Jake Paul routs Mike Tyson, who makes comeback at age 58
Iconic former heavyweight champion goes distance in global spectacle
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Father time will forever remain undefeated as Mike Tyson, the iconic former undisputed heavyweight champion, learned the hard way in a near-shutout decision loss to Jake Paul on Friday night at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
The 27-year-old Paul, the former Disney actor and YouTube/social media influencer turned star cruiserweight boxer, moved up to heavyweight and easily defeated the 58-year-old Tyson in the main event of the Most Valuable Promotions card — the first live sports event on Netflix.
Paul won 80-72, 79-73 and 79-73 in a fight that had two notable rules tweaks in that they fought two-minute rounds instead of the standard three, an accommodation to Tyson’s age, and they wore 14-ounce gloves they would typically spar in to reduce the impact of the punches instead of the 10-ounce gloves usually used in a heavyweight fight.
Still, the curiosity of seeing the once “Baddest Man on the Planet” in an officially sanctioned fight for the first time in 19 years and 5 months — since Tyson quit on his stool after the sixth round against journeyman Kevin McBride in June 2005 — turned the fight into a global event.
How big was the pairing of mega stars from different generations? The fight generated a live gate of at least $17.8 million, according to MVP. That makes it the biggest live gate in American boxing history for any event outside of Las Vegas.
The fight also drew a crowd of 72,300 to the home of the Dallas Cowboys, making it the second-largest U.S. indoor attendance for a boxing match, rocketing past the 63,352 who turned out for the heavyweight championship rematch between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks at the Superdome in New Orleans in September 1978 and just shy of the record 73,126 who were at AT&T Stadium for Canelo Alvarez’s one-sided eighth-round knockout of Billy Joe Saunders to unify three super middleweight titles in May 2021.
Many of those at Paul-Tyson surely came to see if Tyson could somehow turn back the hands of time. While he looked in excellent condition, especially for a man pushing 60, he had nothing left, which was no surprise because he had nothing left when he retired after the McBride fight in 2005.
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