“Conor has to look inside himself and (say): ‘What happened? Why am I the way I am? And how do I stop this from continuing to be?’” Tyson said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show this week.
McGregor has had a slew of problems over the last few years, starting with the legal issues that followed his attack on a fighter’s bus at UFC 223. He was initially arrested and faced 12 felony charges for the incident but reached a plea agreement.
He recently also allegedly knocked a cell phone out of a man’s hand and allegedly punched an elderly man in a bar. He has been charged with assault in that incident.
Tyson also faced his share of legal issues, including being convicted of rape in 1992 and serving three years in prison for his offense.
He is urging McGregor not to go down the same path he did, but he also understands how he could get to where he has.
“We don’t know how to handle this stuff,” he said. “We got millions of dollars. We never had this. Our families never had this. We’ve never been around this life.
“All of a sudden you start fighting, doing something you love to do, and you do it easily and all of a sudden they give you a lot of money for doing it. But you have no restraint, no control, you don’t know what to do. You give it away. You buy people gifts that don’t deserve gifts. You just don’t know what to do with it. You feel you don’t deserve it.”
McGregor has not fought in the UFC since his defeat to undefeated lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229.
He has been discussed by many fighters as a possible matchup including Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, but has not found a matchup as of yet. He is still hoping for a rematch with Nurmagomedov, but it doesn’t appear that fight is in the cards.
Tyson eventually got through his issues and has now partnered with the Professional Fighters League, whose playoffs start this Friday in Las Vegas. He has also done some acting and has become a figure seen favorably in a lot of people’s eyes. But that has not come without its struggles. Tyson looks back on his past and regrets a lot of what he did, but he has taken those issues and tried to improve as a person through them, just like he hopes McGregor can.
“That’s not who I am now. I don’t know him anymore,” Tyson said. “He’s almost like a stranger to me. I look at him, and I’m proud of him. And I think he’s spectacular. But there’s a real dark side there that I don’t like getting involved with anymore.”
