On Friday night, two boxers step into the ring at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. One is “Iron” Mike Tyson, “the baddest man on the planet,” one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. Another is Jake Paul, a millennial influencer who made a career out of prank videos, making malicious music, and terrorizing his neighbors.
Some may wonder what the chances are that the cruiserweight, the internet's most obnoxious star, will face Tyson. You might also wonder how a 58-year-old can beat a man 31 years younger, no matter how much he practices. But focusing too much on the mechanics of boxing, or exercise in general, misses the point. If what the audience wanted to see was a fight between the best boxers in the world, the fight would probably get more hype. Instead, it's the countless influencers-turned-boxers who invent feuds with each other and settle them with fists that get the most attention.
Paul and Tyson now occupy this much newer territory in the world's oldest sport. Celebrities with controversial pasts are giving ammunition to a public with strong feelings on both sides. Although Friday's match is a professional match (which means it's regulated by a sanctioning body, records matter and betting is possible, at least in certain states), it will be more of a spectacle than a sport. The project, sponsored by Paul's promotion company Most Valuable Promotions and Netflix, which will stream the fight live, is part of the streaming service's attempt to reach young male viewers and the advertisers who want to attract them.
The match is expected to draw high ratings, thanks in part to Netflix's estimated 282 million subscribers, the largest of the platforms. Originally scheduled for July, the fight was postponed to November after Tyson suffered a recurrence of an ulcer on the plane. Paul was already considered the favorite due to his age and recent record (10-1, 7 KOs), but the betting odds are even more in his favor, currently sitting at -210 according to BetMGM Sportsbook.
Tyson's participation is controversial. Eddie Hearn, one of the industry's biggest promoters, told ESPN he would not support the fight because it could pose an additional risk to Tyson's health. “That's because they [MVP] I should have realized this was actually a bad idea,” he said of the ulcer. “You just have to talk to him and watch him to know that this guy should never step into the ring again. …If I were Jake Paul, I'd be a little embarrassed, to be honest. …This is dangerous, irresponsible and, in my opinion, disrespectful to the sport of boxing.”
But Nakisa Bidalyan, co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, insists it will be a fair fight. “Paul has never been beaten by someone like Mike Tyson,” he told ESPN. “So people can say about the danger of Mike Tyson because he's older. What about the danger for Jake Paul, who has never fought at this weight? I've never faced a true heavyweight, and that goes for both sides.”
What will it be for everyone involved here? It's worth asking. Paul has made his incentives clear: “I'm here to make $40 million and beat the legends,” he said at a press conference in August (Paul reportedly has a net worth of about $80 million). ). Tyson will reportedly earn about half that amount, double his reported net worth of $10 million. In addition to the payment, Paul announced in a video that he would pay Tyson $5 million if he could last four rounds or more. If unsuccessful, Tyson will have to get a tattoo that says “I love Jake Paul.” (Tyson said in an interview that he would only agree to $20 million more.)
As for Tyson, this is yet another attempt to return to the spotlight in what has been a busy career. “This fight is not going to change my life financially,” he told Radvible. “I'm looking for my own glory.'' After being released from prison in 1995, he fought in a series of comeback bouts, including one with Evander Holyfield, who would later bite both ears. It was one of the most controversial moments in sports history. In the mid-2000s, Tyson, who wasted $300 million in earnings and went bankrupt, announced a series of exhibition fights to “get us out of this financial quagmire,” but they were canceled after just one fight, he said at the time. spoke. Tyson last faced 2003 World Heavyweight Champion Roy Jones Jr. in an exhibition match in 2020 and now runs a successful cannabis company.
Meanwhile, Netflix has been focusing on live events over the past year. In January, he acquired the rights to WWE. rawAnd earlier this year, in addition to live streaming the SAG Awards for the first time, tom brady roastJoey Chesnutt's Labor Day Hot Dog Eating Contest, and John Mulaney's Talk Show. Two NFL games will be streamed on Christmas Day.
Rich Greenfield, a partner at LightShed Ventures who analyzes the streaming space, said this could be a “powerful tool” in the company's advertiser bidding. “If you're going to be in the advertising business, the power of something that gets noticed in the moment and connects millions of people is very important to advertising,” Greenfield said. Netflix's strategy appears to be to create smaller, lower-cost, unique moments rather than, say, buying streaming rights to all the major sports organizations or major awards like the Oscars and Grammys. “Netflix already has subscribers, and now we're focused on creating unique events to drive ad sales,” Greenfield says.
Those advertisers are targeting a core demographic: men, especially young men, who pay attention to influencers like Paul. These young men don't necessarily follow boxing, but they find familiar faces appealing. As Brady Brickner-Wood explained in The New York Times Magazine last year, “Influencer boxers know something that boxing purists don't: A fight without a story, even if No matter how poetic the execution, it is just an empty technical exercise.” It definitely has a different appeal for viewers who know about Paul and his ilk but don't necessarily like them. ” Khereffa Sanneh wrote in The New Yorker last year.
In anticipation of the fight, Netflix released a three-part docuseries following the preparations for the fight between Tyson and Paul. Of course, this is just marketing, obscuring the more troubling elements of Paul and Tyson's past. There is no mention of the fact that Tyson was convicted of raping an 18-year-old woman in 1992 and served three years in prison for that charge, or that he was recently accused of raping another woman in 1990. do not have. He is alleged to have been physically abusive to his ex-wife, actress Robin Givens. According to one biography, Tyson admitted to punching her and called it “the best punch of my life.” Rather, the series shows several clips of Tyson in handcuffs, with a voiceover noting that “his life goes on.”[ing] Falling into a downward spiral. (Paul was also fined for facilitating cryptocurrency fraud, and has also been accused of sexual assault by fellow influencer Justin Paradise and model and actress Rayleigh Lolly.)
Instead, viewers will see that the idea for the fight came from an ayahuasca ceremony that Paul attended in Costa Rica, where he saw visions of himself fighting Tyson. Paul is then shown meditating and repeating to himself, “I, Jake Joseph Paul, will knock out and defeat Iron Mike Tyson.” According to Paul, he then contacted Tyson, who enthusiastically agreed.
One of the opening scenes of the documentary series asks, “Why fight when you have all the fame and money in the world?” The answer, of course, is that no amount of fame or money is enough for those who put their lives on the line for such things. Being a celebrity in 2024 means that the moment people scroll away from your face, the world moves, and your only role is to create an ever-growing pile of content so they can find your face again. It is about understanding that it is about creating. Paul and Tyson occupy vastly different positions in modern pop culture, but they both probably understand that the only things worth getting punched in the face are fame and money.
