ARLINGTON, TEXAS – As Jake Paul drove slowly in a car through AT&T Stadium to the stage, with his brother Logan Paul next to him and doused him with the YouTuber-turned-boxer’s W brand body spray, the speakers blared “In the Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins. The ride lasted so long that the crowd stopped booing Paul – who had been the subject of a cacophony of cheers for promoting this fight for the past eight months – and stood mesmerized.
In just a few minutes, 27-year-old Paul would defeat Mike Tyson, a 58-year-old, recently retired boxing phenom who had been stoic and existential in the final days leading up to the fight. Tyson told a 14-year-old reporter, “We’re dead. We are dust. We are nothing at all. Our legacy is nothing.”
During press events before the event, he said: “I’m just ready to fight. I said everything I had to say.” Sports analysts went on and on about how unlikely it would be for a man his age – no matter how unstoppable he was in his prime – to be able to keep up with a young fighter like Paul. They were right.
Jake Paul is driven to the ring on Friday for his match with Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
However, boxing is all about pageantry. It is not uncommon for personal attacks between fighters to increase as they get closer to night. On Thursday at the weigh-ins, Tyson punched Paul for stepping on his foot, and Paul shouted with the ferocity of an angry warrior for Tyson to “die.” There had to be some drama between them to get butts in seats and in that respect they managed to fill a football stadium, break ticket sales records and attract so much attention at home that Netflix crashed.
None of the people I spoke to during the fight – from cowboy hat-wearing enthusiasts of the sport to fans decked out in vintage Tyson merchandise – were in favor of Paul. They wanted to “see Mike teach that annoying kid a lesson” or “blow that YouTuber’s head off.”
Paul became rich and famous enough to found Most Valuable Promotions, the promotional company that partnered with Netflix to create the show, thanks to his natural showmanship shared on social media. He started his career on the six-second video platform Vine and became even more successful when he switched to YouTube. He even did a brief stint on Disney Channel, but left after his reputation as a chaotic troublemaker grew. An amateur boxing match with a fellow YouTuber gave him the bug, and he’s been looking to be taken seriously ever since. He inspires a lot of vitriol – he’s the bad guy in every match – but people tune in specifically to see him get beaten.
Every time an image of Tyson appeared on the big screen at AT&T Stadium, fans jumped to their feet and applauded. They cheered for the hope of seeing a boxing legend come out of retirement as strong as he exists in their minds. People were rooting for an underdog, for their own nostalgia, and for the defeat of a hot-headed young man.
Before Paul and Tyson took the stage, it had been a depressingly chaotic evening. A highly anticipated rematch between two of the best female boxers in the world, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, ended in what many consider the wrong decision. Netflix’s stream kept buffering, making the entire show difficult to watch. The feed inadvertently showed Mike Tyson’s bare butt, which quickly became a meme, briefly subverting the public’s expectations for his return to merciless brutality. He’s always funny, but people wanted Iron Mike.
The fight itself was depressing and difficult to watch. The people I spoke to who were expecting a quick and violent display from Tyson were terribly disappointed. It was immediately clear that he was tired, and in return Paul didn’t fight him as hard. This continued for all eight shortened two-minute rounds. At a post-fight press conference, Paul said he never felt Tyson’s power.
Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight. (Timonthy A. Clary/AFP)
If Paul had really been as mean as many expected him to be, he would have knocked out Tyson. But that again raised early concerns: Did this YouTuber trick us into watching a fight that would never be entertaining at all? Is this the biggest and most successful example of clickbait of all time? Did the ultimate act of villainy give people hope for a revival of their childhood hero, lure them in with the promise of nostalgia, and then show the villain graciously and gently triumphant?
One spectator, a man wearing a shirt calling himself “Mike Tyson Greatest Fan,” fled as soon as the final round ended and before a winner was declared. Hundreds of other people in equally expensive floor seats did the same. There was now only a dark cloud of disappointment hanging over the stadium that once filled with anticipation as Paul accepted his unanimous victory.
I marched out of the stadium and climbed a seemingly endless spiral ramp with hundreds of very quiet ticket holders. Their faces were solemn and their bodies swayed like zombies as they endured the almost Sisyphean task of returning to the real world. No one had much to say other than, “Is this slope ever going to end?!”
Jake Paul and Mike Tyson embrace at the end of their heavyweight boxing fight. (Timothy A. ClaryAFP via Getty Images)
I walked a few blocks to a closed Taco Bell, where I sat on the sidewalk waiting for an Uber with a bunch of 40-something men vaping and reading X-messages to each other. As they scoured the internet for hope – condemnation of the fight’s mere existence by boxing experts, Tyson’s promise back in the public eye and jokes about how Paul’s next opponent could be a litany of people who are too old to meet him in the ring – they reached the end of their tolerance for jokes and went back to staring somberly.
On social media, some people compared Paul’s victory to that of newly elected President Donald Trump, but it’s not that simple. When the polls leading up to the presidential election were deadlocked between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Paul was the overwhelming favorite to win for many, simply because he was not yet 58 years old. If the public had been able to vote, it would have been Tyson in a landslide. In a way, that helplessness – however depressing – united the people in that stadium.
Jake Paul announced as winner against Mike Tyson. (Al Bello/Getty Images for Netflix)
Tyson thinks a lot about his legacy, but it’s likely this loss will be a footnote in his storied career, which saw him become the youngest heavyweight champion at age 20, bite Evander Holyfield’s ear and make a huge comeback after spent three years in prison for rape. . People are already overlooking a big part of Tyson’s story when they remember his greatness. He will be fine, and despite his loss, he has made a lot of money.
What will become of Paul? On The Tyson fight was so inconsistent that some commentators say Paul didn’t really prove anything about his own ability; he’s only being accused of elder abuse for setting up the fight in the first place.
Even if Paul had lost the fight and been knocked over in the first round, he still won by letting us see him perform, just like he has done since he was 16 years old. A Tyson win would have made a lot of people very happy, but in Paul’s new regime we are all united in our bitter resentment.
