Sport

Boxing: Tyson between myth and show, yields to young youtuber

he 27-year-old young man, who is also an actor and youtuber, won the match on the unanimous decision of the three judges

16 November 2024

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The myth of boxing beaten, but only on points, by a boxer who became famous thanks to YouTube. It sounds like a joke, while it is instead a sign of modern times, which also passes in the ring in the name of the God of money.

And so it happens that MikeTyson returns to fight at the age of 58 against a 27-year-old, a certain JakePaul, also an actor as well as a youtuber, who manages to win, not without breaking a sweat, on the unanimous decision of the three judges a $40 million purse and a match that will surely flow more on social media than in the history of the sport.

Boxe: Jake Paul si aggiudica ai punti il match con Mike Tyson
Photogallery29 foto

The bout, aired worldwide on Netflix, had originally been scheduled in July but postponed after Tyson fell ill during a plane flight from Miami. A challenge, admittedly more media than sporting, with a 30-year difference between the gloves, but one that Iron Mike honoured, at the start almost like in his heyday, roaring, resisting, responding blow after blow and above all not getting knocked down by a 'kid' brought up on the Internet and Tik Tok. Selfie and social versus 'old school' Tyson. Right for the web people.

Seeing the two together was like comparing photographs taken with a mobile phone and those created with a reflex. The SLR was Tyson, of course, but the numbers were for his challenger. Then it happened that the boxing legend framed his opponent, stood in the ring, bruised, but on his feet and strong on his legs.

In the end he is beaten on points by a Paul who showed up with his hipster beard that could not be further from the boxing legend. An Iron Mike, who has been fighting on the streets of Brooklyn since he was a tough young kid 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 boxers wearing heavier than normal gloves.

All this took place in Arlington, Texas, in the Dallas Cowboys' stadium, in a packed arena with more than 70,000 people and a gate of $18 million. Iron Mike (50 won and 6 lost) and Paul (10 won and 1 lost) hit each other from the very first round, when they exchanged two blows that hit each other in the face.

As the rounds went on, the thirty-one year difference began to weigh. Tyson suffered in the third, when on one-two he staggered for a moment. In the fourth a blow above the belt scored by Paul. In the sixth another counter blow and a hook. Iron Mike remained impassive, while his opponent stuck out his tongue in defiance and spun with outstretched arms, like a Muhammad Ali.

In the end, the youtuber landed more than seventy blows, against Tyson's eighteen, although both had a low percentage, around twenty per cent, but the great champion did not give in, despite at least three times his face being hit by blows that would have been fatal on more human boxers. At the final gong Paul bowed before boxing history as a tribute to the legend defeated but certainly not obliterated and humiliated by one of the many questionable products of the social era.