Tedious narcissist blowhard Jake Paul will fight Mike Tyson on Saturday in a meaningless freakshow in Texas that will likely – thanks to the fact it is being internationally streamed by Netflix – be the most watched boxing match in history. Naturally, both men will make millions.
That the contest has little to do with sport but rather is being summoned into existence as ‘content’, the term now used for anything (dwarf tossing, unboxing videos, weird mukbang eating shows) that can be streamed digitally for the purpose of attracting eyeballs and selling advertising or subscriptions, is a point so obvious it hardly needs stating. Sadly, it makes it no less depressing. A grift is a grift, after all.
The age difference between the two fighters is for a start a grotesque insult to boxing. Paul is 27, Tyson a 58 year-old grandfather. But what really grates for fans of the sport is the manner in which its most famous living luminary is able in this way to be bought and sold – and potentially terribly humiliated – by an upstart who in a just world would not be fit to lace Iron Mike’s gloves.
For Spectator readers in the enviable position of having never heard of Paul, he became famous as a teenager via the medium of YouTube by ceaselessly posting videos of himself and his equally ludicrous brother Logan. Before as an adult settling on boxing as a means of attracting attention to himself, Paul also attempted rapping. He is by no means a talented boxer – or rapper, for that matter – although his a record of 11 fights and one loss might suggest otherwise to an unfamiliar observer .
Almost all of Paul’s fights have been against opponents he has selected carefully on the basis that he has a significant physical advantage over them, not least in terms of age. He has specialised, too, in fighting non-boxers. For example, he is 13 years younger than the retired mixed martial artist (MMA) and wrestler Ben Askren, who he knocked out in the first round of their contest in 2021.
Likewise, he is 15 years younger than former MMA fighter Tyron Woodley, who he has defeated twice – the second time making Woodley subsequently get a tattoo that read ‘I love Jake Paul’ – and he has also defeated ageing MMA superstars Anderson Silva, 22 years his senior, and Nate Diaz, 12 years his senior.
In fact, the only time Paul has ever fought a recognised boxer close to his own age – the not-terribly-impressive Tommy Fury, half-brother to former World Champion Tyson Fury – he was soundly thrashed.
Paul has been widely mocked for his boxing – most wonderfully by promoter Eddie Hearn who told him to his face he was not only ‘distinctly average’ but should regard being labelled as such a compliment – but is apparently impervious to shame. Despite the fact he is not a part of any formal boxing championship sanctioned by the sport’s major bodies (the WBA, WBO, IBF or WBA) the money apparently still rolls in splendidly. Paul has boasted the fight against Tyson will make him $40 million. Tyson will reportedly earn half that.
Given his age, there are concerns that Tyson could be seriously injured fighting Paul. Tyson’s last professional fight was a sixth round defeat against journeyman boxer Kevin McBride in 2005, and in May he was hospitalised after an ulcer blew up, causing him to vomit blood. Clearly, this is a prospect by which organisers are also concerned. The gloves used in Saturday’s contest will be 14 ounces rather than the less cushioned ten ounces traditionally used, and there will be eight rounds of two minutes rather than 12 rounds of three minutes.
Legendary boxing trainer Teddy Atlas has wondered publicly if the result of the fight is a foregone conclusion. ‘Is it real or is it fixed, that’s my only question,’ he asked in an interview with the Sun. Certainly, Paul is the heavy favourite with the bookies to win. The feeling is that Tyson will run out of gas should the contest go beyond the first couple of rounds.
This writer’s hope is Tyson teaches Paul a much needed lesson about respect – for his elders and for the sport of boxing – by upsetting the odds and marmalising him brutally as quickly as possible. Upon reflection, freakshow or not, that’s something I’d pay to watch.
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