial flight understandably drew much attention, but Tyson’s team have claimed that he was provoked into the confrontation.

NPR report receiving an email from Tyson’s representatives, saying: “Unfortunately, Mr. Tyson had an incident on a flight with an aggressive passenger who began harassing him and threw a water bottle at him while he was in his seat.”

According to TMZ, Tyson had initially agreed to take a picture with the passenger but the man continued to bombard the former boxer with questions and was “overly excited.” Tyson apparently told him to calm down multiple times but, as the video shows, the passenger continued to address the 55-yar-old.

JetBlue are yet to comment on the incident publically but this is far from the first out-of-ring incident connected to Tyson.

In 1992 he was convicted of rape and served three years in prison. Seven years later, having returned to a career in boxing, he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service for assaulting two motorists after a traffic accident.

After retiring from the sport he was again arrested in Arizona on suspicion of driving under influence and felony drug possession after nearly crashing into a police vehicle upon leaving a nightclub. In 2009 he was arrested after getting into an altercation with a photographer at Los Angeles international airport, however no charges were filed.