The spectacle of Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson wobbled and wonked-out Netflix Friday night with a never-before seen rush of live traffic, reported (at least by Jake Paul) to be in the area of 120 million viewers [Netflix has since given a viewership number of 60 million households, worldwide] for the main event at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
As the broadcast paused and bufferd and pixelated from the massive overload of viewership, the fight underwhelmed and proved to be every bit the worked hustle cynics and critics claimed it was going to be.
Mike Tyson, the one-time king of all fighters, had about 20 seconds of bravado in his 58-year-old body before he became a true-to-form 58-year-old man.
The 27-year-old content creator-turned-boxer Jake Paul, even with a weak resume filled with non-boxers and celebrities and a skill set more closely resembling that of a mid-level club fighter, easily handled the slowed-down and rickety former baddest man on the planet.
After clearly buzzing Tyson with some nothing-special punches in the third round, Paul eased off his already eased-up pace and clearly carried the Hall of Famer the rest of the eight-round contest to take a unanimous decision by scores of 80-72 and 79-73 (twice).
In the post-fight press conference, the now 11-1 Paul admitted to laying off the fragile legend.
“Yeah definitely. Definitely a bit,” he admitted to reporters. “I wanted to give the fans a show but I didn’t want to hurt someone that didn’t need to be hurt.”
Paul’s words unwittingly affirmed the utter pointlessness of this entire matchup.
The bout, contested with 14-ounce gloves and inside of two-minute rounds, featured a grand total of 96 punches landed per Compubox, with Tyson (now 50-7) only accounting for 18 of them. And even that 18-punch, 2.25 punches-per-round tally seemed to be a bit generous as it’s hard to recall the former heavyweight champion landing anything worth tallying. By their count, though, Compubox saw Tyson only landing six punches in the five rounds after being wobbled in the third.
Despite a predictably bad main event and the accompanying technical glitches, however, the evening was not a “bad” boxing night.
The Amanda Serrano-Katie Taylor rematch underneath the main event proved to be another classic showdown between the two, unfortunately resulting in another dubious points loss for Serrano. Before that, WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos exchanged knockdowns, battling to a tightly-contested split draw.
And, maybe most all, fans didn’t have to walk away from a disappointing main event feeling hoodwinked and cheated out of their hard-earned pay-per-view money. Aired via Netflix subscription with no additional charge, the only cost to fans was the time wasted watching a half-assed Jake Paul-Mike Tyson sparring session.
It was, finally, a boxing money grab where it wasn’t the fans’ money being grabbed.
Paul Magno has over forty years of experience in and around the sport of boxing and has had his hand in everything from officiating to training. As a writer, his work has appeared on Yahoo Sports, Fox Sports, Fight Hype, Max Boxing, Boxing.com, Inside Fights, The Queensberry Rules, Overtime Heroics, Bleacher Report, and Premier Boxing Champions. He is currently the owner and managing editor or The Boxing Tribune. You can follow his Twitter/X account, @boxing_tribune, for breaking boxing news, analysis, and sometimes NSFW commentary. For Advertising, Inquiries, etc., send him an email here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com