Mike Tyson’s return to boxing’s blood-soaked theatre an unacceptable risk

So much of boxing is about its theatre.

The spectacle. The hype.

The tools used to promote and gloss over what is, at its most basic level, a spectacle of violence and bloodshed, with a smattering of other associated unsavoury elements.

So much of the hype around this fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul — a spectacle that few within the sport seem to want yet tens of thousands will watch — centres on what Mike Tyson once was.

Discussion about what “Prime” Tyson would do to Jake Paul has dominated social media ever since the fight was first announced in March this year.

That’s because prime Tyson was terrifying, one of the most relentless, devastating, dangerous punchers of all time, a nugget of muscle-bound iron, single-minded in his pursuit of victory.

It was box office stuff.

The thing is, prime Mike Tyson has not existed in anything other than the nightmares of his victims for decades.

The last of Tyson’s 58 professional fights, excluding the 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones Junior, took place in 2005.

Tyson wasn’t at his prime then, either.

Taking a peak behind the theatre curtain, looking past the curated, muscle-bound black and white social media posts, reveals the truth that Tyson is no longer capable of the things that broke that box office when he became the youngest heavyweight world champion in history aged just 20.

Like the Wizard of Oz, Tyson is now just a (relatively) ordinary man in his 50s, hiding behind the mechanisms of hyperbole and long-departed glories.

Tyson is a long way from the same man he was at his peak, even given his impressive physique he displayed on social media earlier this month.

Iron Mike may look sturdy enough, but even iron rusts given enough exposure to the elements — and Iron Mike’s hard-lived 58 years have seen plenty of exposure to plenty of different elements.

No matter how solid rusty iron can appear from a distance, once punches start flying, weaknesses are often brutally revealed.

And, as has been made so painfully apparent through the lived experiences of all too many former fighters, the damage boxers are subject to is largely internal, insidious and permanent.

“My body is in better overall shape than it has been since the 1990s,” Tyson said following that setback.

The laws of biology would beg to differ.

This fight has already been postponed once when the vape-smoking Tyson had a flare up of an ulcer aboard a flight.

It’s Tyson’s age and wear that has had so many people questioning why the fight was sanctioned at all.

Controversial Texas sanctioning

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation has implemented several caveats to the contest.

It will take place over two-minute rounds instead of the standard three, and boxers will use 14oz gloves instead of the standard 10oz ones.

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Nevertheless, some of boxing’s most respected names have called this festival out for what it is, a grotesque parody that carries a huge risk to all concerned.

“I’m a big fan of Jake Paul as a promoter and his business partner Nakissa [Bidarian],” promoter Frank Warren told TalkSport earlier this year.

“They’re very smart operators and they obviously see this fight will generate public interest and money.

“But let’s get it right, Mike Tyson is 58 years of age and he shouldn’t be fighting. It’s as simple as that.

“The fact that Texas have licensed the 58-year-old to fight, what does anybody need to say about that? Anyone with an ounce of brains knows that it is ridiculous.”

Warren’s is not the only dissenting voice.

Irish featherweight legend Barry McGuigan told the Observer last week that Tyson fighting is “so wrong”.

“I’m 63 and Tyson’s only five years behind me,” he said. 

“So the idea of him boxing any guy, even if he’s only ordinary, is just so wrong at that age.

“He really was one of the most dangerous heavyweights that ever laced on gloves. There’s no doubt about that. And I don’t want people to say in 20 years’ time: ‘Oh, that’s that guy that had that sham of a fight with that YouTuber.’

“At that age your punch resistance invariably disappears. 

“While we see all these clips of Tyson doing the pads, that’s not real. What’s real is sparring against good quality opposition and seeing how you look then. You can be sure he’s not doing that given his age.”

The 31-year age gap between the fighters is the biggest in the history of professional boxing, according to ESPN.

YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul has lost just once in his 10-fight career, to British boxer-turned-minor celebrity, Tommy Fury.

He has never fought at heavyweight, though.

Interestingly enough, Paul was on the undercard of Tyson’s most recent exhibition show, brutally knocking out former NBA player Nate Robinson in just his second pro appearance in a ring.

Robinson’s embarrassing, dangerous approach served both to highlight the folly of celebrity bouts, while also showing that Paul was intent on taking his forays into the ring seriously enough to knock someone out with a clean shot.

Whether that power would be enough to hurt Tyson is one question.

But whether a well-aimed punch would need to be all that powerful in any case, is another matter entirely.

“The glove size means nothing,” boxing promoter Lou DiBella told USA Today when asked about the bout.

“Does nothing to soften brain blows; some argue that the bigger mass creates more contact and more ricochet effect of brain moving.”

From high farce to ground-breaking women’s fight

Warren likened the interest in the Tyson-Paul fight to the same instincts that demand that if you’re in a traffic jam you have to peer over at the car crash that’s slowed up your journey.

You know it’s wrong, you know that’s what’s holding you up, but you cannot avoid looking at it.

But that is doing an enormous disservice to the co-main event, featuring female boxing at the highest level, with two of the all time greats stepping into the ring together for the second time.

Undisputed lightweight world champion Katie Taylor (23-1, 6 KOs) is set to take on seven-division champion Amanda Serrano (46-2-1, 30 KOs).

It will be a rematch of their April 2022 fight, when Taylor beat the Paul-promoted Serrano on a split decision inside Madison Square Garden, the first time women headlined a bout at boxing’s New York Mecca.

The fact that this women’s fight is being promoted — indeed arguably elevated — in association with Tyson, a man who spent three years of a six-year sentence in jail for rape in the mid-90s does not seem to worry Taylor.

“This is an amazing opportunity for myself and for Amanda and women’s boxing as a whole. This is definitely the biggest fight of my career,” Taylor told The Independent.

“When Mike Tyson and Jake Paul were initially announced a year or so ago I was saying to myself ‘I want to be on that card’. 

“To get the phone call a few weeks later to say I was going to be on it with Serrano, this is what every fighter wants, to have this kind of a platform. 

“It’s unbelievable to be on the same card as Mike Tyson, it’s just a ‘pinch me’ moment.

“He has this aura about him and he’s loved within the boxing world so to have a chance to fight on the same card as him, it’s just a very interesting spectacle with him against Jake Paul.”

Interesting spectacle perhaps, enthralling drama and theatrical misdirection for sure.

What time is the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight in Australia?

The fight will take place at the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas. It’ll be Friday night in Texas when the match gets underway, but it’ll be Saturday here in Australia with the undercard starting from 12pm AEDT.

ABC Sport will live blog all the action at abc.net.au.

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