Some of the show headlined by Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul was definitely great. Some of the show was definitely not.
One particular part thankfully didn’t go worse.
Tyson didn’t get hurt.
That’s about the only consolation after eight rounds in which Tyson, fitter than most other 58-year-olds and probably still a better fighter than most anyone else his age, still looked exactly like a 58-year-old man should look in a professional boxing ring.
He was of course slowed down by the nearly two decades that have passed since his last pro bout, even at 228.5 pounds, a lighter weight than the 233 pounds he’d been for that loss to Kevin McBride in June 2005.
He was of course broken down by wear and tear, those ravages of time, with a knee brace on one leg and bricks in his boots.
He didn’t have the endurance back in 2005 to fight three minutes of every round, or even make it through every round of a fight. Why would he now? (Why were all of the videos of Tyson training cut into such brief clips? Most of us knew the answer all along. The rest were still fooled, either by hype or by hope.)
That meant Tyson couldn’t get to Jake Paul. Couldn’t close the distance to land his punches. Couldn’t throw many punches even when he was within range. Couldn’t win rounds. Couldn’t win the fight.
And with his 58-year-old legs, he understandably couldn’t summon the power that had destroyed or discombobulated so many opponents — around three decades ago, and most of them even longer in the past than that. He couldn’t land the hail mary that he needed if he were to win this fight with Paul.
None of this is his fault. Then again, none of this was a surprise.
Many of us were worried that Tyson could get hurt, that his punch resistance would be diminished, that we might see a repeat of Evander Holyfield’s exhibition with Vitor Belfort in 2021. Holyfield once had one of the best chins in boxing. But at 58 years old — there’s that number again — Holyfield no longer had the beard or the balance. He was wobbled repeatedly and stopped in less than two minutes.
Paul is no Belfort, who was 44 years old at the time and had made his name in MMA rather than boxing, but nevertheless had more than two decades of experience using his hands as one of his weapons. On the other hand, Paul’s pro boxing career has seen him take on and defeat a number of mixed martial artists, albeit washed-up and undersized mixed martial artists.
Paul has at least truly dedicated himself to training over these past five years. He clearly has some skill, technique, athleticism and power. He may never be able to compete against true pro boxers. The two he’s defeated in his 11 victories have never accomplished anything of note.
But Tyson at this point in his life couldn’t be considered a true pro boxer either.
His last time in the ring was for a 2020 exhibition with Roy Jones Jr. Despite the pre-fight salesmanship, neither man went all-out. Instead, they went through the motions for the sake of nostalgia and mostly harmless entertainment.
That was four years ago. Tyson had declined even further since then.
Tyson still showed flashes of his skills and instincts against Paul, particularly on defense. He could still parry punches and had enough reflexes left to roll with some of the shots. Tyson knew what he needed to do. He just didn’t have the ability to cut off the ring. He didn’t have the hand speed to catch Paul or the foot speed to catch up with him. He had neither the stamina nor the stability to exert pressure or explode with power.
According to CompuBox, Tyson threw just 99 punches over the course of eight two-minute rounds, the equivalent of about five normal rounds in pro boxing. He landed just 18 punches in total. In terms of power shots, Tyson was just 13 of 35, averaging less than two landed per round.
Long ago, Tyson’s compact frame was actually an advantage against his bigger heavyweight opponents. Now he was both smaller and slower. Paul, at slightly over 227 pounds, was about 27 pounds heavier than he was in his fight just four months ago with Mike Perry, a mixed martial artist turned bare-knuckle boxer. And Paul was nearly 34 pounds heavier than in February 2023, when he suffered his lone loss to the similarly limited pro boxer/former reality television contestant Tommy Fury.
Paul was still younger, taller and quicker than Tyson. He was the betting favorite for a reason. For several reasons.
Still, people bought into the idea of seeing Mike Tyson fighting again.
Thankfully, buying into the idea didn’t cost more than the price of a Netflix subscription, if viewers didn’t already have one. Those who purchased tickets to be there live at AT&T Stadium outside of Dallas were there to, well, be *there*.
Those who booed during the main event should have come in with lower expectations. It is like seeing your favorite band perform in concert long after their prime years. Few can rock as hard when they are older. Even the iron of “Iron Mike” will degrade.
Still, the audience hoped otherwise, imagining that maybe Tyson could do something miraculous.
They wanted him to win because of fond memories of the “Iron Mike” of old.
They wanted him to win because of how beloved “Icon Mike” has since become.
And they wanted Tyson to win because of how detested Paul is by many — even when the 27-year-old social media content creator-turned-boxer isn’t fighting a Hall of Famer more than twice his age.
What you took out of Tyson vs. Paul depended on what you felt going into it.
