You can tell a lot about how bad a fight was by how quickly the postfight conversation turns to what’s next.
There was no glow to bask in when Jake Paul’s dance with the ghost of Mike Tyson concluded. So, almost immediately, we got Tyson calling out Logan Paul — even the Paul brothers didn’t seem to know what to do with that one — and we got every boxer, active or retired, with a social media account and/or a microphone calling Jake out. From heavyweight beltholder Daniel Dubois, to lineal light heavyweight champ Artur Beterbiev, to recently minted Hall of Famers Andre Ward and Carl Froch, to former fighter turned broadcaster Sergio Mora, everywhere you looked or listened, someone was trying to make a grab at that cash.
I don’t know what will be next for Jake Paul in the boxing ring. But I know what should be next: nothing.
Scoring a (somehow) official win over a 58-year-old Mike Tyson should be the conclusion to Paul’s boxing story. It can get no bigger, no stranger, no more surreal, no more sobering. He will absolutely not for a second entertain the possibility of fighting Dubois or Beterbiev, both of whom would annihilate him in about the time it takes to watch a Vine. He probably won’t seriously consider getting schooled by Ward or Froch either, especially since neither possesses even one per cent Tyson’s cachet with casual fans. Most likely, Paul will either make another circus fight against someone who is more celebrity than boxer — like Conor McGregor, perhaps — or he’ll get back to fighting club fighter-level professional cruiserweights, along the lines of his quickie wins over Andre August and Ryan Bourland.
And I just don’t see the point in any of that anymore.
Taking on a Mike Tyson more than three decades removed from his peak was the absolute peak of cynical matchmaking. And from a business perspective, it worked. It accomplished everything it was designed to, playing on the public’s preference for style over substance, exposing how susceptible the average Joe is to hype and how reluctant the average Joe is to engage in critical thinking. This was yet another win for bright, shiny objects with no real quality.
And for those of us who’ve willingly if unenthusiastically followed along to this point, acknowledging at first that, “hey, Paul is decent for someone who isn’t really a boxer,” and later that, “hey, at least he’s taking it seriously,” this just feels like the end of the line. Now we’ve seen everything that Jake Paul, the boxer, is capable of. First he beat a fellow “influencer.” Then a former NBA player. Then a washed MMA fighter. Then a different washed MMA fighter, twice. Then yet another washed MMA fighter. Then he took on an actual pro boxer and narrowly lost, and that could have been the end of the progression, but Paul, to his credit, reset. He beat another washed MMA fighter. He beat a low-level pro boxer. Then another one. Then back to an MMA fighter.
And then Mike freakin’ Tyson.
All credit to Paul for building to the point where that fight was worth the money it was worth. But he has now played all his cards, at least as far as the boxing community is concerned. We’ve seen every iteration of this — some iterations three or four times already — and it’s time for us to stop paying attention.
Paul slapping Tyson around was, to some extent, a YouTuber slapping the sport we love in the face. Maybe there’s something still appealing about this for Jake Paul fans. But for actual boxing fans, he’s wrung out of it all that he can. The only thing new that remains is for Paul to get knocked out by a legitimately world-class boxer. And us waiting around for that is every bit as cynical as Paul putting on a pugilism-adjacent show against a one-legged 58-year-old.
All that said…Jake Paul has been good for boxing. And we, the serious fight fans, should absolutely continue paying attention to what his company, Most Valuable Promotions, does going forward.
Consider: Netflix and MVP reported an estimated average minute audience of 125 million global viewers for Paul vs. Tyson, counting those who watched the next day. They also claimed an estimated 74 million live viewers worldwide for the co-feature between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor. Let’s focus on that latter number, because, let’s face it, those who tuned in just for the main event are not true boxing fans and are not going to become true boxing fans because of what they saw Friday night.
But those who watched the undercard — namely Taylor-Serrano II and Mario Barrios’ 12-round draw against Abel Ramos — saw some of the very best action and drama that boxing has to offer. It’s not for everyone; one friend of mine texted in a group chat six rounds into the spectacular women’s bout, “How many more of these crappy fights until Tyson and Paul fight?” There are some people you’re just never going to reach. But if there were 74 million people watching — and let’s say 10 million of them were already boxing fans — if among the other 64 million, just 1 per cent of them enjoyed what they saw enough to want to see more, well, that’s 640,000 new boxing fans.
That’s a number that can be felt financially up and down the sport for years to come.
When I was chatting back in the spring with Eric Bottjer, a matchmaker for MVP, he said of the originally scheduled July Paul-Tyson card: “Jake makes the ultimate decisions, and he should get a lot of credit. He recognizes the opportunity here to actually make new boxing fans with high quality fights.”
No one can deny Paul has been a tremendous advocate for women’s boxing. He’s enabled Serrano, who was grossly underpaid relative to her skill and talent for most of her career, to become a multi-million-dollar fighter and, now, an athlete whose name everyone in the sports mainstream knows. He doesn’t promote Taylor, but he’s provided all the same finance and fame benefits to her through the popular matchups with Serrano. Paul also promotes super middleweight beltholder Shadasia Green, so it’s not like elevating Serrano has been a random anomaly for him.
He promotes young, up-and-coming fighters on his undercards, and in 2023 he started a series — Most Valuable Prospects — devoted entirely to those up-and-comers looking for an opportunity.
On top of that, Paul established a non-profit organization that works to stop bullying, and last year he was appointed “head of fighter advocacy” for the Professional Fighters League, where his aim was to help MMA fighters get a higher share of the revenue.
He can go further if indeed he’s committed to being a force for good in boxing. He can decide that all boxers on MVP cards must commit to year-round VADA testing — and while such a venture is cost-prohibitive for many smaller promoters, the money it requires should be pocket change for Paul. As a promoter, maybe Jake Paul could dedicate himself to being the man to solve boxing’s PED problem.
But even without speculating about what he could or should do, purely based on what he’s done so far, there’s every reason to say his entry into boxing has benefited other fighters, and that it’s benefited fans. I mean, if not for Paul, it’s possible we wouldn’t have seen one Taylor-Serrano fight, never mind two of them. And those were two of the best fights of this decade in boxing as a whole.
To this point, I’ve been OK with watching Paul knock out some of the world’s worst professional cruiserweights in one round because of the side benefits for serious boxing fans. But those days are over. It’s time to enjoy the side benefits without having to put up with the farce atop the cards.
Spinning last Friday’s event forward, priority one is what Tyson does next in a boxing ring — and praying that it’s “nothing.” But priority two is tuning out whatever Paul does next in a boxing ring.
So Jake, if you’re reading this: Your boxing record currently ends with an official win over Mike Tyson. That’s got to be a dream come true for you. And all you can do if you fight again is screw that up.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at [email protected].
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