I get it, it’s seems incongruous at first glance that a person who is primarily known for being one of the best fighters in the planet would need protection.
But if you think about it for a minute, bodyguards solve all sorts of problems.
The thing is, when you are famous worldwide for being the ‘big dog’, there will always be someone who wants a piece of you.
Recently, Mike Tyson was in the news after he clocked a guy who was harassing him on a plane. A passenger apparently recognised him and started trying to talk to him, before becoming aggressive and reportedly hitting Tyson with a water bottle, leading to Tyson punching him.
Now let me ask you a question – do you think this guy is disappointed in the outcome? Hell no! He got beat up by Mike Tyson! That’s a great story to tell down the pub for the rest of his life. He is going to be dining out on this for the next 20 years. I would bet $100 right now that this guy carries this newspaper clipping around in his wallet so he can show people. There’s literally almost no downside to a member of the public picking a fight with Mike Tyson, if they win then they get to say they beat up Mike Tyson, and if they lose they get a great story.
This is where bodyguards come in. Getting beat up by Mike Tyson is a great anecdote, getting the shit kicked out of you by Mike Tyson’s bodyguards is a cautionary tale.
There’s also the legal side – Tyson had to deal with the fallout from this and could have ended up being prosecuted, if you have bodyguards for this then they can take the legal heat off of you. In addition bodyguards provide general crowd control, stopping fans from coming right up to you in the first place if you don’t want them to. If you are an active fighter, you also don’t want to be constantly putting yourself in a situation where you might have to fight a bareknuckle boxing match with some drunk rando on the street – even if you win every time, you might break a wrist and lose millions.
Bodyguards don’t only protect in a physical sense, for fighters the protection from legal and financial damage is just as important.