Mike Tyson. Jake Paul. 80,000 fans at AT&T stadium. You in?
We all saw this coming, didn’t we?
Ever since Jake Paul went viral for knocking former 5’8″ NBA Slam Dunk Champion Nate Robinson stiff on the undercard of Mike Tyson’s return to face Roy Jones Jr. it seemed like these two would somehow find themselves between the ropes.
Truthfully, this whole celebrity boxing stuff puts the sport in a weird place. Pretty much no one was watching before it started, other than when the 5 boxers you can still name happened to be fighting while you were at a bar, but the core audience of fans has been repelled as the boxing industry focuses all its promotional capabilities on the likes of the Paul brothers and crossover events between boxers and MMA fighters.
Thoughts on boxing ruining its legacy aside, this fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul is sure to bring in some mindbogglingly huge numbers of eyes as they teamed up with Netflix to stream the event.
In a press release, Jake said:
“It’s crazy to think that in my second pro fight, I went viral for knocking out Nate Robinson on Mike Tyson’s undercard. Now, less than four years later, I’m stepping up to face Tyson myself to see if I have what it takes to beat one of boxing’s most notorious fighters and biggest icons…
My sights are set on becoming a world champion, and now I have a chance to prove myself against the greatest heavyweight champion ever, the baddest man on the planet and the most dangerous boxer of all time. This will be the fight of a lifetime.”
Tyson had this to say about his younger opponent:
“He’s grown significantly as a boxer over the years, so it will be a lot of fun to see what the will and ambition of a “kid” can do with the experience and aptitude of a GOAT. It’s a full circle moment that will be beyond thrilling to watch; as I started him on his boxing journey on the undercard of my fight with Roy Jones and now I plan to finish him.”
The fight is going to be an exhibition, which makes sense given Tyson is 30 years older than Jake, and it’s doubtful the specifics of the agreement will be announced, but man, I don’t know how to feel about this…
Say Jake comes out firing and actually puts Tyson away, like he did with former UFC Champion Tyron Woodley. I think we can all agree that would be hard to watch, given Tyson is 57 years old.
What if they come out and basically do a bit of light sparring? Again, that would be hard to watch, but in a different way. You know there’s going to be all sorts of promotions and trash talk and promises of punishment, so having the match fall flat would suck the wind out of the remainder of Jake’s fights. And if Tyson puts Jake away, well that would probably be the end of his career. How do you come back from getting KO’d by a 57 year old pothead, regardless of who he was early in his life?
I do have to say, I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those Tyson hooks… he still looks pretty dang sharp.
Naturally the internet is ablaze with the news, and filtering out the people who claim this is the boxing event of the century (boy do they need a history lesson) the most common response is people believing this will be nothing more than a fake fight.
Will I watch? Of course, I’m a sucker for this kind of thing like anyone. But I’m not to happy about it, I’ll tell you that…
