The myth of boxing beaten, but only on points, by a boxer who became famous thanks to YouTube. It seems like a joke, but it is instead a sign of modern times that also passes on the ring in the name of the God of money. And so it happens that Mike Tyson returns to fight at 58 against a 27-year-old, Jake Paul, also an actor as well as a YouTuber, who manages to win, not without sweating, by unanimous decision of the three judges a purse of 40 million dollars and a match that will certainly flow more on social media than in the history of this sport.
The fight, which aired worldwide on Netflix, was originally scheduled for July but postponed after Tyson fell ill during a flight from Miami. A challenge, certainly more media-related than sporting, with thirty years of difference between the gloves, but that Iron Mike honored, at the beginning almost as in his golden days, roaring, resisting, responding blow for blow and above all not letting himself be knocked down by a 'kid' raised on the Internet and Tik Tok.
The boxing legend frames his opponent, stays in the ring, bruised, but standing and tough and strong on his legs. In the end he is beaten on points by a Paul who shows up with his hipster beard that couldn't be further from the boxing legend. An Iron Mike, who has fought on the streets of Brooklyn since he was a young tough guy in New York and after losing he cuts it short. "I didn't have to prove anything to anyone but myself."
Looking at the cold record, the fight slipped away over eight rounds of two minutes each, with the fighters wearing heavier gloves than usual. All of this in Arlington, Texas, at the Dallas Cowboys stadium, in an arena packed with more than 70,000 people and a boxing revenue of 18 million dollars. Iron Mike (50 wins and 6 losses) and Paul (10 wins and one loss) hit each other from the first round, when they exchanged two punches that landed on the face. As the rounds went by, the thirty-one year age difference began to weigh on them. Tyson suffered in the third, when he staggered for a moment. In the fourth, a blow above the belt landed by Paul. In the sixth, another counter punch and a hook. Iron Mike remained impassive, while his opponent stuck out his tongue in defiance.
In the end, the YouTuber lands more than seventy punches, against Tyson's eighteen, even though both had a low percentage, around twenty percent, but the great champion did not give up, despite his face being hit at least three times by blows that would have been fatal on more human boxers. At the final gong, Paul bows before the history of boxing as a tribute to the defeated legend but certainly not erased and humiliated by one of the many questionable products of the social media era.
