Boxing used to be a sport with a sense of pride and dignity to it. Yes, it’s violent and aggressive, but it has a physicality to it that is supposed to put two fighters on even ground, to prove who is the the better fighter. It’s supposed to illustrate who can outfight the other given a set of rules and a fight style that is fairly set, yet still has room for variation, finesses, and technique. Over the last several years, Jake Paul has made a mockery of this and that disgrace is set to continue in his upcoming fight with Mike Tyson.
On July 20th, Paul and Tyson are set to compete in a professionally sanctioned boxing match in Arlington, Texas. That sentence should not exist. Oh, it’ll also be streamed on Netflix.
Jake Paul has spent the last four years cherry picking fights that could make him look good, without actually being that impressive of a victory. Yes, he beat big names like Nate Diaz and Anderson Silva, but they were both mixed martial artists and 12 and 22 years older than Paul respectively. If you don’t think those things matter, then you don’t understand how important age is in a fight and how vastly different boxing and mixed martial arts are. Meanwhile, yes, Mike Tyson is/was a professional boxer, who hasn’t had a professional fight in 19 years, hasn’t won a fight in 21 years, and arguably hasn’t been in his prime since 1997.
The thirty year age gap between Paul and Tyson should have been more than enough to prevent this fight from being sanctioned. Somehow, someway, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations gave the approval for the fight. I’m sure that the marketing pressure had something to do with it; after all this fight will be aired live on Netflix and it will draw massive, guaranteed numbers. It’s a gimmick fight and admittedly, it’s an alluring one. So many people want to see Jake Paul get knocked the hell out, and Tyson has a legacy through pop culture that almost no other boxer has. Lennox Lewis was one of the most dominating fighters of the ’90s and early ’00s, but who outside of the boxing world remembers him? He didn’t have a cameo in “The Hangover” and he wasn’t the face of “Punch-Out!!” for the NES.
I have no love for Jake Paul and would love to see him taste the canvas, however the guy is only 27 years old, he has legitimately trained enough to at least be a talented amateur boxer, and he’s a big guy. His one professional defeat came from Tommy Fury, a legitimate boxer who’s two years younger than Paul. You’d think this would bode well for Iron Mike, but that age gap is a massive hurdle to overcome. When it comes to heavyweight fights, it only takes one good punch to knock someone out. Unfortunately, a younger fighter is more likely to weather a good punch more than an older fighter; that’s just the way our bodies work. Training and expertise can only do so much against the ravages of time and there’s a much higher chance of Tyson getting seriously hurt as opposed to Paul.
In the lead up to the fight, Paul stated, “I think everyone else is underestimating me and I believe that I hit harder.” Honestly, he may be right.
This fight should not be happening. The fact that it’s set for eight rounds at two minutes a piece, instead of the traditional 10 rounds at three minutes, seems to be a small concession to that fact. According to Tyson, he specifically wanted the shorter rounds, “because I wanted more action. If we only have two minutes, we’ll fight more.”
I have no doubt that Tyson can still pack a wallop with his punches, and I’m sure that there’s the potential to knock Paul out with a good clean hit. All that said, even at the tail end of Tyson’s professional career, he was not what he once was. Go and watch his two final fights, losses to Kevin McBride and Danny Williams, is it logical to assume Tyson has improved since then?
Regardless of who wins the fight itself, Jake Paul is already a winner financially. The fight is being produced between Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions, a company that Paul himself co-founded. The undercard fight of Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano is actually a legitimate contest, and the fact that MVP is handling that bout gives a bit of hope towards maintaining some honor in the sport of boxing, even as it has been supplanted by MMA as a sporting event.
We’ll see what happens when Paul and Tyson duke it out on July 20th on Netflix. Here’s hoping that that the main event doesn’t do even more harm to the sport itself, to Tyson’s reputation, or his body.
