The pensioner against the YouTuber: Mike Tyson enters the ring to face Jake Paul in a duel that promises to be spectacular

In the coming months boxing will have a luxury calendar. Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk They will make a bid to become the first undisputed heavyweight champion in times of four belts and Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol They will do the same among the middle heavyweights; Saulo Álvarez will show off his four super middleweight crowns against Jaime Munguía and Naoya Inoue, the four of the super bantamweights against Luis Nery; and the ticket buyer Ryan Garcia will challenge the undefeated Devin Haney. Among many elite fights, a clash whose framing is complicated will creep in: the middle one Mike Tyson and Jake Paul on Saturday, July 20 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, just outside of Dallas.

According to the Royal Spanish Academy, spectacular is something that has the characteristics of a public spectacle, but also something ostentatious, ostentatious, or causing scandal or great surprise. In light of this, it seems clear that the cause between the YouTuber turned boxer and retired former world championwho in his golden years was the terror of the greats and today is a successful businessman dedicated to the cannabis industry, of which he is an active promoter and consumer.

Since this event was announced two weeks ago, several questions have started to circulate in the boxing universe. One of them is the character of the competition: Will it be an official meeting or just a performance? The answer will be the responsibility of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the body that sanctions and regulates combat sports in that state. Sports logic indicates that no one would validate a cause where a 58 year old man will participate (he will turn 20 days before the event) and whose last professional performance dates back to June 2005 (he was eliminated by the Irishman Kevin McBride). But sporting logic does not seem to be the underlying theme of this initiative.

In the case of, Iron Mike has been actively campaigning to show the world his fitness. On his Twitter and Instagram accounts he shared videos of his wrestling sessions with his coach, the Brazilian Rafael Cordeiro (specializing in mixed martial arts), and sent provocative messages to Paul. Video editing can work wonders in 10- or 15-second chunks, but Tyson will need a lot more to convince anyone that he can box again, and to do it against a man 30 years his junior.

The former undisputed heavyweight champion had already taken a short break from his comfortable retirement just over three years ago, at a time when the coronavirus pandemic seemed to push several legends (Julio César Chávez, Evander Holyfield, Erik Morales, Jorge Arce) to follow the steps of Floyd Mayweather and go back to the rings for a while. Even if that return took place in very different conditions from those anticipated by the duel against Paul.

On November 28, 2020, Tyson, then 54, faced Roy Jones Jr, former middleweight, super middleweight, middleweight and heavyweight champion, who was 51 years old at the time. The fight, an eight-round exhibition at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, ended in a Solomonic draw, despite Brooklyn’s knockout dominating his rival.

That show, of which the star was also a co-organizer through the company Legends Only League, included musical performances and five official professional matches, and generated the sale of 1.6 million pay-per-view subscriptions and more than 80 million of dollars in revenue. . This made it the seventh most transacted boxing event through the PPV system in history in the United States. This 50-year-old Tyson topped nearly every PPV score from his years as an active fighter: Only more packages were marketed for his second fight with Evander Holyfield, in 1997 (1.99 million), and his bout against Lennox Lewis, in 2002 (1.95 million).

This time the live broadcast of the evening will be provided by Netflix. It will be the first time that the platform of red January (which has 260 million subscribers) will broadcast a boxing card live and the third in which it will do so with a sporting event of any discipline. The first was a golf competition which was played at the Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas on November 14, 2023 and was attended by PGA Tour professionals and Formula 1 drivers. The second, a tennis exhibition, promoted as Netflix SlamThat Carlos Alcaraz beat Rafael Nadal on March 3 at the Michelob Ultra Arenaalso in City of Sin. For that match, the Majorcan earned 1.5 million euros and the Murcian 1 million.

On that card headlined by Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. in Los Angeles, one of the complementary fights The protagonist was an inexperienced Jake Paul, who knocked out former basketball player Nate Robinson in the second episode that night. It was the second professional fight for the social media star (he has 20.6 million subscribers on YouTube, 26.3 million followers on Instagram and 17.4 million on TikTok), who had eliminated fellow YouTuber 10 months earlier AnEsonGib in an unpresentable match due to the underground level of his opponent, more similar to a scarecrow than a boxer.

After his win against Nate Robinson, the Problematic child He shared a pleasant conversation with Tyson that he had the task of brushing up on a few days ago. “You are an extraordinary person. “I want to thank you for the opportunity you gave me to fight on this card.”says a fascinated Paul. “Even if I like you, it doesn’t mean I gave you the chance just because of that. And you took advantage of it.”, the former champion rewards him. Forty-four months after that conversation, those two men will share a ring.

To get to this Paolo traveled, the nobility obliges, an upward path in boxingfirst against careerists like him, then in front of mixed martial arts fighters and in the last stretch against full-fledged fighters. In this training course, carried out in the cruiser division (up to 90.8 kilos), He lost his unbeaten record in February 2023 against Tommy Fury, one of the brothers of heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. But he also added two of his nine victories against men with experience in ensogado, Andre August and Ryan Bourland. And most importantly, he showed a noticeable improvement in his abilities through consistency in training. Although he is far from the first level, he is no longer the rudimentary fighter he once appeared to be branches without head or tail in his first presentations.

“He’s grown a lot as a boxer over the years, so it will be a lot of fun to see what the will and ambition of a kid can do with the experience and attitude of the greatest of all time.”praised (and praised himself) Tyson, who, in any case, predicted a certain victory: “It is a moment in which the circle will close, since I started him on his boxing journey on the undercard of my fight with Roy Jones and now I’m going to end it”.

If the structuring of the exhibition before Jones Jr. was in charge of Tyson’s company, This time the pan changed hands: The July 20 event in Arlington will be hosted by Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), Paul company founded in September 2021 and who has already created very powerful evenings such as the first at Madison Square Garden with a fight between star women: the one in which Puerto Rican Amanda Serrano (a star of women’s boxing, who was MVP’s first signing) and Ireland’s Katie Taylor on April 30, 2022 for the undisputed reign in the lightweight division.

Paul and his team are confident they will fill AT&T Stadium in Arlington on July 20, which has 80,000 seats and can expand its capacity by another 20,000 seats. “This fight is a dream and we hope it will be the most watched event in the history of modern boxing”, Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of MVP, enthused. “Six generations of fans will have a special interest in the outcome and will be able to see the anti-hero, Jake Paul, put everything on the line against the baddest man on the planet, Mike Tyson,” said the businessman, who he is already rubbing his hands next to his partner thinking about the profits this show will give him.