At the age of 58, Mike Tyson is actually making his comeback. In the over-the-top Netflix spectacle against influencer Jake Paul, the former world boxing champion wants to make himself “immortal”. There’s already trouble at the weigh-in.
Mike Tyson stepped onto the scales in his Versace underwear, adjusted them and then slapped Jake Paul.
Without hesitation, the boxing icon approached his 31-year-younger opponent after the obligatory weigh-in and slapped him, once again fueling the mood before the brightly colored Tyson comeback.
“The chatter is over,” Tyson commented in a single word and left the stage – setting the tone for the mega fight against the influencer on Saturday night (5 a.m.). And Paul? He turned to the audience laughing after the Tyson punch, which he had provoked by kicking Tyson on the toes, and patted himself on the cheek where Tyson had hit him.
Mike Tyson, karşı karşıya geldiği Jake Paul’a tokat attı. pic.twitter.com/hE7shxTnjP
— Onedio (@onediocom) November 15, 2024
“A sweet little slap in the face”
Still, you couldn’t help but feel that the slap had touched the 27-year-old.
“I didn’t even feel it. He’s an angry little elf. It was a sweet little slap, buddy,” Paul said, before grabbing the microphone and screaming like a madman: ”Tomorrow you’re going down. Now it’s personal! He has to die!” When the boxing Youtuber also disappeared from the stage, confident of victory, it was clear to even the last spectator what an absurd spectacle awaited them in the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
The contrast could hardly be greater. Nineteen years after Tyson’s last professional fight, when he lost to Kevin McBride, Paul has managed to persuade him to an official heavyweight fight. “If I win, I’ll be immortal,” said Tyson, adding, ‘But if things go badly, I don’t want to die in a hospital bed, I want to die in the ring.’
The Big Score
As dramatically as Tyson chooses his words, the fight is marketed in a flashy way – and the cash register rings. The 80,000 spectators in the AT&T, where the Dallas Cowboys from the NFL usually play, pay princely sums for their tickets, with the most expensive VIP package costing a whopping two million US dollars (!). Streaming service Netflix is broadcasting live and is also likely to pay handsomely for the rights.
Overall, it is speculated that Tyson and Paul will each pocket around 40 million dollars. However, whether the fight is worth the money remains questionable. Is Tyson’s punch still as devastating as it was when he knocked out Ali conqueror Trevor Berbick in 1986 and shocked the world as the new world champion? Can Paul, who only entered the boxing business four years ago, wear down the old man in the eight rounds of two minutes?
Duel of the Trump supporters
So far, Paul has won ten of his eleven boxing fights, most of them against MMA fighters. Paul, according to Tyson, has been stylized into a “killer” by newspapers and TV, but he is a “natural born killer” – born to kill. In general, they have little in common – except for the fact that both supported Donald Trump in the US election campaign.
Meanwhile, the question of Tyson’s fitness arises, because the first date on July 20 had been postponed due to a stomach ulcer. Doctors are wary of the risk of injury, which cannot be dismissed at Tyson’s age. Iron Mike” last appeared in the ring in 2020 in a show fight against former world champion Roy Jones Jr. After his appearance at the weigh-in, Jake Paul will probably pay little attention to that.