Most Valuable Promotions has responded angrily to online conspiracy theories that the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on November 15 was somehow scripted or fixed.
The conspiracies have seemingly largely erupted as a result of fans’ ongoing unwillingness to accept that a 58-year-old Tyson fought like a 58-year-old instead of obliterating Paul with one punch in the first round, as he routinely did against opponents [checks notes] 35 years ago.
Among the more prominent exponents of “the fight was fixed” claims has been former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver and NFL Hall-of-Famer Michael Irvin.
“That fight was a lie,” he said on the sports talk show, It Is What It Is. “If you look through that, I didn’t see one patented uppercut by Mike Tyson. What did Mike Tyson win on? Uppercut.”
A reasonable explanation for that might be that Tyson had forgotten how to work his way inside on a taller opponent well before he retired a quarter-century ago, entered the ring with a bad knee and, again, was 58 years old; Paul, meanwhile, showed the veteran plenty of respect by staying at range – and, he admitted later, went easy on his opponent down the stretch.
Irvin, however, had a different explanation for what unfolded.
“I heard some people talking about they couldn’t put [Mike Tyson’s uppercut] in the contract,” he stated. “He couldn’t body and then uppercut. Like, how can you put that in a fight contract?”
The simple answer, of course, is that you can’t. In response, MVP issued a statement on Monday morning in which they pointed out that rigging a professional boxing match “is a federal crime in the United States of America.” And indeed, big fights being rigged, while the frequent go-to claim on Internet message boards, is largely a vestige of the days of Mafia control of the sport; A-side promoters who want to maximize their chances of victory have multiple other, more subtle, ways to put their thumbs on the scale.
Not that there is a need to resort to searching for evidence that any such subtle schemes were deployed or even necessary for what was, it truly cannot be stated enough, a fight between a 27-year-old active boxer and a 58-year-old with a bum leg and a lifetime of physical punishment who was patently shot as a fighter even before he stayed on his stool against Kevin McBride in 2005.
“Paul vs. Tyson was a professional match sanctioned by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations (TDLR),” the MVP statement continued. “Both fighters in good faith performed to the best of their abilities with the goal of winning the fight. There were absolutely no restrictions – contractual or otherwise – around either fighter. Each boxer was able to use his full arsenal to win the fight. Any agreement to the contrary would violate TDLR boxing rules.”
Perhaps more pertinently, however, MVP points out that fixing a fight would put them in immense jeopardy with new partners Netflix, which streamed the fight to a claimed 65 million households worldwide.
“It is further illogical and inane that MVP, in the debut of a hopeful long-term partnership with the world’s biggest streamer—an organization that made its first-ever foray into live professional sports with Paul vs. Tyson—would even so much as consider such a perverse violation of the rules of competition,” the statement continued.
On the one hand, boxing deserves to be treated with suspicion and contempt by fans, given that the sport has treated its fans the same way for decades. On the other hand, constant immediate resource to conspiracy theorizing avoids even considering alternative explanations such as the fact that – oh, sure, I’ll go ahead and beat a dead horse – Mike Tyson is 58 years old and has been shot as a fighter at least since George W. Bush was president.
“Trash talk and speculation are common in sports, and athletes and promoters need to tolerate nonsensical commentary, jokes and opinions,” continued the MVP statement. “But suggesting anything other than full effort from these fighters is not only naïve but an insult to the work they put into their craft and to the sport itself.”
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