LOS ANGELES : Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson has been arrested on drink-driving and drugs charges after nearly crashing into a police car as he left a nightclub.

The notorious 40-year-old former boxer once known as the "baddest man on the planet" was stopped by police soon after leaving the club in Scottsdale, Arizona at around 1:47 am, Buckeye Police Department officer Jim Garber said Friday.

"He came out of the nightclub and almost collided with officers patrolling in a squad car outside. He was followed and stopped and arrested for DUI and possession of drugs," Garber told AFP.

Garber said substances found on Tyson's body and in his car were believed to be cocaine and had been sent away for analysis. The boxer had shown "signs of impairment" after roadside sobriety tests, he added.

Tyson, who was travelling alone, was booked at Maricopa County's Fourth Street jail and faced an initial court appearance later Friday, Garber said.

A former two-time heavyweight champion, Tyson announced his retirement from boxing after he lost to unheralded Irishman Kevin McBride on June 11, 2005.

Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs) squandered an estimated 300 million dollars in earnings and declared bankruptcy in 2003, and recently fought in a series of exhibition bouts in order to improve his finances.

Friday's arrest is the latest in a series of brushes with the law that Tyson has had since he exploded onto the boxing scene in the mid-1980s, becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in history in 1986, at the age of 20.

Considered unbeatable for the rest of the decade, Tyson's career went off the rails when he suffered a shock upset to James "Buster" Douglas in 1990.

In 1992, Tyson was convicted of raping a beauty queen at a pageant in Indianapolis, Indiana and was sentenced to six years in prison.

He was released in 1995, and although he regained two of his world titles in 1996, he was never to recapture the aura of invincibility he had once enjoyed.

He was knocked out by Evander Holyfield in 1996, and the following year was banned from boxing after he bit a chunk out of Holyfield's ear during their rematch in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Tyson was jailed again in 1999 for assaulting two people following a traffic accident.

After his release, he sought a money-spinning bout with British heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, which was delayed after a January 2002 press conference where Tyson sparked a mass brawl in which he sunk his teeth into Lewis's leg.

He was comprehensively beaten by Lewis when their fight eventually took place and subsequently suffered a string of defeats against journeymen which prompted him to retire last year.

- AFP /ls