Submitted for your approval: Mike Tyson and the twilight zone

In the fourth episode of the classic 1950s science-fiction series “The Twilight Zone,” we meet aging film star Barbara Jean Benton, who spends her days watching her old movies, refusing to believe that she or her co-stars have aged or, in some cases, died. She is lost in a fantasy world, clinging to the vestiges of youthful glory and denying the realities of time. 

There were a lot of Barbara Jean Bentons tuning in to Netflix on Friday, expecting to see a young Mike Tyson come striding out to the ring while DMX yelled “What’s My Name?” and then putting a snotty young pretender in his place, making everything right again and bringing us back to a time when boxing was boxing and “social media influencers” weren’t a thing. 

Instead, they saw what they should always have been expecting to see, and what, had they been paying attention, they would have known they would see: a 58-year-old man, with many, many miles on his odometer, who had whipped himself into pretty damn good shape for a man his age but who simply could not hang with a strong, athletic, 27-year-old. 

Purely anecdotal research suggested, to this writer at least, that those who most fervently believed in Tyson’s chances were on the young side of 40, those who don’t know what it is like to feel the inexorable pressure of aging, the creaks and strains and groans and tiredness and heaviness that accompanies even the fittest of people as they grow older. Most of us who were already obliged to compare our present selves unfavorably with earlier versions knew what most likely was in store.  

Shortly before heading to AT&T Stadium on Friday, I sat with a colleague, now 72, and expressed that thought. In return, he recounted a time when he was in his mid-50s and got into a tussle with a younger man who was disrespecting him. “I grabbed hold of him, it turned into a wrestling match, we went down, and he fell on my leg,” he said. “And my leg broke.” He sighed. “There are just things you shouldn’t be doing at 58.”   

I suspect, though, that there was a subset of 50-somethings and 60-somethings who were not only pulling for Mike but convincing themselves he could win because they didn’t want to accept that inevitability. They wanted to think that if they wound up in a fight with a 27-year-old they could hold their own just as well as they could a decade or two or three ago; but instead of doing so themselves, they were happy for Mike to do it on their behalf. 

By round two, as reality dawned, it was possible to almost physically feel the excitement and optimism drain from the building. As Tyson became increasingly immobile, a sense of underwhelmed sadness hung over the arena, as it became clear that he was on his way to a humiliating loss, taking everyone’s collective fantasies with him. 

After the fight, Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder with Jake Paul of MVP Promotions, offered that the only way people would not have been disappointed was if Tyson had knocked Paul out. He is not the most objective of observers, but he was right: what attracted the massive worldwide streaming audience, as well as the 70,000 and change in the stadium, was the prospect, however remote, that Tyson could land one of those famous right hands or left hooks from his pomp and burst the Paul balloon. 

As much as Paul has tried to convince the world that he is a legitimately championship-caliber boxer – and again, he deserves immense credit for making himself into the genuinely capable pugilist he has become – the fact that millions of people around the world were prepared to suspend disbelief and assume he would lose to a 58-year-old whose career began to implode back in 1990 and who was definitely done at the top level by 1997 suggests that he has not succeeded. To be fair, however, there is no boxer alive who carried the same aura of even a near-pension-age Tyson, whose inability to defeat Danny Williams or Kevin McBride 20 years ago never made it into the reckonings of the optimists and fantasists. 

On one level, the matchup made perfect sense for Paul: not only would it be lucrative, but it would provide him with the opportunity to score a win against the most recognizable name in the sport. But so obviously was what unfolded on Friday night the result of Tyson’s inability to find even a fraction of what had made him great when he was 20 that it is unlikely he’ll receive any credit. Had he opened up and really tried to punish the old man, he would have been excoriated and condemned; it is to his immense credit that he recognized what was happening in front of him and eased up on an opponent he respects. 

Despite Tyson’s off-the-cuff suggestion afterward that he might stick around and maybe face Logan Paul next, that door is now finally closed. The myth of Tyson remaining the Baddest Man on the Planet has been put to bed; he could probably still whip most 58-year-olds but the last thing we want is to see him slowly throwing hands with people of his own age. We can now consign Mike Tyson the boxer where he belongs: to our memories, where he will always be the force of nature who left us slack-jawed in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  

Barbara Jean Benton was, in a sense, able to do the same; by the end of the “Twilight Zone” episode, she transported herself into her own movies, where she and her co-stars and friends would remain forever youthful. Tyson couldn’t do that, but he was able to console himself with what had always been the more realistic goal, of lasting eight rounds against a younger man, even if that was only because the younger man allowed him to. 

“I’m grateful for last night. No regrets to get in ring one last time.” he wrote on social media. “I almost died in June. Had 8 blood transfusions. Lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won. To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you.” 

That didn’t exactly provide an ending that would have graced “The Twilight Zone.” But real life rarely does.

Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcasted about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.