Mike Tyson is running late for dinner. He opens the back door of his guesthouse, his broad frame filling the doorway. His wife, Kiki, looks up as he shuffles over to her in the small kitchen and gives her a kiss. “Am I eating tonight, or am I finished eating?” Tyson asks. She’s sitting on a stool in yoga pants, toweling off her hair. “I got you Nobu,” she says. “What’d you get me?” he asks. “I got you your fish,” she says. “The fish I like?” They’re in the guesthouse because their actual house, a sprawling mansion in Henderson, a residential suburb of Las Vegas, is under construction. Instead of flopping off to a hotel, where fans would flock, they’ve retreated here. Mars, their fluffy goldendoodle, makes his rounds of the room. From the speakers, a Balinese-style rhythm pulses, soft and hypnotic.

It’s almost surreal to imagine that this version of Tyson — comfortable, gray-stubbled, and 58 — will be fighting again soon. Officially, he retired from boxing nearly 20 years ago when he refused to come off his stool against the inferior Kevin McBride (“I don’t have the fighting guts anymore,” he said then). At that time, his upcoming opponent, Jake Paul, the internet celebrity turned boxer, was making his way through elementary school. Paul is now all grown up and preparing to take on Tyson November 15 under the lights of AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The fight, which will be streamed on Netflix, has special rules: eight rounds, two minutes per rounder, and slightly cushier 14-ounce gloves. The matchup could become one of the most watched sports events of the year and one of the most lucrative. There’s speculation that Netflix has paid $80 million in purses alone for the fight; if that’s even close to being true, it could rival the figures Tyson made in his pay-per-view prime.

The fight was originally scheduled for July 20. Training for it the first time nearly killed Tyson. He was on a flight to Los Angeles from Miami when he suddenly passed out. “When I came to,” he says, “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood.” After the plane landed at LAX, he was taken to the hospital. The doctors looked panicked, he says; Kiki was crying. “I asked the doctor, ‘Am I going to die?’” Tyson says, putting his head in his hands. “He said, ‘We have options.’ Options? I couldn’t believe it.” Tyson was treated for what turned out to be a bleeding ulcer. The recovery was brutal. “I lost 25 pounds in 11 days,” he says. “Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.” When he finally returned home, his body was wrecked, all his hard training gone. “It threw me off,” he says of the episode. “All my coordination, stamina, everything was hectic getting back. I was peaked already. I could have fought him that day. Now I got to start from scratch.” The full story never made the press. The promoters simply said he’d had an ulcer “flare-up” and postponed the bout to the fall. “I had, like, eight blood transfusions,” he says. “The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died.”

In the guesthouse, the microwave dings. Tyson makes his way to the breakfast bar and digs into his miso cod;........

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