Even after the deserved defeat against his opponent, who was 31 years his junior, Mike Tyson didn’t want to say goodbye to boxing for good. The former world champion lost unanimously on points against Jake Paul and from the third of eight shortened rounds onwards had hardly any reserves left for his own attacks – but the 58-year-old could not bring himself to say goodbye. “I don’t know it. “It depends on the situation,” he answered when asked in the ring whether this was his last boxing match. And then added in front of 72,300 spectators in the Dallas Cowboys football stadium: “I don’t think so.”
In the first officially rated boxing match since 2005, Tyson started well and aggressively – but then clearly lost control to his much younger opponent. Tyson’s defensive work was good, but he didn’t attempt his own attacks in the remaining two-minute rounds. In the final seconds both stopped the fight, Paul bowed to Tyson.
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“I came to fight. “I haven’t proven anything to anyone but myself. I’m just happy with what I’ve done,” Tyson said afterwards. “Mike is a legend, he is the greatest. This man is an icon and it is an honor to fight against him,” commented Jake Paul on the spectacle, which was staged as a mega-event. “More than 120 million people on Netflix, we took the site down,” he cheered. In fact, numerous users posted their anger about connection and transmission problems on the Internet even before the main fight began.
Paul had taken on the role of outsider in the run-up to the fight. When the two appeared together at events in the past few weeks, the influencer was often booed. “These are Mike Tyson fans who love him. And I’m the new one, the disruptor, the loudmouth, the one who polarizes,” Paul said. “I built my career by being the villain. Of course people are against me – that’s great for boxing.”
Cheers at the Tyson entry
The sympathies were also clearly divided at AT&T Stadium: When Paul was slowly driven to the ring in an open car, there were mostly boos. When Tyson went to the ring, however, there was a lot of cheering in the stands.
Paul has only been in the ring since 2020, the fight against Tyson was his eleventh win in his twelfth fight. The 27-year-old made a name for himself as an influencer, with 27 million fans following him on Instagram and 20.8 million on YouTube. Netflix wanted to test the potential of live sports with the broadcast, but disappointed many users due to the technical problems.