The more I think about it, the less Friday night’s boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul on Netflix makes sense to me.
I understand that in boxing spectacle sells, and the bout between the 58-year-old former undisputed heavyweight champ and a YouTuber 31 years his junior who cosplays as a professional fighter, is the ultimate spectacle. Does the aging Tyson — whose punching power was legendary — have enough left in the tank to take down Paul? Can Paul, Gen-Z’s fighting antihero, gain some credibility as a legitimate boxer by beating what’s left of Gen-X’s Baddest Man on the Planet?
The bout between the 58-year-old former heavyweight champ and a YouTuber 31 years his junior who cosplays as a professional fighter, is the ultimate spectacle.
Lots of people are likely to tune in and watch that for free (or at least for no more than the cost of a Netflix subscription). But I think it says something depressing about our cultural moment and the elevation of spectacle over substance that so many people are eager to tune in.
Boxing fell off as an attraction for mainstream sports viewers a long time ago, and in this era of social media, viewers appear more excited to watch a YouTuber fight an almost 60-year-old former heavyweight champion than they are in watching a real fight between boxers who are relevant to the sport. This strikes me as symptomatic of our culture’s rejection of skill, qualifications and experience as prerequisites for taking center stage — in any profession, from the president of the United States on down.
Paul’s rise from a social media star, with only one amateur bout before going ‘pro’ by fighting an ex-hooper and old MMA stars, is connected to this trend. But the public seems disinterested in whether either fighter should be in the ring. Fans are addicted to what’s flashy, simplistic and easily consumed, not what’s substantive or might require a bit more knowledge or discernment to appreciate.
It’s likely that most people who stream tonight’s fight won’t even bother with upcoming fights like next month’s card featuring Gervonta “Tank” Davis — one of the sport’s brightest young stars –defending this WBA lightweight title against contender Lamont Roach, or the upcoming rematch between two current heavyweight stars, Olexandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, where three belts are on the line. In both instances, the matchups are more compelling, the fighters more skilled and closer to their primes than Paul and Tyson.
But those fights are not nearly as easy to sell.
It’s not that I don’t get the entertainment value. Fight fans, or at least the ones boxing aficionados deride as “casuals,” have spent the decades since Tyson’s reign as champ chasing a particular high. With each passing year, the public has been less enthused with matchups between the sport’s elite technicians and more inclined to watch fights only when the main event promises to look something like the Apollo Creed vs. Ivan Drago exhibition in “Rocky IV.” That fictional bout is a lot like the Tyson-Paul fight in a way. The combatants in that 1985 film had no business being in the ring squaring off against one another. Creed, an over-the-hill ex-champ strutted into the ring to face a younger, stronger, juiced-up fighter he had no chance of beating. And the world was watching, not to see if a title changed hands and not really to see if Creed had a little bit left. They just tuned in for the show.
Paul doesn’t have the skills of any of the boxers that Iron Mike faced in the 1980s and ’90s. Of course, in that movie, Creed dies in the ring. Don’t expect such a dramatic result in tonight’s battle. Sure, Tyson could lose to Paul, but he won’t get brutalized — if only because Paul doesn’t have the skills of any of the boxers that Iron Mike faced in the 1980s and ’90s. That’s to say nothing of the skills that Tyson exhibited as he blew through the heavyweight division and routinely knocked out his opponents in the first round — and sometimes the first few seconds. Despite Paul’s claim, “I believe I could beat Mike Tyson during any phase of any part of his career,” he wouldn’t have belonged in the same ring as Tyson at his prime, and we might see tonight that he doesn’t even belong in the ring with him now. And it’s hard to imagine Tyson stepping into the ring if not for the reported $20 million purse he’s expected to receive. He even told us as much in 2005, after he quit on his stool during what was billed as a comeback fight against journeyman Kevin McBride. He said he wanted to quit fighting because his heart was no longer in it, and said, “I’m just fighting to take care of my bills, basically.” “I’m not going to disrespect the sport anymore by losing to this caliber of fighter,” Tyson said then, “but I was in dire need to take care of my life.” And that’s the frustrating part: We know that this fight is a joke, but we refuse to look away. For entertainment’s sake, we’ll ignore Paul’s boxing incompetence compared with Tyson’s and Tyson’s advanced age, and we’ll pretend this is all OK.
Keith Reed
Keith Reed is an award-winning journalist and a past senior editor at ESPN. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Root, Vibe, Essence and elsewhere. 
