Mike Tyson’s fight with Jake Paul was utterly awful and beautiful at the same time

Hopeless sporting romantics naively seeking one last moment of greatness from boxing legend were given their moment to dream in Texas

Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Friday’s big fight in Texas was, by any rational account, a sporting abomination. A degrading spectacle that pitted a puffed-up YouTuber with a big mouth against an ageing, broken, semi-delusional former champion.
And yet, I’m glad I came.
This might seem an odd thing to say, when the eight two-minute rounds were so devoid of action that they dragged on as painfully as an Adam Sandler movie.
But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment when Mike Tyson walked out, dressed in his trademark black, and the 80,000 people in the AT&T Stadium entered a collective swoon. You can watch weeks or even months of “proper” sport without experiencing a buzz like that.
Some have described this fight as a form of human bear-baiting. One friend texted me the following message: “Money. Greed. Betting. Bloodlust. Voyeurism. Deception. Exploitation. Narcissism. Social media. Immorality.”
I countered by suggesting that the whole edifice of Paul-Tyson was actually built on romance. On the fond yet unrealistic hope that the 58-year-old Tyson could summon up the dregs of his former greatness, and make one last epic stand.
To me, this explains why all the pre-match polls were so close, and why the betting odds – flying in the face of logic – were virtually evens. It explains why, on Wednesday night, the undercard fighters had come down 9-3 in favour of a Tyson victory. People just wanted to dream. And there was something beautiful about all that longing.
Admittedly, Paul and his promoters were exploiting everyone’s nostalgic feelings towards Tyson in order to gain dollars and eyeballs. Theirs was a cynical exercise in clout-chasing.
And, yes, we saw an awful lot of tawdriness in Dallas. Including the absurd post-match claim from Nakisa Bidarian, Paul’s business partner, that the fight had been an “unbelievable display”.
This was true, though not in the way he meant.
But at least Paul didn’t inflict any serious damage on Tyson in the search of personal career advancement. At the press conference he was surprisingly honest, admitting that he had deliberately carried his opponent when it might have made better business sense to pretend otherwise.
Paul gave every indication that he shared the collective feeling of veneration towards Tyson. Asked about that 9-3 verdict from his peers, he replied “I don’t care. I would have went with Mike too. I love Mike.” At that moment, I felt like I’d spied a glimmer of humanity behind Paul’s notoriously punchable face.
It’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the scale of the Tyson legend. He ranks in the highest echelon of sporting giants, a name to place alongside Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Zinedine Zidane. As with those three, it wasn’t just what he did, but the magnetic, irresistible manner in which he did it.
Then you bring in the elemental nature of boxing. Sport is always more compelling and pulse-racing when there is physical danger involved. And there can have been no more dangerous gig than facing Tyson at his peak: a mission that chilled the blood of so many brave and seasoned fighters.
All this explains why, in his heyday, Tyson created a legend that stretched from Michigan to Mongolia. His autobiography describes a visit to London in 2000 when he found that “I couldn’t walk the streets because we’d start a riot … It was like Beatlemania.”
So while Friday night’s spectators might have wanted to see the bumptious Paul put on his backside, that was only the secondary motivation for cheering Tyson.
We were even keener to press rewind, to go back in time to the days when he was monstering opponents in the first round. Hopeless sporting addicts that we are, we wanted one rush of Tyson’s finest.
There was even a brief moment, after the opening bell, when it seemed like the impossible could happen. Yes, Tyson’s tally of 97 punches across eight rounds might seem pathetic, especially as he only landed 18 of them. But probably a third of those scoring shots came in the opening round, which the judges awarded to him by a 2-1 margin.
After that brief surge of excitement, reality reasserted itself. The charm quickly ran out of the evening as the two men huffed and puffed like office workers at a white-collar boxing night.
It wasn’t long before the booing started. Punters who had paid upwards of a hundred dollars were understandably miffed at the poor quality of the spectacle.
And yet, for those who had never watched Tyson live before, I suspect their disappointment will be leavened by the sense of having seen sporting history in the flesh – even if that flesh might have lost its elasticity many years ago.
Once we understood that there would be no real conflict, the whole show started to feel like an exhibition. It was a bloodless rehearsal: the sporting equivalent of that ABBA Voyage thing in east London, where you pay hundreds of pounds to watch a virtual performance of Benny, Bjorn and the rest.
But you know what? I loved ABBA Voyage. And despite its many longueurs, there were some special memories to take away from Texas too.
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email