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For the past few weeks, one of the top stories in all of sports has been the tale of a fifty-eight-year-old ex-boxer who was preparing to clamber into the ring once again—becoming, for one more night, an ex-ex-boxer. Of course, Mike Tyson is not merely a boxer but, rather, the boxer, at least in the post-Muhammad Ali era. He is so synonymous with the sport that one of this era’s top heavyweights was named in his honor: Tyson Fury, who was born, in England, in 1988, when Mike Tyson was ascendant, having just knocked out Michael Spinks, in a fight that lasted a minute and a half. By the time Tyson retired, mid-fight, in 2005, he was less fearsome than he had once been, but just about as famous as he had ever been. His enduring appeal had something to do with the violence he inflicted, but it had more to do with his startling self-awareness—his tendency to talk about himself as a character whom he knew only too well. On Friday night, he made his official return, in a match that no one could have imagined two decades ago. His opponent was Jake Paul, the twenty-seven-year-old influencer turned boxer, and the fight was shown not on pay-per-view but on Netflix, which has something like two hundred and eighty million subscribers worldwide. It may well have been among the most-watched fights in the history of boxing.
As he prepared, Tyson encouraged his fans to believe that, though it had been decades since his last proper fight, not much had changed. Clips from training camp suggested that he could still move his hands pretty quickly. But, by far the most impressive footage—the best reminder of why so many people still care about Tyson—came from an interview that was released the day before the event. The interviewer was Jazlyn Guerra, known as Jazzy, an indefatigable fourteen-year-old who has interviewed enough celebrities to become something of a celebrity herself. She asked, “After such a successful career, what type of legacy would you like to leave behind, when it’s all said and done?”
Tyson responded not with a humble platitude about doing his best but with an extraordinary monologue that swiftly spread across social media, partly because Tyson delivered it in a fugue-state monotone, as if he barely knew or cared whom he was talking to:
No one who has ever conducted a challenging interview could have been unimpressed by Jazzy’s cheerful response. “Well, thank you so much for sharing that,” she said, and soon the mood shifted. “You’re pretty sharp,” Tyson said, admiring her short-sleeved Fendi sweater.
Once upon a time, Tyson was widely considered a villain, or at least a disgrace, but these days he is a fan favorite, especially when compared to Jake Paul, who has found a clever and relatively honorable way to monetize his unpopularity. (In the world of boxing, a punchable face can be a great marketing tool.) Few people seemed upset that the scrap began a day early, during the Thursday weigh-in, when Tyson gave Paul a vigorous slap across the face after Paul stepped on his toe. Paul neither flinched nor staggered, and bragged about the altercation on X: “This is a pinch me moment. I got slapped by Mike Tyson 🤗.” In 2002, Tyson and Lennox Lewis engaged in a pre-fight brawl during which Tyson bit Lewis on the thigh. (Lewis then beat Tyson in the ring, easily and badly.) But that was a real fight; in contrast, Paul vs. Tyson seemed sure to be a less-real one, although no one could say for sure how much less real. This was not Tyson’s first comeback: four years ago, he faced a fellow retired boxer, Roy Jones, Jr., in a just-for-fun match, and was generally judged to have fared better. Friday’s encounter was marketed as a real fight, though an abbreviated one: eight rounds, instead of the traditional ten or twelve, lasting two minutes each, instead of the traditional three.
Tyson, at fifty-eight, talks in a slurred, unsteady voice that suggests some of the toll that boxing has taken on him; no doubt it is not a good idea for such a person to be hit repeatedly in the head, although it is surely not a good idea for any person to be hit repeatedly in the head. (Boxing, in general, as even many of its fans would concede, is a bad idea.) His fight against Paul was originally scheduled for July, but was postponed after Tyson suffered a bleeding ulcer, which he says required blood transfusions. “I don’t want to die in a hospital bedroom—I want to die in the ring,” he said, in a Netflix documentary series promoting the fight. Statements like this one explained why so many people thought he shouldn’t be fighting, and also why so many people wanted to watch, regardless.
The excitement of Paul vs. Tyson peaked early. The best part was the buildup, and the second-best part was the opening seconds, when Tyson charged toward Paul and Paul took flight, scooting backward toward one corner of the ring and then, a few seconds later, toward the opposite corner. This was the kind of fight most viewers probably wanted: Paul trying to avoid danger, and maybe eventually, with any luck, failing to avoid it. What they got, instead, was a contest that vindicated the oddsmakers, who had installed Paul as a two-to-one favorite. The fight basically started, and ended, in the third round, which began with Tyson tipping forward and swatting Paul with a looping left hook. “Oh, my God, he just rocked him,” said the actress and boxing fan Rosie Perez, who was one of the commentators. Paul responded impressively, with a trio of left hooks of his own, and Tyson staggered backward, at which point some viewers might have noticed that he was wearing a knee brace, as many men of his age do. “Mike does not look good right now,” Perez said, and indeed he never looked good again. According to CompuBox, which keeps count, Tyson landed only six punches in the final five rounds. Paul used his jab to keep Tyson at a safe distance, and won nearly every round on every scorecard. He had triumphed over both the legend of Tyson and also, less impressively, the man himself. “He’s a legend. He’s the greatest to ever do it. He’s the GOAT,” Paul said, of Tyson, after the fight. “I’m just honored to be a part of America, and it feels like we’re back, baby.”
What had he proved? Paul has built a record of 12–1 (including one amateur match) by carefully avoiding top contenders and, for that matter, middle contenders; if some boxing fans are a disgusted by his willingness to use a fifty-eight-year-old man as a stepping stone, maybe they will be that much more motivated to tune in to Paul’s next contest, in hopes of seeing him finally get what he deserves. But, then, the idea that fighters get what they deserve is precisely the kind of sentimental idea that Tyson likes to refute. Even when he was reliably snuffing out one opponent after another, Tyson seemed aware of the senselessness of boxing. There is no reason, really, for two people to have a fistfight, except that other people might enjoy it. And maybe that means there’s no easy way to persuade a geriatric fighter to stop. The post-fight interviewer, Ariel Helwani, seemed to be hoping that Tyson would announce his re-retirement. “Is this possibly the last time for you?” he asked.
But Tyson only shrugged. “I don’t think so,” he said, quietly. ♦
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