Nobody puts Mike Tyson down, not even now that he is 58 years old. He lost, but remained standing, bruised, but standing, strong on his legs, beaten on points by the YouTuber and philanthropist boxer, Jake Paul, 27, with his hipster beard. Eight rounds of two minutes each, with heavier gloves than normal.
In Arlington, Texas, in the Dallas Cowboys stadium, in a packed arena with more than 70 thousand people and a revenue of 18 million dollars, the two boxers faced each other without sparing energy. The fight was originally scheduled for July but postponed after Tyson felt ill on the plane flight from Miami.
Iron Mike (50 wins and 6 losses) and Paul (10 wins and one loss) hit each other right from the first round, when they exchanged two blows that landed on the face. But as the rounds went by, the thirty-one year age difference began to take its toll. Tyson conceded in the third, when he staggered for a moment on a one-two. In the fourth a shot above the belt scored by Paul. In the sixth another meeting blow and a hook. Iron Mike remained impassive, while his opponent stuck out his tongue in defiance, and walked around with his arms outstretched, like Muhammad Ali. Just right for the web people.
Seeing the two together was like comparing photographs taken with a cell phone and those created with a reflex camera. The reflex was Tyson, obviously, but the numbers were for his challenger. In the end the YouTuber landed more than seventy shots, compared to Tyson’s eighteen, even though both had a low percentage, around twenty percent, but the great champion did not give in, despite his face appearing at least three times. was hit by blows that would have been fatal to more humane boxers.
At the final bell Paul bowed before Tyson as a tribute to the legend and that seemed like a fair and sincere recognition, both from him and from the people of social media who know little about the history of boxing. This remains a sport where you encounter pain and made for romantics even if this wasn’t the evening. In the end, show, millions of dollars and many likes. If Tyson had won it would have been a great fight. If he had ended up miserably on the ground, it would have been a sad sight. The conclusion on points was the best result. Nobody really lost.
Paul, in the ring, after the victory, speaking into the microphone, took the opportunity to become a YouTuber again and say that “the truth is returning” and that “America is rising again”, a probable reference to Donald Trump’s victory, to which the YouTuber and his brother Logan, also a web celebrity, had done the endorsement.
Tyson, despite his historic friendship with the tycoon, spoke only as a boxer and champion: “I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone – he said at the end – only to myself”. Paul is part of the new generation of social circus boxing, Tyson is part of history. Fans hoped that Iron Mike would condense his entire history as a great champion into a single punch, a right hand in the last round, surgical and powerful, and knock the hipster out. It didn’t happen, but the Brooklyn legend’s resilience remains. Fifty-eight years is a long time for everyone, especially in the ring, but it is a little less if Tyson is fighting.