The former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was arrested yesterday after a brawl with a celebrity photographer at Los Angeles International Airport in which he allegedly injured the man’s head.

The paparazzo told police that Tyson struck him once. The photographer, who was not immediately identified, was also arrested. He suffered a cut to his forehead and was taken to hospital, police said.

“There’s a lot of different versions to the story,” Sergeant Jim Holcomb, of Los Angeles Airport Police, said. “That’s all going to come out later. But, in this particular case, both individuals are going to be pressing charges for battery.”

The Los Angeles Times, citing an unnamed source, said that Tyson told police that the photographer struck him in an attempt to provoke him. The photographer claimed that Tyson punched him in the face and tried to take the film from his camera.

Tyson’s spokeswoman, Tammy Brook, said that the boxer was travelling with his wife and 10-month-old child when he was attacked by an overly aggressive paparazzo. The 43-year-old acted in self-defence to protect his child, she said.

The scuffle is the latest incident between celebrities and aggressive paparazzi at the LA airport, where photographers camp out to get lucrative shots of celebrities in transit. Last year the rapper Kanye West had an airport altercation with a photographer. He was cleared of charges last month.

“I’ve heard people were following him into the men’s room and trying to take his picture there,” said Tyson’s defence attorney, David Chesnoff. “My advice to him is going to be to vigorously press charges against what everyone agrees are ridiculously aggressive photographers.”

Tyson was cooperative as he waited in a holding cell at the airport police station and was later released.

Tyson won his first championship title at age 20 and his reputation as a ferocious boxer earned him the nickname “Iron Mike” during his heyday in the 1980s.

But he has had a troubled history. As a boy, he was involved in criminal gang activity in Brooklyn, New York, and he eventually went to a school for troubled youth in upstate New York where he began boxing.

In 1988, as his career soared, he married the actress Robin Givens. The pair fought publicly, with Givens claiming that he physically hurt her, and eventually they divorced.

In 1991 Tyson was accused of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. He was convicted of sexual assault in 1992 and spent three years in prison.

Tyson’s career never regained the lustre of his early years after he bit off a portion of boxer Evander Holyfield’s ear during a 1997 championship bout. He retired from boxing in 2005.