On Friday from AT&T Stadium in Arlington Texas, influencer turned boxer Jake Paul took on former Undisputed Heavyweight Champion and 58 year old man “Iron” Mike Tyson in an eight round boxing match that left much to be desired.

Here are our three biggest takeaways.

Nobody should have been surprised by the outcome.

I said on our podcast on Friday morning that the fact that Jake Paul was sitting at -270 odds was a steal, and that you could legitimately feel confident putting your life savings on the fight without a sweat. Jake Paul’s team at Most Valuable Promotions knows how to book the young star, and a sixteen minute fight with shortened rounds against an aging Mike Tyson was exactly the kind of fight that his team needed to book for him to keep fans angry … Which in turn will keep them tuning into watching Jake Paul.

Paul has very smartly built a career around the infuriation of the people who watch him. You want him to lose, yet he is booked not to. So you’ll keep coming back again, and again, and again, holding on the slim chance that somebody puts him to sleep.

Netflix isn’t ready for primetime sports. 

Throughout the night, Netflix repeatedly encountered buffering and streaming issues due to the large amount of user traffic, adding another layer of difficultly to the nights action. There is a ten year old joke about Youtube that goes “I can deal with ads, I can deal with buffer, but when the ads buffer, I suffer.” … That was sort of how it felt watching Paul vs Tyson on Friday. Not only am I spending my Friday watching an absolute snoozefest of a main event, but I’m doing it in 240p while buffering? No thank you.

With Netflix set to host NFL games this Christmas, and with it set to soon be home to WWE’s Monday Night RAW, we could see more of these difficulties in the future.

Jake Paul and other internet personalities continue to damage the legitimacy of boxing. 

Boxing’s legitimacy was already damaged somewhat by the rise of MMA and other martial arts around the world. The mystique surrounding fighters of the past like Ali, Tyson, Robinson, and Louis can’t exist in this day and age because “the baddest men” on the planet are found in other sports … But to a more serious degree, boxing today suffers from a legitimacy problem. The sport’s most famous fighters aren’t its best fighters.

How many people in your life know who Oleksandr Usyk or Artur Beterbiev are? They might know about Canelo Alvarez and they feel like the name Terence Crawford rings a bell somewhere. But I’ll bet you a dollar they know about the Paul brothers …

Yes, fights like Paul vs Tyson are putting new eyes on the sport … But those new eyes are seeing an influencer and a 58 year old former champ throw pillow hands at each other in the ring. I can guarantee that nobody whos first time watching boxing was last night walked away with a high opinion of the once great sport.

Jake Smith 

11/16/2024

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