Boxing legend Mike Tyson has been forced to respond to the story making the rounds that he has undergone a sex change operation and is now a woman.

“I have no intention of becoming a woman,” Tyson said after the false report went viral.

Britain’s Daily Mail today reported that the former undisputed heavyweight world champion issued a statement denying the false claims on the African news site, SpyGhana, which originally reported the false claim.

“I am still a man and I have always been fully in touch with my masculinity and have no intention of becoming a woman,” Tyson, 46, was quoted as saying. “The claims are not only untrue but unbelievably stupid. I was at the Pacquiao-Marquez fight on Saturday and any reasonable person could tell I was looking like a man.”

The NewsBiscuit story, ‘Mike Tyson sex change operation a “complete success”, say surgeons,’ was published in late November and spread like wildfire after The Standard of Zimbabwe and SpyGhana both reported the news as fact.

News Express reports that while no serious Nigerian media reported the story, it did find its way into some unprofessional blogs and on Facebook after being reproduced by people who never knew it was a ruse.

One of the quotes attributed to Tyson in the false sex-change story reads: “Some people might think it strange that I’m now a woman. But even at the height of my career, when pound for pound I was regarded as the best fighter in the world, I never lost touch with my feminine side and knew that one day I would grow breasts and have a vagina.”

•Photo: Tyson is still very much a man and has no intention of changing his sexuality.