Paul Admits Holding Back Against Tyson: “Didn’t Want To Hurt Him

Jake Paul said at the post-fight press conference he decided not to knockout Mike Tyson because he didn’t want to “hurt” him in their eight-round, 16-minute fight on Friday night. Jake (11-1, 7 KOs) won a lopsided eight-round unanimous decision over the former heavyweight champion Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs) at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The scores were 79-73, 80-72 and 79-73.

Fans couldn’t help but notice that Jake, 27, fought like he was holding back from hurting the 58-year-old Mike Tyson because he’d shaken him up badly in round three with a left hook on the temple that took his legs away, sending him stumbling backward.

Jake Paul Admits Holding Back

The fact that Jake didn’t go for the knockout made the fight look scripted in the eyes of the fans on social media. Many of them complained that it looked like a fake fight.

“Yeah, definitely, I did a bit. I wanted to give the fans a show, but I didn’t want to hurt someone that didn’t need to be hurt,” said Jake Paul at the post-fight press conference when asked if he eased off the gas pedal against Mike Tyson when he saw he was tired.

It doesn’t make Jake Paul look good that he held back from knocking out Mike because fans had paid money to subscribe to Netflix to watch the fight. The ones that traveled to Arlington, Texas to see it at AT&T Stadium weren’t happy at the fight and the weak undercard that they saw.

Punch stats

Mike Tyson connected only 18 punches out of the 97 he threw in the 8-round, 16-minute fight, which is abysmal.

Jake Paul landed 78 of 278 shots, showing that he had connected on 4 times more shots.

For Mike Tyson to have landed only 18 punches in the entire fight shows how much of a mismatch this fight was. Jake was there to be hit, but Tyson was too old and shot to land anything.