Everyone wanted the same thing: Mike Tyson to explode Jake Paul’s head.
Well, it’s not everyone. The 27-year-old content creator received his first charge for Netflix’s foray into the latest live programming. Paul made $40 million compared to Tyson’s $20 million. Paul has a much larger fanbase, winning by quirky stunts, mischievous wars and ruining the lives of his neighbors. His latest error, innovation, escalates his standard “feud” into actual fisticuffs and places his body in the boxing ring line. It was an advantage, especially as he was careful to book himself against less talent than other. And YouTubers take a lot of shit, but do you know who else cares about money more than good people? Boxing promoter.
But if you’re reading this – if you could, you probably would have been rooting for Tyson. Tyson, a convicted rapist of a violent bully who stole a lot of money, rebuilds himself by storming Lockbottom and declaring a war with his ego. He was once so out of control that he didn’t bite his opponent’s ears, but Tyson now stands as a kind of proof that no one has surpassed his immunity.
Unfortunately, the battle was almost over before it began.
This doesn’t mean that Tyson threw the match. Despite internet rumours that “scripts” are leaking, all evidence points to a fight that was completely played on the board. Paul won as the betting public had hoped for him. Keep distance in the early rounds, use a 3-inch height advantage to get away from Tyson’s fist, wear a much older opponent, hug them when threatened or gased, and rely on youthful stamina to win with points. Tyson hasn’t been in the box since 2005, but he stepped into the ring with a legendary puncher chance.
Unfortunately, Paul led this by negotiating to use 14 ounces of special gloves instead of the standard 10 ounces. With 40% more glove padding than a regular boxing match, Tyson’s best chance of winning was effectively neutralised. All he could do was hold it.
Neither guy demonstrated going to stamina for round 8. When the match was dragged on, they saw almost as much as we saw them. Tyson entered the ring with a brace on his right knee and his legs were visibly plagued in round three. Without his footwork, his blows would have returned to the bad habits that have plagued the end of his career. He loaded knockouts in the round several times, but without the setup they rarely landed. Tyson moved his head and defended him brilliantly, but Paul won without pillow gloves.
Viewers who remained in the main event (the opening bell rang four hours after the advertised start) were definitely disappointed, but at least they saw some good matches with undercards that were out of time. The welterweight championship match between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos became a non-stop battle, and it was very close that even the judges couldn’t know who won: it ended with a split draw of boos from the crowd. Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano were then faced with an indisputable, ultra-lightweight title, a rematch of the iconic (and contested) 2022 match. The announcer’s repeated claims were that “Hurstley” had largely ruined it, but boxing fans had to cheer on such a vicious, bloody event. Again, Taylor won the shock of the crowd and solidified her legacy with an unanimous decision to betray the intimacy of the fight.
If you were looking forward to Barrios vs. Ramos, or Taylor vs. Serrano, you’ve got the value of a Netflix subscription (i.e., if you could watch: slow load times were pushed against the laptop next to your router, and for all the wrong reasons, Netflix was on social media). But for the rest of us, even the western coasters would have been wondering why they woke up so late.
Tyson and Paul both had big paydays, but the real winners of the evening were Netflix and Jerry Jones, owners of the Dallas Cowboys and AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where the fight took place. In an evening interview, Jones stated how excited he and the rest of the NFL are about Netflix Lighting of lighting Invade live sports. This year, Netflix has two NFL games on Christmas Day. Hope they get more the next time their league contracts go up.
So far, they haven’t made any more money. But after Paul vs. Tyson, they can’t go anywhere.
(tagstotranslate) Jake Paul