Imagine it’s 2054: 59-year-old Patrick Mahomes and the rest of his 2020s Kansas City Chiefs teammates are set to kick off against a bunch of trolling online gamers who rose to fame through playing Madden and being obnoxious. It’s the most excited anyone has been about football in years. Heck, you’re even excited to see this “game” and can’t wait to get home and watch it on (insert the most popular streaming service of 2054 here).

You don’t have to imagine any such scenario regarding the sport of boxing in 2024. Jake Paul, a 27-year-old YouTuber who rose to fame for being a troll, challenged 58-year-old Mike Tyson, the former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, in a highly-anticipated eight-round “boxing” match at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night.

Paul defeated an aging Tyson via decision, and his next bout will likely be against another aging boxer or perhaps a retired football player. Maybe Paul will take on another MMA fighter, a hip-hop/country artist or someone from a reality show.

No matter who Paul battles next, America will certainly pay way more attention to that than anything that’s actually going on with the proper sport of boxing.

Do you know who the current heavyweight champion of the world is? Do they still have separate sanctioning bodies that recognize different champions like the IBF and WBC? How about the lightweight champion?

I couldn’t tell you anything about boxing in 2024. I can’t remember the last time I saw a match on television. Times were different when I was a kid in the 1970s and 1980s. Not only were boxing champions of various weight classes household names, but their belts were as revered by American sports fans as the Lombardi Trophy and the Commissioner’s Trophy (World Series Trophy).

Muhammad Ali was still fighting when I was a little kid. Sugar Ray Leonard was a household name, and everyone knew where they were when he took on Roberto Duran in multiple fights, especially the famous “No Mas” welterweight championship rematch between the two in 1980.

“Marvelous” Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns in 1985 for the undisputed middleweight championship of the world. It only lasted three rounds, but it was still one of the most memorable and action-packed boxing matches of all time.

Leonard vs. Hagler in 1987.

Again, boxing was cherished in the 1970s and 1980s. The Rocky movies were huge because boxing was huge. People stood up and cheered in theaters throughout the country in 1979 when Rocky Balboa “defeated” Apollo Creed for the heavyweight championship in Rocky II. 

It was during this time that Tyson quickly rose up the ranks to become the most feared boxer in the world and undisputed heavyweight champion by the late-’80s. A first-round knockout was way more common for a Tyson fight than one that went the distance. His opponents were often psyched out before they even entered the ring. This appeared to be the case when Tyson took on Michael Spinks in a highly-anticipated match for the undisputed championship in the summer of 1988. Unfortunately for Spinks, he was knocked out in the first round.

Nobody could stop Tyson…until an unknown ham-and-egger named James “Buster” Douglas did in February of 1990. I’ll never forget where I was when Douglas knocked Tyson out in the 10th round during a heavyweight championship match in Tokyo, Japan. I can still see my late grandfather, who loved boxing and would watch the Tuesday and Sunday night fights with me every week, wake my late grandmother up as Tyson was being counted out in the ring.

This fight took place on a Saturday night, and as I walked to my homeroom at school on Monday morning, I could hear every kid I passed in the hall talking about the historic ending to the match just 36 hours prior.

Douglas quickly became a household name and soon appeared on the David Letterman Show while wearing the cherished heavyweight championship belt.

Boxing began to die a slow death in the 1990s. Sure, it was still huge. George Foreman made an epic comeback to reclaim the heavyweight championship. Tyson was still big, despite his legal troubles.

Unfortunately, boxing’s popularity was all but over around the 21st century, and here we are today: Talking about a farce of a matchup between a middle-aged former champion and someone who wouldn’t have even been allowed in the same ring as him 35 years earlier.

What happened to boxing? Like, I really want to know. It’s obvious that people still like fighting (again, the Tyson/Paul fight was much anticipated), but they just don’t care about actual boxing.

I guess it’s a branding problem and has nothing to do with the barbaric nature of two humans punching each other in the head repeatedly. After all, UFC has replaced boxing in the fighting sports genre.

Oh well, I have to hand it to Jake Paul and Mike Tyson: At least they got me to pay attention to and write an article about boxing…or whatever it was that took place on Friday night.