Former American boxer Mike Tyson announced in a video posted on his Instagram account that he will be attending the big boxing event scheduled next March 1 in the Libyan city of Benghazi.
“Hello boxing world, I am pleased to announce that I will be in Benghazi, Libya attending the big boxing event. It’s going to be great. It will be on March 1 and it will be broadcast worldwide on ‘Fight Nation’,” said the 57-year-old athlete.
Dictator Muammar Gaddafi banned boxing in the country in 1979 until it resurfaced with his overthrow in 2011 and the reestablishment of the national federation, created in 1962.
The Libyan Boxing Federation picked up the gauntlet and announced Tyson’s attendance on its social networks and invited all Libyan fans to participate in the “most outstanding sporting event” organized in a country resisting more than a decade of conflict and instability.
Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, is located in the east, controlled by the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and administratively run by the Parliament-supported government, separated from the Government of National Unity (GNU), based in the capital, Tripoli.