Dennis Priestley compared darts sensation Luke Littler to a youthful Mike Tyson after a fantastic start to his professional career. After taking even the biggest stages by storm, The Menace has chosen one star to match the Warrington miracle.

Littler, 17, quickly burst onto the professional circuit after reaching the World Championships final in January. Less than six months later, he was already the Premier League champion in his debut campaign, and also won the Austrian and Belgian Darts Open tournaments.

The three finishes alone are worth £335,000 in prize money, not to mention the £20,000 he earned from winning the Bahrain Masters. Priestley, however, is confident that Littler will already have seven figures in the bank thanks to the sponsorship deals he has picked up along the way.

“Luke Littler will already be a millionaire thanks to his prize money as well as all the sponsorship deals he has signed outside of playing darts, which is just extraordinary,” the two-time world champion told BestAnonymousCasinos. “He did all this in just six months. At the age of just 17, he was the fastest darts millionaire of all time and probably the fastest millionaire in the entire sport.”

The rapid rise of his career is no different from the way the great boxer Tyson entered the ring. Like Littler, Tyson dropped out of school shortly after discovering his fighting skills and became a star shortly thereafter.

Tyson was just 15 when he won the first of two Junior Olympic heavyweight titles in 1981, and at 18 he won Golden Gloves gold. He turned professional shortly thereafter and compiled a 37-0 record over the next four years, finishing his first 19 opponents.

“Luke Littler burst onto the scene like a youthful Mike Tyson, often defeating his opponents through fear alone,” Priestley enthused. “There is already a fear factor around Littler because of the way he plays and the way he wins.”

Reigning world champion Luke Humphries was able to stop Littler at Alexandra Palace in January. However, he has since proven to be more challenging to stop once he finds his feet against elite opposition.

However, Priestley, 73, insisted that a fit Phil Taylor could match the rising star, explaining: “Watching Luke Littler, Phil Taylor would love to be youthful again because he has that attitude where he loves overcoming obstacles. Youthful Phil Taylor would be good enough to knock Littler down a peg or two.

Taylor suggested he would be open to fighting Littler if their schedules aligned, even though he has left the professional circuit. The 63-year-old won 16 world championship titles in his career (14 in the PDC and two in the WDF), which is a record that will probably never be broken.

For his part, Littler said he’s open to the prospect and would love to face Taylor during a recent appearance on the show MMA Hour. ‘The Power’ is no longer the only old-school sports legend compared to the groundbreaking darts superstar.