If you thought this would be exciting, you were probably among those booing as Paul evaded Tyson, cautious not to make mistakes and leave himself vulnerable, picking his spots to land some shots but otherwise carrying Tyson to the final bell.
If you just wanted to see an old Tyson for old time’s sake, if you didn’t care that he wasn’t spectacular but you were just there for the spectacle, then you at least appreciated this as an event, despite what the fight itself otherwise lacked.
If you were concerned, then you wound up relieved.
That’s not to say this was a painless evening.
This event was such a cultural touchstone and collective experience that Netflix struggled even worse than Tyson did. It is possible that Friday evening featured the most people using the streaming service simultaneously since everyone quarantined at home at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. And none of that content back then was being transmitted live like Tyson-Paul was.
There were widespread reports of streams stopping, audio dropping, broadcasts lagging or going dark. (Maybe Tyson wasn’t old and slow. Perhaps he was just buffering too.)
Thankfully this wasn’t a pay-per-view, given the technical difficulties and the letdown that was the main event.
And hopefully the casual fans, and the viewers who don’t normally watch the sport, listened to their boxing fan friends and tuned in well before Tyson and Paul entered the ring.
If they did, they would have seen an entertainingly competitive draw between welterweight titleholder Mario Barrios and the gritty Abel Ramos, with both men hitting the canvas once and hitting each other far more than that.
“My phone is blowing up with casual fans who just watched Barrios-Ramos,” boxing writer Cliff Rold of The Corner Stool tweeted afterward. “That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
And they would’ve seen the rematch between undisputed junior welterweight champion Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, though this was when Netflix’s problems truly began to surface. Taylor and Serrano lived up to the high expectations from their first battle, which was the best women’s boxing match of 2022 and one of the best fights involving men or women in the entire sport that year.
As with their first fight, the rematch ended with Taylor taking a close decision on the scorecards and many believing that Serrano could’ve, or should’ve, received the nod.
“Waking up to a ton of messages from non-boxing friends who absolutely loved Taylor-Serrano,” boxing observer Dan Canobbio tweeted on Saturday morning.
The question is what all of this means going forward.
Boxing has tried countless strategies and gimmicks in an attempt to grow the sport in America, to capture an audience that doesn’t normally watch and convince them to return with regularity. Nothing has succeeded at a sustained, measurable level. Similarly, the Super Bowl is the most watched program on television every year even though millions of those viewers may not have seen a single down of football throughout the regular season.
Yet Serrano is better-known now, 15 years into her career, thanks to her association with Paul, who promotes the seven-division titleholder and has featured her on five of his undercards. Serrano and Taylor’s two fights, including one in which they main evented at Madison Square Garden, have earned them more money than any other female boxer.
Will Paul’s popularity give the rub to other undercard fighters and translate into them becoming stars, too? What happens when people decide they want more from Paul than sideshows and stunts? How long will they show up, and pay up, to see him?
It seemed as if that moment was finally here in March, when Paul had a quick and easy night against one of those two unheralded pro boxers, needing less than one round to knock out Ryan Bourland, who was smaller, inactive and just… not good in general.
Instead, less than a week after the Bourland bout, Tyson vs. Paul was announced.
It made business sense. This likely was the biggest boxing match in the United States in nearly 29 years, dating back to December 1995 for Tyson’s second fight after he was released from prison after serving three years for a rape conviction. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Fox broadcast featuring Tyson vs. Buster Mathis Jr. in the main event had more than 43 million people watching at least part of the show.
Lots of pro boxers opt to get paid more money for easier work. They just don’t get as much money, or for as easy work, as Paul has been getting.
The risk/reward ratio might soon change. However, we shouldn’t expect Paul to go after his fellow cruiserweights, bridgerweights or heavyweights just yet. Not as his first choice, at least. That’s too much risk for too little reward. Instead, he’ll likely try to persuade Canelo Alvarez to face him, or for Conor McGregor to again cross over from the UFC, or some other pick who will pique curiosity.
He’ll keep going back to the well until the well runs dry.
As for Tyson, hopefully he can recognize — as he did after the loss to McBride, a basic and lumbering heavyweight — that he shouldn’t fight anymore. Back then, it was a necessary conclusion, but a sad one given that Tyson was in considerable debt and had not yet found a better way than boxing in order to earn the money he needed.
That’s not true anymore. This match with Paul may have been the first time in forever that Tyson fought not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
That doesn’t mean we will want to see him again.
Any more boxing matches featuring Tyson will be a hard sell. Any promoter who tries will be like the fighter himself — they won’t have a leg to stand on.
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2 and @UnitedBoxingPod. He is the co-host of the United Boxing Podcast. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.
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