Last weekend, Jake Paul and Mike Tyson finally met in the ring for their highly anticipated spectacle of a boxing match. I was thoroughly disappointed. 

Despite an exciting build up of Paul guaranteeing a dominant knockout victory and Tyson uttering incredibly chilling lines straight out of a gladiator movie, the fight itself failed to deliver on much at all. 

8 rounds of Tyson standing with his hands up, chewing on his glove and hardly throwing a single punch. He seemed a shell of himself, looking all of the 58 year old man that he had managed to convince many he was not. 

Paul did not do much to help either, seeming reluctant to really engage and spent most of the fight throwing left-handed jabs that merely scored points rather than inflicting any damage. 

That is not to say that I wanted Paul to hurt Tyson, in fact, I more so wanted both fighters to put on an entertaining show but walk away relatively unscathed. 

Paul ended up winning the fight by unanimous decision and was gracious enough in his victory speech, heaping praise and respect on Tyson for stepping into the ring at his age, but the live crowd and the millions watching did not share the sentiment. 

Online reactions were overwhelmingly negative and the stadium crowd in attendance booed the fighters throughout the fight and rained boos down on Paul when he was announced the victor. 

It was not the kind of boo’s that Paul works to garner however. Not the kind of ‘heat’ that helps him to promote fights and get people to fork over money to watch someone potentially knock him out. These were the kind of boo’s that come from a crowd who felt like they just wasted their time and money on a disappointing event that did not live up to the billing they were sold on. 

The under card for this event was actually fairly strong, but ultimately, I felt silly for wasting time watching it.  It was a spectacle to be sure, but lacked any real substance. The promoters were able to get millions of eyes on this card and failed to deliver on anything that could conceivably draw viewers back for Paul’s next bout, whenever that may be. 

Paul will no doubt coax some another former MMA champion out of retirement for a knockout and a paycheck and life will go on as it ever has. 

It was sad to see Tyson look so far removed from his glory days, but as they say, father time is undefeated and I am ultimately grateful that he wasn’t seriously injured because he looked completely out of his league with Paul, a reality that no one would have hoped to see.

Categories: Arts & Entertainment