On Friday, November 15, in Arlington, Texas, the notorious up-and-coming boxer and YouTube creator Jake Paul faced off against renowned heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, his first professional fight after 20 years of retirement. At the end of the fight, by unanimous decision, the judges named Paul the winner of the fight, listing the scores of 80-72 and two of 79-73. The fight, which had been streamed on Netflix, yielded record-high viewership, with 108 million people tuning in to watch. The fight co-mained a match between female boxers Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, which also broke ceilings, becoming the “most-watched professional women’s sporting event in U.S. history” according to Netflix, as reported by USA Today.
Since the fight’s announcement on March 7, social media had been clamoring for both fighters to battle and bustling with different fight predictions, as the two boxers immediately gained attention from all corners of the internet. Both Tyson and Paul had fed into it, pumping out videos on their respective social media pages that featured training videos and promotional material for the fight. Additionally, many viral moments had arisen from the situation. One clip shows Tyson, right after Paul had signaled that he wanted to kiss Tyson, mentioning that a video of Paul dancing when he was 16 had aroused him, to which one commenter wrote, “Only Mike can say these things.” Paul had also delved into the mind games, spending $200,000 on diamond ear-coverings, a jab at Tyson’s infamous bite in his match against Evander Holyfield in 1997. More recently, at the weigh-in, which occurred a day before the fight, Tyson smacked Paul in the face, which again disrupted the internet. Needless to say, these viral moments had generated much excitement for their heavyweight boxing match.
However, it now appears that the hype-train may have only deepened viewers’ disappointment in the fight’s results. Most fans were frustrated by Tyson’s performance—or lack thereof—throughout the eight rounds. Although he dished out a flurry of quick hits at the start, he quickly took a more passive approach, letting Paul come towards him. In any case, Tyson fans rationalized his defeat with the wide age gap between the two fighters: Tyson is 58 years old, whereas Paul is only 27 years old. This discrepancy has been a popular topic of discussion, alongside complaints of the fight being a scam, given the huge payouts both fighters were set to receive, which was reportedly upwards of $20 million, which their mediocre performance doesn’t merit .
Another factor that caused wide disappointment in the fight was viewership issues, which many experienced on the Netflix platform. This resulted in one subscriber even suing the company for breach of contract. However, the technical difficulties were most likely due to the unprecedented number of viewers, which overwhelmed Netflix’s systems. With much buffering and crashes, there was a minimum of 85,000 people that experienced technological difficulties, according to Fox News.
With rumors of a potential face-off between Logan Paul and Mike Tyson in the coming Wrestlemania 41, the Paul brothers are far from done with the famed fighter. Having set new records for streaming services on live entertainment, the Paul v. Tyson fight will surely be the benchmark for future live sports entertainment.
